Seminary Ridge

White Flint Bill

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Oct 9, 2017
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Southern Virginia
I visited the battlefield last week and took the opportunity to spend some time at the site of the assault on Seminary Ridge on July 1, and specifically the site of the near-total destruction of Scales' Brigade. Thought I'd share some photos here.

This, from Wikipedia, sets the scene.

Rodes and Pender break through
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Rodes and Pender break through, 4:00 p.m.
Rodes's original faulty attack at 2:00 had stalled, but he launched his reserve brigade, under Ramseur, against Paul's Brigade in the salient on the Mummasburg Road, with Doles's Brigade against the left flank of the XI Corps. Daniel's Brigade resumed its attack, now to the east against Baxter on Oak Ridge. This time Rodes was more successful, mostly because Early coordinated an attack on his flank.

In the west, the Union troops had fallen back to the Seminary and built hasty breastworks running 600 yards (550 m) north-south before the western face of Schmucker Hall, bolstered by 20 guns of Wainwright's battalion. Dorsey Pender's division of Hill's Corps stepped through the exhausted lines of Heth's men at about 4:00 p.m. to finish off the I Corps survivors. The brigade of Brig. Gen. Alfred M. Scales attacked first, on the northern flank. His five regiments of 1,400 North Carolinians were virtually annihilated in one of the fiercest artillery barrages of the war, rivaling Pickett's Charge to come, but on a more concentrated scale. Twenty guns spaced only 5 yards (4.6 m) apart fired spherical case, explosive shells, canister, and double canister rounds into the approaching brigade, which emerged from the fight with only 500 men standing and a single lieutenant in command. Scales wrote afterwards that he found "only a squad here and there marked the place where regiments had rested."

The CWT Map is excellent

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As the map shows, Scales' left was on the Chambersburg Pike. The assault was directly in the face of massed federal artillery in his front and on his left flank at the Thompson House.

Here is the view from the edge of the woods, facing where the Federal lines were. The seminary is visible in the distance.

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This is the view from the Federal position toward the location of the Confederate assault.

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What happened on this field is described this way in @Tom Elmore's excellent thread from a couple of years ago (https://civilwartalk.com/threads/smashing-of-scales-north-carolina-brigade-on-july-1.131375/):

The Confederate brigade under Brig. Gen. Alfred Moore Scales sustained upwards of 800 casualties within a period of about 10 minutes on the afternoon of July 1. Scales' North Carolinians, along with Perrin's South Carolinians, were tasked with finishing off the Union First Corps in their last stand on Seminary Ridge. The Federals had been battered all day long, but evidently still had some fight left in them. Scales' five regiments (13-16-22-34-38 North Carolina), totaling about 1,327 officers and enlisted men, advanced to the fray with their left guiding on the Chambersburg Pike. Just beyond (east of) the McPherson farm buildings, they stepped over and between the Virginians of Brockenbrough's brigade, who had reached that spot a half hour earlier, but had decided to await reinforcements rather than try to push the Federals off Seminary Ridge. Scales' men continued their march up the slope of a rise 175 yards east of the McPherson buildings, and when they reached the crest they now came into full view of the Federals posted 500 yards away. At that moment they confronted 17 cannon from four artillery batteries, the remnants of Meredith's Iron Brigade and Stone's Pennsylvanians, and elements from the brigades of Biddle, Cutler and Baxter.

A cannoneer in Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, whose gun was located 50 yards or so from Mary Thompson's house, explains what happened next: "Then for seven or eight minutes ensued probably the most desperate fight ever waged between artillery and infantry at close range without a particle of cover on either side. They gave us volley after volley in front and flank, and we gave them double canister as fast as we could load. ... At his time our left half-battery, taking their first line en echarpe, swept it so clean with double canister that the Rebels sagged away from the road to get cover from the fences and trees that lined it. From our second round on a gray squirrel could not have crossed the road alive. ... Up and down the line men reeling and falling; splinters flying from wheels and axles where bullets hit; in rear, horses tearing and plunging, made with wounds or terror; drivers yelling, shells bursting, shot shrieking overhead, howling about our ears or throwing up great clouds of dust where they struck; the musketry crashing on three sides of us; bullets hissing, humming and whistling everywhere; cannon roaring; all crash on crash and peal on peal, smoke, dust, splinters, blood, wreck and carnage indescribable; but the brass guns of Old B still bellowed and not a man or boy flinched or faltered."

Brig. Gen. Scales wrote, "the brigade encountered a most terrific fire of grape and shell on our flank, and grape and musketry in our front. Every discharge made sad havoc in our line, but still we pressed on at a double-quick until we reached the bottom [depression], a distance of about 75 yards from the ridge [rise] we had just crossed, and about the same distance from the college [Seminary] in our front. Here I received a painful wound from a piece of shell, and was disabled. Our line had been broken up, and now only a squad here and there marked the place where regiments had rested." Scales' brigade suffered a similar fate to that of Iverson's a couple of hours earlier, except they avoided capture thanks largely to the personal courage of Col. Abner Perrin, commander of the other brigade in the charge, who personally led his 1st South Carolina regiment forward to a position astride the flank of the Union infantry in front of the Seminary, which quickly unraveled the entire Federal line on the ridge and precipitated their retreat through the town. For that deed, Perrin received the personal thanks of Gen. Lee, along with a battlefield promotion - but that's another story. As the Federals were just moving off the ridge, a lone Confederate color bearer from Scales' brigade appeared 100 yards in front of them and planted his flag on the now abandoned works at the foot of the ridge, showing there was still some fight left in the Confederates as well.

That evening, Scales' brigade mustered 500 men. The losses of the 13th North Carolina were typical; out of 180 men with guns who entered the fight, only 30 were left at its conclusion. Over the next couple of days, 15 men bearing slight wounds reported for duty, bringing the regiment up to 45 present, led by a handful of officers. But the brigade was destined to suffer two great tragedies in the battle - despite incurring terrific losses on the first day, they were again called upon to take part in the great charge on July 3, where they met a similar fate. Of the 45 men called upon to make that charge from the 13th North Carolina on the third day, over half did not return. So much heartbreak derived from less than an hour's worth of combined intense combat on July 1 and 3.

Location of Stevens' Battery

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Stewart's guns (the 4th U.S. Artillery) unleashed their devastating enfilading fire from here, just across the Chambersburg Pike (later the site of General Lee's HQ)

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I think that it was at about here that the brigade was destroyed and its advance was halted.

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My son and I spent quite a while walking this area of the battlefield and trying to get a sense for what those men must have experienced that afternoon. Definitely time well spent.
 
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Excellent thread thanks for posting. My ancestor Pvt. Calier Green Hamilton was in Co. H, 38th North Carolina. He was killed in the assault on Seminary Ridge. As far as I have been able to tell from my research, his body was never recovered.

Respectfully,
William

One Nation,
Two countries
View attachment 310909

He would have almost certainly been interred along with several dozen others in the fields between Seminary and McPherson's Ridges. The Elliott map shows about 50 graves right where Scales' Brigade would have advanced.

Ryan
 
Excellent report and might strengthen the thought that perhaps Ewell's decision to not make a last assault to take Cemetary Hill, packed with guns and infantry, without reinforcements, late on the evening of Day One, as requested by Lee, was probably for the best.
 
Excellent report and might strengthen the thought that perhaps Ewell's decision to not make a last assault to take Cemetary Hill, packed with guns and infantry, without reinforcements, late on the evening of Day One, as requested by Lee, was probably for the best.

That's what I would argue. Based on what he knew at the time and his own situation, delaying his attack was the right call.

Ryan
 
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