On the first day at Gettysburg, the Confederate Army of Robert E. Lee came within a few hundred yards and one poor decision away from owning the field on July 1st. The next day resulted in a timely victory for the Federal forces from Little Round Top all the way around to Culp’s Hill. July 3rd would prove to be the day to determine who was to leave the field.
General James Longstreet provided the only fresh infantry division that would lead the attack on Cemetery Ridge. Elements of General Ambrose Powell Hill’s Corps would support the push to dislodge General Meade’s Union army from their position. On the Union flank, the Rebel Cavalry would harass, attack and distract potential reinforcements from helping defend the ridge to the south of Gettysburg.
Major General Isaac Trimble would once again lead men into battle after being rebuffed by his offer to General Ewell two days before. Trimble would lead General Dorsey Pender’s Division of Hill’s Corps on the left flank of General Pickett. Pickett, graduated last out of 59 members of the West Point Class of 1846. The “goat” of his class would lead one of the most memorable charges in American History.
Starting at about one in the afternoon, the Confederate Artillery opened up on the union position. Unfortunately many of the rounds flew over the heads of the federal soldiers who were hugging the ground. An hour later, about 12,000 Confederates stepped off from the wood line south of the Lutheran Seminary and began their march toward a group of trees at the center of the blue clad forces in their front.
Along the Cemetery Ridge position several regiments of Pennsylvania Infantry manned positions from the southern edge of Gettysburg southward to the group of trees that would attract several thousand rebel troops who survived the hail of shell, shot and canister that spewed from Federal Cannon.
On the right side of the line, the remnants of the 107th Pennsylvania, who survived the rebel attack on the first day. Ninety men from the regiment remained on the field from the 107th including a dozen men from the Pine Grove and Hegins area. The men from the regiment were called upon to assist with the artillery batteries nearby. And on that hot day, with temperatures in the upper 80s, three of the men were “carried insensible from the field on account of the intense heat.
Along the position near the group of trees members of the Philadelphia Brigade who belonged to the Union Second Corps commanded by Major General Winfield Scott Hancock. In the front of the position, the 69th and 71st Pennsylvania took up position along a stone wall. The 72nd Pennsylvania was held in reserve to the rear of the position. A handful of Schuylkill County boys found themselves in the center of the climactic point in the three-day battle. Charles Jenkins of Minersville, Henry Owens, later of Lost Creek and Lieutenant John Ryan of North Manheim Township served with the 69th, Reuben Miller from Schuylkill Haven served with the 71st, and Joseph Wythes of Minersville fought with the 72nd Pa.
As the line approached the Emmitsburg Pike, artillery shells tore holes in the rebel columns. Lt Ryan of the 69th and the skirmishers sent forward, also opened up upon the advancing foe with rifle fire. The Confederate line simply reformed their ranks and pushed forward across the road and up the slope toward the union line. In this advanced position, Lt. Ryan was captured and sent to the Confederate rear. The Rebel army pushed on. On the northern edge of the advance, the North Carolinians of General Pettigrew’s Brigade pushed forward in concert with the Virginians under General George E. Pickett. Among the Confederate officers on that end of the field, three men, all familiar with Schuylkill County, led their men forward against their former neighbors.
General Isaac Trimble had spent two years in Pottsville twenty years prior. Major John Hughes, quartermaster of the 7th North Carolina Infantry, had spent several years studying law in Pottsville just prior to the war. Hughes younger brother Nicholas Colin Hughes, was serving as assistant adjutant for General Pettigrew. The younger Hughes had also studied law for nearly a year in Pottsville before he returned to North Carolina in 1860.
On the afternoon of July 3rd, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg Pennsylvania, one last assault by Robert E. Lee moved over the union defenses where a stone wall created an angle on a piece of farmland. As the Rebel soldiers advanced up the slope, the majority of the men from the 71st Pa, retreated, and allowed the wall to be breached. The 69th Pennsylvania stood their ground and fought the rebels in their front and to their flank. Private Charles Jenkins, fighting with the 69th, was wounded in the stomach and shortly after died from his wound.
The chaos that ensued around a union artillery piece, where General Lewis Armistead tried to rally his Confederate brethren, caused Union General Alexander Webb to lead his men to repulse the attackers. The 72nd were at first refused to move forward into the fight. With the position being overrun, this regiment along with men from New York regiments nearby rushed into the fight. At such close range, the rifle butt became a more effective tool than the timely process required to fire the weapon at one’s foe. At such close quarters, both Confederate and Union soldiers resorted to the rifle butt to fell their enemy. Reuben Miller, Schuylkill County’s sole representative in the 72nd Pennsylvania, received a crushing blow to the left side of his face and was killed in the fight.
The possibility of Confederate victory at this moment was real, yet only a small number of Rebels held the position. They were eventually surrounded on three sides by union reinforcements and given only two options, to be captured or retreat from the field.
To the north of this position, the men of Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s units were stopped in their front and from their flank by union artillery and rifle fire. General Trimble rode into battle on his horse Jinny and received a wound to his left leg. Afterwards Trimble remarked that,
“If the men I had the honor to command that day could not take that position, all hell couldn’t take it.”
Trimble managed to walk back to the Confederate line despite the injury.
Not far from Trimble, Captain Hughes moved forward with his men with General Pettigrew’s Brigade. Hughes had survived the fighting on the first two days. He soon after encountered his older brother Major John Hughes before the battle on the third. The elder Hughes, “remonstrated” his younger brother “for his rash daring and careless exposure of his life in these engagements.” Captain Hughes reply was,
“I will not be hurt. I will survive this war and live to a good old age in the enjoyment of domestic happiness.”
The North Carolina University magazine’s article on the confederate dead goes through great lengths to glorify the actions of Captain Hughes at Gettysburg,
“In the fatal battle of the 3rd, his conduct was brilliant. Upon that fearful day, when strife raged the fiercest, and his command with desperate courage dashed in headlong charge up the frowning heights of Cemetery Hill, his handsome form could everywhere be seen, and his manly voice rang out in tones of encouragement to the gallant men. Down! Ah! ‘tis but his gallant steed; and rising, again his shout is, Forward! Forward! Again! And now, though laid low by a ghastly wound from which his young life’s tide ebbs all too fast, he forgets his great suffering to call the attention of his chief, who is in command of the division, to the brigade on the extreme left which is wavering.”
Captain Hughes, fell wounded in the charge at Cemetery Hill. He too managed to retreat back to the Confederate lines where General Lee stood trying to rally his men.
The Confederate dead lay on the field between seminary ridge and the union line. The rebel attackers were now in full retreat across those same fields. The Union army had won the day and defended their position against one last assault. But the Union dead lay on the field around that stone wall and group of trees, among them Charles Jenkins and Reuben Miller who called Schuylkill County their home.