was promoted to brigadier genera in early June 1862, which led to brigade command in Virginia. A veteran of Malver Hill, Second Manassas and Sharpsburg, he was wounded in the latter battle, commanding hi troops from a litter. Seven months’ medic furlough ensued. During this period thirty-two officers in the 3rd Georgia (Wright’s old regiment) signed a letter requesting the regiment’s transf to another brigade. General Wright, they claimed, was in When Ranse Wright’s the habit of displaying a “harsh Brigade Breached discourteous temperament the Yankee Line at Their appeal went nowhere.2 Wright returned just in time f Gettysburg Chancellorsville, where he fough Lo Armistead is famous for as part of Maj. Gen. Richard leading his brigade to the stone Anderson’s division. The brigade wall on Cemetery Ridge in the was with Lee’s army marching third day of Gettysburg. Lesser- into Pennsylvania. When it known is the charge the day came time for Wright’s troops before, when Ambrose Ransom to go into the fight on July 2, Wright’s Georgia brigade struck, commanding general was ill and and temporarily held, the same in hospital. Leading the men— point.1 the 3rd, 22nd and 48th Georgia, Born in 1826 at Louisville, plus the 2nd Georgia Battalion— Georgia (the former state capital), was Col. William Gibson.3 Wright went to local schools In the Confederate army, before studying law. A few weeks brigades were named after after Sumter he joined an Augusta their commander, and the name company. In early May 1861 he stuck even in their leaders’ was elected colonel of the 3rd absence. Because of this, Georgia. writers mistakenly assume a In a skirmish in eastern North commander’s presence. Glenn Carolina Colonel Wright is Tucker, for instance, in his Hig credited with having single- Tide at Gettysburg, states that handedly captured five Yankees. “Wright…stood with his brigade After whipping the enemy in on the crest of Cemetery Ridge,” another Carolina battle Wright when the general was actually
“I Thank Eliza Frances Andrews (1840–1931) received a strong education and was
the Lord I a successful writer and educator. Her War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl
Am Not a surely ranks among the most observant Yankee...” and intelligent wartime memoirs by a Southern woman. Edited with commentary by Stephen Davis, I Thank the Lord I Am Not a Yankee includes selections of her wartime and postwar journals which are most expressive of her Confederate patriotism and Southern pride.
Stephen Davis is author of ten books on the Civil War, most of which treat t Atlanta Campaign. His two recent volumes on Confederate General John Bell Hood have won several prizes, including the Fle Pratt Award of the New York CWRT.
a few miles to the rear. Though General Wright filed a report for the Pennsylvania campaign, he acknowledges that “I was compelled by severe indispositio to leave my command” during the battle.4 Lee’s battle plan for July 2 called for a huge infantry assau beginning on the Confederate right (Longstreet’s Corps) that would continue in echelon by division, moving to the left. Th attack got off to a delayed star about 4 p.m. When it came time for Anderson’s Division to pitch in, it was late in the afternoon with still quite enough daylight on that long summer’s day.5 The Confederates were aiming for the center of the enemy line (including the famous copse of trees), held by Win Hancock’s II Corps. After hearing the signal to move forward, the Georgians pushed across the Emmitsburg Road, to the east of which were positioned the Federal troops. “ this advance, I was compelled to pass for more than a mile across an open plain, intersected by numerous post and rail fences, and swept by the enemy’s artillery,” the general recalled Wright’s Brigade “surged up the slope of Cemetery Ridge like a tide rolling up a beach,” writes Harry Pfanz, historian of Gettysburg’s second day.6 The Southerners struck the enemy position, “and drove him in great confusion upon his second line,” Wright declared. The Confederates even captured three guns which the Federals le behind.
Having gained the Emmitsburg turnpike, we again charged upon the enemy, heavily posted behind a stone fence which ran along the abrupt slope of the heights some 150 yards in rear of the pike. Here the enemy made
our farther progress, but was finally forced to retire by the impetuous charge of
my command. We were now within less than 100 yards of the crest of the heights, which were lined with artillery, supported by a strong body of infantry, under protection of a stone fence. My men, by a welldirected fire, soon drove
the cannoneers from their guns, and, leaping over the fence, charged up to the top of the crest, and drove the enemy’s infantry into a rocky gorge on the eastern slope of the heights, and
“We were now complete masters of the field,” Wright declared in his after-action report with such exaggeration that George R. Stewart, author of the microhistory of Pickett’s Charge, has written that Wright’s report (“complete masters of the field”) “is the most inaccurate and exaggerated of any that it ha been my need to study.”7 But as so often happened, his troops’ penetration went unsupported. William Perry’s brigade advanced on the right, bu not far enough to assist Wright’s line-breach. Same thing with Carnot Posey’s brigade to the left. General Wright was not very complimentary: “Unfortunately, just as we had carried the enemy’ last and strongest position, it was discovered that the brigade on our right had not only not advanced across the turnpike, but had actually given way, and was rapidly falling back to the rear, while on our left we were entirel unprotected, the brigade ordered to our support having failed to advance.” William Mahone’s brigade, in reserve, also rendere no help.8 Wright was not afraid to speak his mind. His superior, General Anderson, remarked that Ranse needed “a little more coolness.” That quality was not on display,
Carte-de-Visite of General Ambros front: Augusta Gen. A. R. Wright.
nsom Wright. Inscription on cription on back: Ga Lf. 19. From
As soon as we emerged from the woods and came into the open fields, the enemy poured a most terrific fire of shells into our ranks. We rushed down the hillside and reaching the valley, we found it was broken by a series of small ridges and hollows, running parallel with the enemy’s line on the mountain, and in the
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first of these depressions or hollows, our line paused for breath. Then we rushed over the next ridge into the succeeding hollow, and thus we worked our way across that terrible field for more than a mile, under the most furious fire of artillery I had ever see When we reached the base of the range upon which the enemy was posted, they opened upon us with their infantry, and raked our whole line with grape and canister from more than twenty guns. We were now within a few hundred yards of the enemy’s guns, and had up to this time suffered but litt loss, the small ridge I hav spoken of protecting our men from the enemy’s fire, except as we would pass on their tops which we always did in a run, thus exposing ourselves very little to the enemy’s fire. But we were in a hot place, and looking to my left through the smoke, I perceived that neither Posey nor Mahone had advanced, and that my left was wholly unprotected. I immediately dispatched a courier t General Anderson informing hi of the fact, who answered that bot Posey and Mahone had been ordered
right) Length: Weight: used during the Civil War. Model 1857 Napoleon. The st hes in diameter with a mean stacked in four layers, pac perly. The 12-pounder canis ge when fired from a 12-pou a History Center, Thomas S. attlefield recoveries.
in and that he would reiterate the order. That I must go on. Before my courier returned, Perry’s Brigade on my right gave way, and shamefully ran to the rear. My Brigade had now climbed up the side of the mountain nearly to the enemy’s guns, and being left with support either on the right or lef enabled the enemy to concentrate heavy fire upon my small command, but my brave men passed rapidly and steadily on, until we approached within fifty or sixty yards of th enemy’s batteries, when we encountered a heavy body of infantry posted behind a stone wall. The side of the mountain was so precipitous here that m men could with difficulty climb it, but we strove on, and reaching the stone fence, drove the Yankee infantry from behind it, and then taking cover from the fence we soon shot all the gunners of the enemy’s artillery, and rushing ove the fence seized their gun We had now accomplished our task. We had stormed the enemy’s str position, had driven off h infantry, had captured all his guns in our front, exc a few which he succeeded in carrying off, and had u
ft), 5.37 inches (right) ft), 10.4 pounds (right) to be fired from r cast iron ound (6.88 ounces) each. with the top center ball al muzzle velocity of 1,26 The non-excavated l War Collection; the
to this minute suffered but comparatively little loss. Just after taking the enemy’s batteries perceived a heavy column of Yankee Infantry on our right flank. They had taken advantage of the gap left i our line by the falling bac of Perry’s Brigade, and had filed around a piece of timber on our right, and ha gotten into the gap left by Perry’s Brigade and were rapidly getting into our re Posey had not advanced on our left, and a strong body of the enemy was advancing down the sides of the mountain to gain our left flank and rear. Thus we were perfectly isolated from any portion of our Army a mile in its advance. And although we had gained the enemy’s works and captured his guns, we were about to be sacrificed to the bad management and cowardly conduct of others. For a moment I thought all was lost, and that my gallant little band would all be inevitably killed or captured. Colonel Hall of the Twenty-second had been killed, Colonel Gibson of the Forty-eighth seriously wounded, and while at the enemy’s gun with his hands on the horse Major Ross of the Second Georgia Battalion had just been shot down. Nearly all my company officers had been killed or wounded.
Everything looked gloomy in the extreme, but the men remained firm and cool to the last. The enemy had now gotten completely in our rear, and were advancing upon us over the
very ground we had passed in attacking them. A large force concentrated in our front and artillery brought into position and opened upon us. Then a prayer was said. We must face about and cut our way out of the network of bristling bayonets, which stretched around us
on every side. With cheers and good order we turned our faces to the enemy in our rear, and abandoning our captured guns we rushed upon the flanking column of the enemy and literally cut our way out, and fell back about one-hal the distance we had gone over, and then reformed our line. But alas, very fe of the brave spirits who so recently had passed over
that line buoyant in spirit and confident of success, now answered to the order that calmly sang out upon the air, “Fall in, Wright’s Brigade, and here we’ll stand again.”12
“Wright fell back because Posey had not covered his left flank or Perry his right,” Freeman concludes. But the Georgians’ plucky breach of the Yankee line is more than a footnote in the stories of how Lee hoped to win a great victory in Pennsylvania— and nearly did among those fields of Gettysburg!
Notes 1. Glenn Tucker, High Tide at Gettysburg: The Campaign in Pennsylvania (Indianapolis: Bobb Merrill Company, 1958), 286-87. 2. Keith P. Bohannon, “Ambrose Ransom Wright” in William C. Davis, ed., The Confederate Gene 6 vols. (Harrisburg: National Historical Society, 1991), vol. 3. Ibid., vol. 6, 161. 4. Tucker, High Tide, 287; Wright report, Sept. 28, 1863, OR, vol. pt. 2, 622. 5. Noah Andre Trudeau, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 389. 6. Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day (Chapel Hill: Univers of North Carolina Press, 1987), 7. Wright report, 623; George R. Stewart, Pickett’s Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 (Dayton OH: Press of Morningside Booksho 1980 [1959]), 301. 8. Wright report, 623-24; Douglas
Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutena A Study in Command, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1 44), vol. 3, 124. 9. Bohannon, “Wright,” 161, 163; Gen Wright to Mrs. Wright, July 7, q in Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, v
160 n. 10. Bohannon, “Wright,” 161. 11. Bohannon, “Wright,” 163. 12. Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 126-27.
Stephen Davis resides with his sweet wife Billie and loudmouthed cat Cha Cha near Cumming, Georgia. On a good day of retirement there he sees more
cows than cars. Some years back he traveled across the South, Mr. Bojangles-like, visiting historic cemeteries and photographing the burial places of Confederate generals. Ranse Wright, for instance, is buried in Augusta, Ga.; decades ago Steve visited him in Magnolia Cemetery, where there are interred six other Confederate generals, including Porter Alexander. Steve wrote about Alexander in The Artilleryman last Fall.
