Words Behind The Picture
submitted by Layne Blavier
Around 1:00 PM on July 2nd, Union General Daniel Sickles, uncomfortable
with his position along Cemetery Ridge, directed his Third Corps troops
to occupy higher ground three quarters of a mile in their front along
the Emmitsburg Road. The western most reaches of this new line, situated
in a peach orchard, formed a salient that would soon prove to be indefensible
against the onslaught of Lt. General James Longstreet’s Confederate First
Corps. Longstreet, working since morning arranging his troops along Seminary
Ridge, launched his assault at approximately 3:30 PM with an artillery
barrage against Sickles’ exposed line. One half hour later, out from the
protection of the distant woods, stepped the gray clad Confederate infantry.
About this time the green untested men of the 9th Massachusetts Artillery
Battery, under the command of Captain John Bigelow, were sent racing toward
the imminent conflagration. At full gallop the 104 men and 88 horses charged
diagonally across an open field just opposite Abraham Trostle’s farmhouse.
Orders to unlimber their six smoothbore Napoleons were given upon reaching
the designated position along the Wheatfield Road, just 700 yards east
of the soon to be famous Peach Orchard. Shot and shell rained down on
the artillerists as preparations for battle commenced and very soon this
baptism of fire produced its’ first casualty. The men stopped everything
and gathered around their stricken comrade, paying little head to the
growing battle. Captain Bigelow denied their requests to carry the gravely
injured man to the rear but instead ordered them to their guns to commence
firing. Men grudgingly returned to their pieces dismayed by their leaders’
callous attitude. They were soon giving back what they were receiving.
The men of the 9th Massachusetts together with the rest of the cannoneers
along the Wheatfield Road were able to check the surging South Carolinians
under Brigadier General Joseph Kershaw in the undulating fields around
the Rose Farm. Firing double canister, Bigelow’s men forced the rebel
troops to seek the comparative safety of a section of woods now called
Stony Hill. The South Carolina troops first had to drive the Union infantry
from the area after which they began snipping at the Massachusetts battery,
killing both men and horses. As the battle raged the smoke obscured the
field. If the billowing sulfurous clouds would have suddenly dissipated,
Bigelow’s men could have seen the precarious situation beginning to unfold
around them.
The Union line to the Ninth’s left in the Wheatfield and Stony Hill area,
was collapsing, while a new threat was mounting along Emmitsburg Road.
The butternut clad troops of Brigadier Generals William Barksdale and
William Wofford hit the Union right flank along Emmitsburg Road driving
the 3rd Corps troops into a hasty retreat. Bigelow’s battery was the 
anchor
of the Union left flank along the Peach Orchard salient, and as such were
the last troops given orders to withdraw. Captain Bigelow recognized that
without infantry support the fast approaching confederate skirmishers
would most assuredly empty every saddle as the Union cannoneers attempted
to limber up their tubes. Numerous horses had already been killed or disabled
by the continuous maelstrom of lead and steel flying through the smoke
filled air thus their were few animals left to drag the precious artillery
pieces to safety. Bigelow quickly surmised that the only chance of bringing
his battery off successfully was to fire his pieces and retreat at the
same time. In military terms this is called "retire by prolong firing".
Prolongs are ropes tied to the trail of the piece and then attached to
the limber. From this arrangement the cannon is able to be fired while
in motion or stopped to get off a shot and then quickly moved. Also the
recoil of the gun carries it along the direction of retreat. The maneuver
Bigelow was requiring his rookie artillerists to perform is difficult
for seasoned veterans under normal parade ground conditions, but with
the uneven terrain and the cacophony of battle all around, this feat was
nearly impossible, but it was their only recourse.