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Private James Bowen, Co. E, 37th Mass. Vols., was at Gettysburg for two days during the battle, and received disabling wounds. But, he always pointed out, "I cannot claim to have seen anything of the battle."
His regiment was part of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, of "Uncle John" Sedgwick's VI Army Corps. They had arrived at Gettysburg the afternoon of the 2nd day, after a gruelling march of 40 miles, "under the broiling sun of a hot July day, with not even a stop sufficient for the making of a cup of coffee." They took up position just to the rear and right of Little Round Top, as part of the first reserve line. The men collapsed from exhaustion, and slept on their arms the rest of the day and through the night.
The next morning, the 3rd Brigade was ordered to march to Culp's Hill, "where Gen. Slocum called for more reinforcements to assist in retaking the works which had been wrested from his corps the previous evening. While the brigade was en route the joyful intelligence was signalled back that the work was done and no help was wanted. So the brigade rested for a time in a grove not far from Gen. Meade's head-quarters, and toward 1 o'clock started back toward the left." It was during that return march that their world exploded.
"The 37th regiment, having the right of the brigade had just entered the Taneytown road and reached the point where the highway winds over the scarcely definable summit of Cemetery Ridge, when two signal guns for the opening of the famous cannonade on the Union center sent their shells far over our heads. In a moment the entire 150 guns on the confederate side were belching fire and smoke and thunder, and filling the air with screaming shot and hissing, bursting shell. A few hundred yard to the right of the 37th regiment, nearer the enemy, was a long line of Union batteries, upon which the southern gunners concentrated their fire. As usual, the first fire was too high, but the missiles sent over that part of the field were not wasted. If they passed harmless above the loyal gunners, they swept straight into the flank of the 37th regiment with such a terrible fatality that the oldest soldiers of this well-trained brigade had never before witnessed. The shells burst in the faces of the men, struck the rocks about them and filled the air with the debris, tore through the antiquated board-fence beside the road and sent it whirling in splinters over the field beyond. Walking beside his regiment, or standing in that terrific vortex of death calmer than he might have been upon the drill field, Col. Edwards now and then gave utterance to the impressive, "Steady, 37th!" which under his lead would have taken his regiment unshrinking into the jaws of Pandemonium -- if the place named were and more trying than the one then occupied. But the word of caution was scarcely needed; for severe as was the ordeal, coming thus unlooked for where a moment before, scarcely the shot of sharp-shooter had been heard, though men fell at each moment, not one save the killed or wounded left the ranks, and with merely the lengthening of the step the regiment passed through that deadly enfilading fire into a grove in the rear of a sheltering hill beyond. The other regiments of the brigade, favored by the cessation which followed he first general discharge of the hostile batteries, escaped with few casualties."
The above description is from "Hospital Pictures from Gettysburg,", Pvt. Bowen's contribution to the Springfield Republican's, weekly War Memories column in September 1886. I tell a little more of his story of suffering in the field and division hospitals at Gettysburg, in another thread. [ https://civilwartalk.com/threads/starving-in-a-field-hospital-at-gettysburg.133251/ ].
The entire text of Bowen's "Hospital Pictures from Gettysburg" is printed as Document No. 25, on my Civil War Miscellany website.
His regiment was part of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, of "Uncle John" Sedgwick's VI Army Corps. They had arrived at Gettysburg the afternoon of the 2nd day, after a gruelling march of 40 miles, "under the broiling sun of a hot July day, with not even a stop sufficient for the making of a cup of coffee." They took up position just to the rear and right of Little Round Top, as part of the first reserve line. The men collapsed from exhaustion, and slept on their arms the rest of the day and through the night.
The next morning, the 3rd Brigade was ordered to march to Culp's Hill, "where Gen. Slocum called for more reinforcements to assist in retaking the works which had been wrested from his corps the previous evening. While the brigade was en route the joyful intelligence was signalled back that the work was done and no help was wanted. So the brigade rested for a time in a grove not far from Gen. Meade's head-quarters, and toward 1 o'clock started back toward the left." It was during that return march that their world exploded.
"The 37th regiment, having the right of the brigade had just entered the Taneytown road and reached the point where the highway winds over the scarcely definable summit of Cemetery Ridge, when two signal guns for the opening of the famous cannonade on the Union center sent their shells far over our heads. In a moment the entire 150 guns on the confederate side were belching fire and smoke and thunder, and filling the air with screaming shot and hissing, bursting shell. A few hundred yard to the right of the 37th regiment, nearer the enemy, was a long line of Union batteries, upon which the southern gunners concentrated their fire. As usual, the first fire was too high, but the missiles sent over that part of the field were not wasted. If they passed harmless above the loyal gunners, they swept straight into the flank of the 37th regiment with such a terrible fatality that the oldest soldiers of this well-trained brigade had never before witnessed. The shells burst in the faces of the men, struck the rocks about them and filled the air with the debris, tore through the antiquated board-fence beside the road and sent it whirling in splinters over the field beyond. Walking beside his regiment, or standing in that terrific vortex of death calmer than he might have been upon the drill field, Col. Edwards now and then gave utterance to the impressive, "Steady, 37th!" which under his lead would have taken his regiment unshrinking into the jaws of Pandemonium -- if the place named were and more trying than the one then occupied. But the word of caution was scarcely needed; for severe as was the ordeal, coming thus unlooked for where a moment before, scarcely the shot of sharp-shooter had been heard, though men fell at each moment, not one save the killed or wounded left the ranks, and with merely the lengthening of the step the regiment passed through that deadly enfilading fire into a grove in the rear of a sheltering hill beyond. The other regiments of the brigade, favored by the cessation which followed he first general discharge of the hostile batteries, escaped with few casualties."
The above description is from "Hospital Pictures from Gettysburg,", Pvt. Bowen's contribution to the Springfield Republican's, weekly War Memories column in September 1886. I tell a little more of his story of suffering in the field and division hospitals at Gettysburg, in another thread. [ https://civilwartalk.com/threads/starving-in-a-field-hospital-at-gettysburg.133251/ ].
The entire text of Bowen's "Hospital Pictures from Gettysburg" is printed as Document No. 25, on my Civil War Miscellany website.
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