The Battle of Gettysburg July 2

Union forces(Army of the Potomac)were pushed from their positions west outside of Gettysburg, through the town where the Union forces fell back south of the town to defensive positions on high ground in the shape of a fish hook. Through the night into the early morning each army constantly receiving reinforcements, 2 large armies face each other the next day. General Lee wanting to remove the Union army from their strong position devised an attack on the Union's flanks, focusing on the Union's left flank. If the Union forces were removed from their defensive position, Lee can take his own defensive position and have the Union attack him.

The Confederate army initiating the assault with cannon's at 4pm, pushing out General Sickles(a person famous before the war for shooting his own wife's cheater who was the son of Francis Scott Key) from his advance position, nearly destroying him and the union. The Confederates marching down, General Meade dispatched General Gouverneur Warren to assess the Union's left flank at Little Round Top. Seeing only a few signal men hold Little Round Top, General Warren immediately realized the potential danger. If Confederate General John Bell Hood was to take the hill, he could shell and attack the Union army from behind. Sending a brigade under Colonel Vincent to hold Little Round Top and holding the far left flank of the Union, retreat was not an option.

As the fighting continued and the confederates making repeated charges up Little Round Top, the 20th Maine were the extreme part of the Union flank and found themselves running out of ammunition. Virtually out of ammunition and the key to hold the left flank of the Union with Colonel Vincent struck down. Colonel Lawrence Chamberlain with his 20th Maine, holding the far left of the Union, knowing he can't retreat, no reinforcements, no ammunition and knowing he must hold this ground at all cost, ordered the unusual tactic of a bayonet charge knowing the rebels were near their own exhaustion. As the Alabamians charged back up the hill toward his 20th Maine, Colonel Chamberlain signaled the bayonet charge. The left flank of the 20th Maine which was pulled back at a right angle, charged down swinging like a door on the Alabamians and the rest of 20th maine charged forward, capturing rebels and repelling the attack. Colonel Chamberlain's Company B sent off to bolster his left flank, rose and fired on the Confederates as they were retreating.

At the end of the day, the Union held their positions

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Day Two: Union Holds the High Ground

Dawn of July 2 found Confederate General Robert E. Lee exhausted and sick with the diarrhea, a common ailment in the field of battle. (Some historians believe that Lee, a chronic sufferer from heart disease, had actually sustained a mild heart attack.) But, sick or not, his mood was bold, and he met with his corps commanders to give detailed orders for an offensive he hoped would crush the enemy army.
The Union??s Fishhook Attack

The second day of battle started with the Union line deployed in a giant, upside-down fishhook. The hook??s barb was just south of Culp??s Hill, its turn was at Cemetery Hill, and the end of its shaft at two hills, well to the south of town, known as Little Round Top and Big Round Top. Lee directed Lt. General James Longstreet to take his First Corps and attack the Union left, the shaft of the fishhook running along Cemetery Ridge and terminating at the Little and Big Round Tops. Lee was northwest of the fishhook, where the curve met the shaft. Lt. General Richard S. Ewell, to the north and northeast, above the curve of the fishhook, was to be prepared to swing down and smash the Union??s right.
A Break for the Union

Battles begin with plans and require much skill and courage to maneuver and fight, but, in the end, they are also subject to random chance. Just before Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood??s men attacked Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles?? Union troops, Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, Meade's chief engineer, noticed that Little Round Top was undefended, save for a few signalmen. Warren realized in an instant that Hood??s division would seize that high ground and thereby be in position to crush the Union??s flank, traveling right up the shaft of the Federal fishhook.

Warren??s staff officers hurriedly rounded up a brigade led by Col. Strong Vincent and sent it to occupy Little Round Top. Vincent was soon fatally wounded in the action. A brigade under Brig. Gen. Stephen Weed also fought Hood, and at the extreme south end of the Union flank was the 20th Maine, a battle-battered regiment, commanded by Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

Chamberlain and Little Round Top

Chamberlain was not a professional soldier. A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College, he took a sabbatical in 1862 intending to study in Europe, but joined the Union army instead. Now, with his regiment at less than half strength—under 500 men, including some mutinous soldiers who had been put under his guard—he held off attack after attack from a superior force of Alabama troops. His ammunition was all but exhausted, a circumstance that would have prompted just about anyone else to surrender, but, realizing the grave importance of holding his position and preventing the Confederates from turning the Union flank, he led a fierce downhill charge, exclusively using bayonets, with which he scattered and defeated the rebels. This defeat was one of the most extraordinary achievement in the battle.
Sickles and Devil??s Den

The Confederates still held Devil??s Den, below Little Round Top, and fired on the reinforced defenders of that hill from behind boulders. Action was hot, too, in the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield, to the northwest of Little Round Top. Sickles, who was assigned to Cemetery ridge, didn't like his position and moved his corps—without orders—to a better position half a mile to the west, on the higher ground near the Peach Orchard. In the Wheatfield, no fewer than six Confederate attacks were met by six Union counter-attacks, leaving casualties and corpses thicker than any wheat harvest.

Sickles??s impulsive advance might have meant Union defeat, but Longstreet was never able to coordinate his attacks to decisive effect, and Meade as well as Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, now leading II and III Corps, repaired Sickles??s error by skillfully redeploying forces as needed to check each major Confederate attempt at a breakthrough.

The End of the Second Day

At sundown, the Confederates attacked Cemetery, East Cemetery, and Culp??s Hills. The Federals held on to all their positions except at Culp??s Hill, but then counter-attacked there at 4:30 on the morning of July 3 and, after seven hours of fighting, turned back the Confederates.

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