Stonewall Brigade at Gettysburg

I remember about a year ago, being at the Visitors Center and hearing someone request a tour from a guide that would take them in the footsteps of the Stonewall Brigade. Immediately, a sick feeling came to the pit of my stomach....if someone were to ask me for a tour of the Stonewall Brigade, could I do it?? Nope. I sort of knew where they were on Culp's Hill...but I could never say where else they were or what they did. So I took it as a challenge yesterday to study the Stonewall Brigade.

I grabbed my trusty "Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill" book by Harry Pfanz and set off for the battlefield....destination unknown.

Now, I'm not going to get into a huge thing here explaining the wheres and whatfores of this brigade. I'm going to talk more about how what they did effected the battle. I did find out that they were in Gettysburg on July 1....waiting. Seems they were in the area of the Lady farm/Wolf farm....waiting. On July 2, they ended up fighting against the 5th and 12th Corps and the Gregg's Cavalry, at different times, on Brinkerhoff Ridge. On July 3, they found themselves on Culp's Hill.

What I found kind of revealing about this whole thing is how they found themselves constantly on the move. They didn't move far, but the movement was constant. They were on one side of Rock Creek then found themselves on the other side and it seems like they were back again. The Brigade got split up and seemed to be fighting on different fronts....but always ended up back together again.

I also noted that if they had changed their plans, by just the tiniest fraction, the outcome of the battle might have been different. Now you can say this about just about any regiment, brigade, division or corps on either side. It's just that I noticed how this brigade's slowing down on July 2 and not following the remainder of their division across the Hanover Road and approaching Culp's Hill, may have changed what took place on that Hill. Would they have been able to push the Union army off the hill? Would they have been able to reach the Baltimore Pike? If they had, would that have changed the way the Union army fought this battle or would they have just given up because they had no way to escape? Oh the "what-ifs" of the battle! How did they change the course of the battle by not moving fast enough?

Now, the fighting on July 3 on Culp's Hill was extrememly desperate for both sides. Some of the most intense fighting took place up there, but did it have to be that desperate? Would July 2 have been even more desperate than it was?

I guess that I'm not trying to explain this fighting as much as I'm trying to gain a full understanding of what really took place. How can one person or one group change the entire course of a battle? It happened time and time again throughout the Battle of Gettysburg as well as every other battlefield in this nation. The Stonewall Brigade was just one brigade....one group.

I'm still on my quest to understand what they did and where they did it. Just reading one persons interpretation doesn't make it fact. I need to get into the OR's and other books before I can say...."This is what happened". But if someone would come up to me today and say, "Where did the Stonewall Brigade fight?", I think I could give them an answer....not a real good answer but its there. I look forward to the days to come and trying to gain a better grasp on what really happened!