Very well written. The Orange Blossoms gave the Old First a hardy fight that day!124th New York, "The Orange Blossoms"The 124th New York, the “Orange Blossoms,” was posted near Smith’s battery at Devil’s Den. The 124th’s monument is the only regimental marker at Gettysburg that contains a life-size portrait statue of its commander – Colonel Augustus Van Horne Ellis. His commander, Brigadier General J. H. Hobart Ward, would later write of him: “Col. A. Van Horne Ellis was one of those dashing and chivalrous spirits that we frequently read of, but seldom encounter in real life.” The Colonel stands atop the stone monument, arms folded across his chest, gazing steadily across the fields towards the oncoming Confederates.
On July 2nd, Ellis stood much as he does for all eternity in stone – arms folded, calmly watching the advancing Confederates. A soldier in the 124th New York recalled: "At length the enemy appeared in heavy columns of battalion advancing on us from the opposite slope. As we held the position by a single line of battle unsupported, the enemy’s superiority in numbers, as seen at a glance, seemed overwhelming. As they approached they deployed in four distinct lines of battle, and came resolutely on under a rapid fire from our batteries."
Smith’s guns kept up a steady fire, claiming heaving casualties among the
Confederates. The captain later wrote: "I never saw the men do better work; every shot told; the pieces were discharged as rapidly as they could be with regard to effectiveness, while the conduct of the men was superb; but when the enemy approached to within three hundred yards of our position the many obstacles in our front afforded him excellent protection for his sharpshooters…."
In the ensuing minutes, the men of Smith’s battery were decimated as the Confederate marksmen picked them off. Captain Smith was desperate; as the Confederates drew nearer, he pleaded with the infantrymen to save his guns.
Major James Cromwell was anxious for the regiment to charge. He had rushed over to Ellis twice to ask permission, but Ellis had refused him both times and sent him back to his post on the left. Standing behind the center of the line, Colonel Ellis calmly surveyed the scene. Then, horses were brought to the officers. The men were aghast; to be mounted was a sure invitation for death. Answering their protests, Cromwell said, “The men must see us today.”
The 1st Texas crossed the “triangular field” toward Smith’s guns and the 124th New York. When they moved within 50 yards of the battery and 100 yards of the regimental line, Ellis ordered his men to fasten their bayonets. The Confederates continued to draw nearer; when they reached 50 feet of Smith’s guns, Ellis ordered his men to fire. The “destructive” volley slowed the Confederates, but did not stop them. On they came, moving closer and closer to the isolated battery. Now Ellis gave the order: “Charge bayonets! Forward; double-quick – March!”
When Ellis gave the order (by some accounts, he merely nodded his head to Cromwell), "the Major waves his sword twice above his head, makes a lunge forward, shouts the charge, and putting spurs to his horse, dashes forward through the lines. The men cease firing for a minute and with ready bayonets rush after him. Ellis sits in his saddle and looks on as if in proud admiration of both his loved Major and the gallant sons of Orange, until the regiment is fairly under way, and then rushes with them into the thickest of the fray."
Private Tucker of Company B remembered that the “Orange Blossoms” gave a “defiant cheer,” and that the Texans “ran like sheep before them.” According to the regimental historian: "The conflict at this point defies description. Roaring cannon, crashing riflery, screeching shots, bursting shells, hissing bullets, shrieks and groans were the notes of the song of death which greeted the grim reaper, as with mighty sweeps he leveled down the richest field of scarlet human grain ever garnered on this continent."
Another soldier remembered it as a “gallant rush into the jaws of hell.”
A soldier in the 1st Texas noted: "There was one officer, a major, who won our admiration by his courage and gallantry. He was a very handsome man, and rode a beautiful, high-spirited gray horse. The animal seemed to partake of the spirit of the leader, and as he came on with a free, graceful stride into that hell of death and carnage, head erect and ears pointed, horse and man offered a picture as is seldom seen. As the withering, scathing volleys from behind the rocks cut into the ranks of the regiment the major led, his gallant men went down like grain before a scythe, he followed close at their heels, and when time and again, they stopped and would have fled the merciless fire, each time he rallied them as if his puissant arm alone could stay the storm."
A cry arose among the Confederates: “Don’t shoot at him – don’t kill him, he is too brave a man to die.”
At the height of the charge, seeing the Confederates about to break, Major Cromwell yelled, “The day is ours!” At that moment, he was instantly killed when a bullet pierced his heart. Ellis cried out: “My God! My God men! Your Major’s down! Save him! Save him!” The New Yorkers maintained a heavy fire, and Ellis rose in his stirrups, wielding his sword over his head, urging his men to greater efforts, when a bullet struck him in the head. The regimental historian remembered: "Suddenly his trusty blade falls point downward, his chin drops on his breast, and his body with a weave pitches forward, head foremost among the rocks; at which his wounded beast rears and with a mad plunge dashes away, staggering blindly through the ranks of the foe, who is now giving ground, firing wildly as he goes."
Fresh Confederate troops were pouring into Devil’s Den, and the men of the 124th New York were being annihilated by fire from in front and on both flanks. The regiment began to fall back across the triangular field towards their original position. The charge, although made at a murderous cost, had – at least for a time – blunted the Confederate advance. The regiment lost 91 of the 250 men who entered the fight.
Meanwhile, the men of the “Orange Blossoms” struggled to fight on. The bodies of Ellis and Cromwell had been recovered, and lay on a boulder behind the regiment. Captain Charles H. Weygant later wrote about his feelings as he took stock of the regiment after its charge: "Passing down the line, I notice that there is no commissioned officer in command of Company I, and ask, “Where is your new plucky lieutenant?” and the answer comes, “You will find him lying down yonder with four or five of I beside him.” “What!” I answer, “Is he dead?” and I am told that he fell fighting nobly at the head of his company. Reaching Company K, I learn that Lieutenant Finnegan has been borne to the rear wounded in two places. Coming to G, which moved into line that morning with more men than any other company in the regiment, I see a corporal’s guard in charge of a corporal, and learn that Captain Nicoll’s dead body lies wedged in between two rocks at the farthest point of our advance. The slope in front was strewn with our dead, and not a few of our severely wounded lay beyond the reach of their unscathed comrades, bleeding, helpless, and some of them dying. One of their number, who lay farthest away, among the rocks near the body of our truly noble and most esteemed Captain Nicoll, could be seen ever and anon, beneath the continually rising smoke of battle, to raise his arm, and feebly wave a blood covered hand. It was James Scott, of Company B, one of the ten thousand heroes of that great battle."
As Sergeant Bradley later wrote: "I have often thought of the seeming recklessness, and as I at one time thought, uselessness of our charges that day. In the last years of our service we would not have been called on to make them. At any rate, we felt that day as we never felt before or after, that on us, the veterans of the Army of the Potomac, rested in the coming fight the future of the American Republic, and every man was ready to die that day to save it. If ever he shirked before or after, he was the soul of sacrifice in that battle."
It is this spirit and determination, this “soul of sacrifice,” that is reflected in the sculpture of Colonel Ellis and the monument of the 124th New York.
Years later, one of the Texans would state simply of the fighting here: “Such courage belongs not to any one army or country, but to mankind.”
The Men Must See Us Today by Don Troiani. Col. Ellis at center.