BGuthrie Photos: PA -- Gettysburg Natl Battlefield -- Day 3 -- East Cavalry Field

PA -- Gettysburg Natl Battlefield -- Day 3 -- East Cavalry Field:

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Description of Subject Matter: From http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/main-ms.htm

East Cavalry Field:

While Confederate artillery pounded Cemetery Ridge near Gettysburg, another drama was unfolding three miles to the east. Union and Confederate cavalry had skirmished east of Gettysburg on July 2, and Union scouts on the Hanover Road were alert to any troop movements in that direction. The situation appeared quiet enough to allow some Union troopers to be ordered back to the Gettysburg battlefield. Just as the troops were about to depart, scouts spotted a cloud of dust to the north that appeared to get closer every minute. The tramp of hundreds of horse hooves and the rumble of artillery made the Northerners realize that trouble was indeed headed their way. It was trouble! General J.E.B. Stuart's Cavalry Division was ordered by General Lee to ride east and then south in an attempt to get into the rear of the Army of the Potomac, to disrupt and possibly cut the Union lines of communication. Anxious to prove himself after an embarrassing confrontation with the army commander, General Stuart set out that morning to ride around the Union flank and make amends, taking it out on the Yankee army the only way he knew how: show up where the Union troops least expected him.

A true cavalier in every sense of the word, General Stuart was one of the more flamboyant horsemen in either army. Following closely behind his advance scouts, Stuart led his horsemen down unfamiliar county roads and farm lanes until they came upon a thick wood at the Rummel Farm. South of his position, General Stuart spotted Union artillery being unlimbered on a small knoll. Beyond the artillery rose clouds of dust and Stuart quickly realized that he had been spotted. Ordering his artillery forward, Stuart decided to use Rummel's Woods to protect his troopers until he could determine the size of the force in his front. Meanwhile he deployed dismounted troopers into the Rummel Farm to engage Union skirmishers already posted behind fences.

Union scouts watched as Stuart's columns rode into position and deployed in the fields around the Rummel buildings. Brig. General David McMurtie Gregg's troops had been posted on the Hanover Road until 1 P.M. when they were ordered to march to a location south of Gettysburg. Gregg was in the act of withdrawing his troops when Stuart's horsemen arrived. Gregg immediately countermanded the orders and deployed his artillery and dismounted troopers into the fields near the intersection of the Hanover Road and Low Dutch Road. Immediately a brisk fire opened between opponents. Hoping to press his advantage of surprise, General Stuart ordered his artillery to suppress the fire of the Union guns while he aligned his troops to push aside the apparently weak Union troops. But the Union response was extraordinarily accurate and the Northern artillery began to knock out the Confederate gun crews one by one.

Fighting on foot, the cavalrymen of both sides dueled in the fields of the Rummel Farm with neither side gaining any advantage. Growing frustrated at his attempts to brush aside the Union troopers, General Stuart ordered his soldiers to go forward in a mounted attack. Yet every appearance of his Confederates in the open fields was met with cannon fire and by a Union counter charge. Among Gregg's troops east of Gettysburg that afternoon was the Michigan Brigade commanded by a brash young officer named George Armstrong Custer. Custer was a newly appointed brigadier general of volunteers and Gettysburg was his first experience in command of troops in battle. Dressed in a new uniform of his own design, the fiery young officer led his troopers through the fighting and was notable for being in the forefront of the repeated Union charges over the Rummel Farm.

With time running out and ammunition running low among some his troopers, General Stuart wagered that one last charge using most of his force would overwhelm the Union line and hopefully scatter what appeared to be a thinly held crossroad. All of his brigades rode into the field in front of Rummel Woods, their sabers and carbines glistening in the hazy sunlight. With the command, "Battalions, forward!" the southern horsemen moved off toward the smoking Union position. Almost immediately, Union artillery turned their guns on the massed columns, explosions striking down man and animal alike. Seeing the gray column coming toward them, General Custer excitedly rode to the head of the 1st Michigan Cavalry. With the cry, "Come on, you Wolverines!", he spurred his horse directly toward the the Confederate charge and the Union horsemen followed with sabers flashing in the afternoon sun. The Michigan soldiers drove headlong into Stuart's determined troopers. In the melee that followed, the soldiers shot, slashed, and stabbed each other at close range.

Suddenly, a Federal force appeared on the flank of the Confederates. A battalion of Union troopers from the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry commanded by Captain William E. Miller, broke from the cover of a tree line and charged headlong into the southern rear. Attacked from three sides and nearly surrounded, there was nothing left for the southerners to do but retreat. Watching the dismal results of the charge from Rummel Woods, General Stuart ordered his cavalry to leave the field to the battered but victorious Union cavalry. The South's greatest cavalry leader had finally met his match.

George Armstrong Custer was hailed as a national hero for his exploits and courage under fire during the Civil War. He was conspicuous during the Battle of Gettysburg and during the pursuit of Lee to the Potomac River. By the following year, the young officer had risen to the rank of major general and was in command of a cavalry division that he led through the 1864 campaign in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Custer loved the attention heaped on him by his superiors and his exploits made for good press in northern newspapers and War Department reports. His quest for glory and personality may have been a bit brash to some, but his performance as a cavalry officer was superb. Custer commanded his division through the final campaign of 1865 in the pursuit of Lee's army to Appomattox Court House, and it was where his apparent arrogance led to an unceremonious encounter with General Longstreet just prior to the surrender. General Custer had the honor of riding at the head of his troops in the Grand Review in Washington in May 1865, where he received the accolades of countless admirers.

Custer returned to the regular army after the war and reverted to a lower rank than he had held as a leader of volunteers. He was ordered to frontier posts in the west where he was assigned to command a portion of the 7th United States Cavalry. In the often brutal campaigns against the plains Indians, Lt. Colonel Custer found a cunning and deceptive enemy that he had difficulty understanding and fighting. Controversy surrounding claims over the Black Hills of South Dakota and Montana caused an uprising of the nations in 1876 and a US Army force, including the 7th Cavalry, was sent in pursuit of the combined tribes, resulting in a number of pitched battles. On June 25, 1876, Custer and most of the men who followed him were killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana. General Custer's remains were recovered from the battlefield for burial at West Point.

General Custer's foe at Gettysburg, General James Ewell Brown ("J.E.B.") Stuart, did not fare well after the close of the Gettysburg Campaign. Highly criticized for his absence from the army when General Lee needed his scouting abilities, Stuart made a concerted effort to recover his fame and remove this stain from his honor. He led and was successful in several small raids on Union supply lines in Virginia that fall. The following year, Stuart's horsemen were ordered to pursue a Union cavalry force headed toward Richmond. Blocking the Union advance at Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864, Stuart was mortally wounded while attempting to capture a small group of stray Union troopers. He died the following day. General Stuart is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, where his famous hat and saber are preserved at the Museum of the Confederacy. Of all cavalry officers who served during the American Civil War, JEB Stuart will always be identified and remembered as "the last great cavalier".
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