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Oliver Otis Howard Continued
New
commander Howard with his straitlaced ways was laughable to the
Continental-style freethinking and free-drinking Germans. He addressed them as
"my men," which struck a sour note. Trying perhaps too hard to make
good in his first corps command, he bore
down
hard on discipline, bringing in the ferocious disciplinarian Francis Barlow
to
command a division where the former commander was well-liked. Howard did not
conceal
his disappointment with his poor reception, and that created another
round
of mistrust and dislike among the corps. He understated the problem by a
long
shot when wrote later, "I was not at first getting the earnest and loyal
support
of the entire command." And then, in May 1863, came the Battle of
Chancellorsville.
Howard's
negligence led to the Eleventh Corps's everlasting humiliation when he dismissed
reports that Jackson's Rebels corps was massing on his unprotected right flank.
Believing the whole Confederate army to be in retreat, he took no steps to
verify the reports, much less strengthen his right.
Having
promised Hooker that morning to take measures "to resist an attack from
the
west," Howard took not one meaningful precaution. When Jackson attacked
with
his
full fury, the entire Eleventh Corps routed away, and the entire right wing
of
the army collapsed (despite the courageous attempts of Howard himself, with
the
Stars and Stripes tucked under the stump of his missing arm, to rally the
men).
The
rest of the army never forgot it or forgave the "foreign" Eleventh
Corps.
They were not a mainstream Army of the Potomac organization, anyway--
they
had been in the Shenandoah Valley when the Army was fighting the Peninsula
battles,
and had been absent, manning the Washington defenses, at the time of
Antietam
and Fredericksburg. When Hooker gave up the battle a few days later,
Howard
and the Eleventh Corps were the obvious choice as scapegoats for the
entire
debacle. Angry division commander Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz wrote Howard so
bitter
a letter that, said Howard, "I thought I should never survive it, but I
have."
Hooker encouraged division commander Schurz to use all his influence with
Lincoln
to put Sigel back in place at the head of the corps, and promised that
if
Sigel came back he would strengthen his force and help him use it. Secretary
Chase
and General Halleck also wanted Howard ousted. Lincoln, however, showed
patience,
telling critics, "Give him time, and he will bring things straight."
But
after such an uninterrupted string of setbacks on the battlefield over the
previous
year, Howard approached Gettysburg badly in need of a change of luck.
At
Gettysburg
On
orders from Maj. Gen. John Reynolds, Howard started his corps from Emmitsburg
on
the ten mile march north to Gettysburg at about 8:00 A.M. on July 1. At 10:30
he
was within sight of the town when an orderly from Reynolds told him the
battle
had started. He rode forward into Gettysburg, whence he observed the last
of
the morning's fighting west of town and where, at 11:30 A.M., he was told
that
Reynolds was dead--he himself was now commanding officer on the field.
Strangely,
at no time did he ride the few hundred yards to inspect Reynolds's
positions
or meet with the First Corps generals. Returning instead to Cemetery
Hill,
Howard selected it as his headquarters and the strongpoint where he would
establish
his reserve, which he designated as von Steinwehr's division. At 1:00
P.M.,
Schurz's division came up and passed through Gettysburg to take up
positions
to the north of town. Barlow's division came up next and Howard
accompanied
it, following Schurz's column.
This
was during a lull in the battle west of Gettysburg, and Howard sent dispatches
to Maj. Gens. Sickles and Slocum, informing them of the First Corps's morning
fight with Hill but making no request for reinforcements. Half an hour later, he
changed his mind and sent
those
generals new messages, asking for help. At 2:00 P.M. he sent a dispatch to
Meade,
informing him briefly of the situation and mentioning that he had ordered
Sickles
forward. He then finally rode over and approved Maj. Gen. Abner
Doubleday's
line on the ridges west of town. Howard himself received a dispatch
from
the diligent cavalryman Brig. Gen. John Buford, warning him of the approach
of
a mass of Confederates three or four miles to the northeast between the
Heidlersburg
and York roads. In response, he deployed his two divisions at right
angles
to the First Corps line (which was facing west) to face the new danger
from
the north. By 2:00, Howard's men had taken up positions almost a mile
forward
on the low, flat ground of the valley north of town. Rodes's division
attacked
from the northwest and pressed Howard's men in their front.
Soon
afterward, Early's division attacked Howard's vulnerable right rear from the
northeast.
As if perfectly timed, the jaws of the attack crushed the Eleventh
Corps
line, and both blue divisions came back through Gettysburg at a run, being
rounded
up in the hundreds by closely pursuing Rebel infantrymen. Howard's men
were
not panicked, however. When they saw the 2,000 men of Smith's brigade
manning
the crest of Cemetery Hill and six friendly guns booming away at the
Rebels
below, they stopped and faced about, disorganized but not demoralized.
The
First Corps front had collapsed at the same time, and the hordes of Howard's
refugees
were swelled by the weary remnants of that corps falling back on
Cemetery
Hill from the west. At that moment, Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock of the
Second
Corps rode up, authorized by Meade to assume command of all troops at
Gettysburg.
Crestfallen, Howard agreed to hand over command with admirably
little
fuss and cooperated with the extravagantly dynamic Hancock. The two
divided
responsibility, according to Howard: he himself assumed authority for
dispositions
of the units to the right of the Baltimore Pike, which included
Culp's
Hill, Hancock the left. Reinforcements arrived, and a defensive line was
soon
assembled. The new Union position on the hilltops southeast of Gettysburg
was
not assailed by the Confederates for the rest of the day. Once Meade arrived
that
night, Howard's responsibility shrank to that of his Eleventh Corps front,
which
was limited to the north face of Cemetery Hill. It would be attacked only
once--at
dusk on July 2, by two brigades of Early's division, advancing from the
east
side of the town. When the men in Howard's front line came reeling back, he
threw
in his two nearest regiments, then Coster's brigade, then Carroll's
brigade
borrowed from the nearby Second Corps. The line held, and the
Southerners
gave up their brief gains and fell back to their original positions
near
town. At the generals' meeting that night, Howard was positive about his
ability
to defend his present position. On July 3, Howard was not attacked, and
only
observed as Pickett's Charge hit the Second Corps position on Cemetery
Ridge
in the afternoon. What people would remember about Howard would be the
events
of the July 1. His luck had remained bad. His Eleventh Corps had lost
3,000
men--half of them captured--and inflicted less than 1,000 casualties on
the
attackers. True, he had been the victim of two enemy attacks coordinated
only
by serendipity. But Howard knew of the enemy approach, and was responsible
for
the far-forward defensive positions that welcomed the attacks. He was also
criticized
for personally remaining so far to the rear, commanding from Cemetery
Hill,
making it appear, according to Buford, that there was "no directing person
on
the field."
In
September, he and his corps were sent West. There, finally,
his
luck changed--General Sherman, who appreciated his professionalism, would
eventually
make him commander of the Army of the Tennessee.
Excerpted
from "The Generals of Gettysburg: The Leaders of America's Greatest
Battle"
by Larry Tagg
webmaster@civilwar.morganco.freeservers.com
Let Us Pray Our For Troops In Foreign Lands
The Civil War in Morgan County 2003
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