Brevet Major General George Sykes to Captain Porter Farley, August 5, 1872

Fort Snelling, Minnesota, August 5, 1872.

Captain Porter Farley, Rochester, New York.

DEAR SIR: Your letter has just reached me through the War Department, and it gives me pleasure to answer such of the questions it asks as I can. I enclose a copy of my Report of the Battle of Gettysburg, which is confined exclusively to what I knew of events then taking place. The only error in it I have ever discovered, is that Birney did not close the gap I asked him to, near the battery on the left of his line. Through that gap the enemy in part forced his way. The Divisions of the Fifth Corps moved from the Baltimore pike where it crossed Rock Creek, as follows: First Division, Second Division, Third Division. About 3 P. M. on the 2d of July the Corps Commanders were at the headquarters of General Meade. After consultation, I was directed by him to establish the Fifth Corps on the left of the general line of the army, terminating at Little Round Top, and hold that part of the field. The crest of the valley sweeping from Cemetery Ridge around to the left and embracing Little Round Top was the general line of battle adopted by the commanding General. The position of the Third Corps was not known to me, and no staff officer was given me to find it out. In looking for it, I found the gap spoken of in my Report, in consequence of which, I sought the commander of the troops nearest it, and asked that it be closed, promising to fill the interval he might make with my own troops. To accomplish this, I hastened to the leading Brigades, Sweitzer and Tilton, First Division, and posted them on the edge of a wood in front of part of Birney's line, to cover the interval I expected him to make. How Vincent got to Round Top I do not know, unless hearing my aide-de-camp deliver the order for the Corps to take the left of the line, he made his way there of his own soldierly instinct. As I conducted the two leading brigades across the Taneytown pike to the position I gave them, I do not remember to have seen Vincent's troops. I was at the head, and he at the rear of the column, and a sputtering fire having commenced, I was anxious to get the foremost brigades in their place. The interference with orders given by me to my troops occurred only in Warren's hurrying up Weed's Brigade to Round Top, which was very judicious, and an interference of General Sickles by which General Weed was withdrawn in part from Round Top, and placed en route towards the right, until I met him, and at once returned him to his place. Watson's Battery of regular artillery was likewise appropriated by Sickles without my knowledge, in consequence of which it was for a time lost. General Ayres took position to the right of Little Round Top until I ordered him to attack in the direction of the 'Den,' and Crawford was to be the right rear of Ayres until I moved him to the attack at a later hour. You are right about two Brigades of the First Division being out towards the peach orchard; I placed them there myself, and for the reason given. The rocky glen did not admit of troops being posted across it. If the left of the line of the Third Corps had not been thrust out into the valley, there would have been no interval near the glen, and I do not believe the enemy would have made the headway he did, but, being there, the glen enabled Longstreet to use it as a cover, and gave him power to turn the flank of the Third Corps. Had not the Fifth Corps held Round Top and the ground adjacent, nothing would have stopped him from reaching the Baltimore turnpike. Our Corps never got the credit it deserved that day. It simply saved defeat, and every fair-minded soldier knows it. The military politicians did not want one of their pets to suffer, and were strong enough to uphold 'their own.'

I have thus, Captain, replied to your letter as far as I am able. I cannot tell you much not known to you before. I am, Captain,

Yours Very Respectfully,

GEO. SYKES.

SOURCE: Oliver Willcox Norton, The Attack and Defense  of Little Round Top,Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, pp. 293-5

Official Reports: Skirmish near Greenwich, Va., March 9, 1864— Report of Major George F. McCabe, Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Report of Maj. George F. McCabe, Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

HDQRS. DETACHMENT 13TH PENNSYLVANIA CAVALRY,        

March 10, 1864.

LIEUTENANT: I have the honor to report that the party who made the attack on the detachment Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry yesterday, 9th March, 1864, consisted of 40 men, under command of Mosby in person. I came up to him at Buckland Mills about 3.30 p.m. yesterday, and at once charged him. His command broke when I was a pistol-shot from him. I continued after him and ran his party through Thoroughfare Gap and on to his camp at Plains Station on the Manassas Gap road. I found his command encamped at that place in Sibley and shelter tents. He got his whole command in line, dismounted, behind a stone fence at that place, and I did not have men enough to attack him in his camp. I drove him so hard yesterday as to compel him to release 2 men he had captured, and they cut off their overcoats and blankets from their saddles so as to be lighter mounted, that they could get away. I do not think that there are more than 100 men in the camp at Plains Station, but I believe he can raise 500 men in a very short time. There would be no trouble to hem his camp in by parties going from Warrenton and this place.

Your obedient servant,

G. F. McCABE,        

Major Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Lieutenant SWAN,
        Actg. Asst. Adjt. Gen., Second Div., Fifth Army Corps.

[First indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, FIFTH CORPS,        

March 10, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded.

This party was sent out to re-enforce one sent from Bristoe, which was being roughly handled.

R. B. AYRES,        

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

[Second indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS,        

March 11, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded for the information of the major-general commanding Army of the Potomac.

GEO. SYKES,        

Major-General, Commanding.

ADDENDA.¹

March 9, a scout of 40 men, under the command of Lieutenant White, was attacked by the enemy in the vicinity of Greenwich. The party making the attack was composed of the Fourth Virginia Cavalry, Chincapin Rangers, and a detachment of Mosby's command. The casualties numbered 9, all taken prisoners; 4 wounded, now in hospital at Washington, D.C.

_______________

¹ From the return of Second Brigade, Second Division, Cavalry Corps, for March, 1864

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 33(Serial No. 60), p. 236-7

Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant to Major-General Henry W. Halleck, August 2, 1864 — 9:30 p.m.

CITY POINT, August 2, 1864—9.30 p.m.

Major-General HALLECK,

Chief of Staff:

I have the honor to request that the President may direct a court of inquiry, to assemble without delay at such place as the presiding officer may appoint, to examine into and report upon the facts and circumstances attending the unsuccessful assault on the enemy's position in front of Petersburg on the morning of July 30, 1864, and also to report whether, in their judgment, any officer or officers are censurable* for the failure of the troops to carry into successful execution the orders issued for the occasion, and I would suggest the following detail: Maj. Gen. W. S. Hancock, Brig. Gen. R. B. Ayres, Brig. Gen. N. A. Miles, Volunteer service; Col. E. Schriver, inspector-general and recorder.

U. S. GRANT,                       

Lieutenant-General.

_______________

* As received by Halleck this word is answerable.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 40, Part 1 (Serial No. 80), p. 18

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Russell Lyman, March 31, 1865

March 31, 1865

The rain held up about ten A.M. and the sun once more shone. By this time our lines, running east and west, had been moved due north, till they rested their right on Hatcher's Run, north of the Crow house, and their left on the Boydton plank, near the entrance of the Quaker road. For this purpose Ayres's and Crawford's divisions were pushed forward and Griffin held in reserve. We rode out, towards the left (our Headquarters were near the Vaughan road close to Gravelly Run), stopping some time to consult with Grant. About 10.30 we heard a brief fusillade on the right of our line (a demonstration to divert our attention), followed by heavy musketry towards the White Oak road. As we came to Warren's old Headquarters, high up on the Quaker road, I could see something had gone wrong. A cavalry officer galloped up and said: “I must have more men to stop these stragglers! the road is full of them.” And indeed there were those infernal drummers, and pack-mules, and not a few armed men, training sulkily to the rear. I required no one to tell me what that meant. The enemy had tried on Griffin, two days since, without success, but this time they had repeated the game on Ayres and Crawford, with a different result. As these two divisions were moving through the thick woods, they were suddenly charged, broken, and driven back towards the Boydton plank road; but some batteries being brought to their aid, the men were rallied behind a branch of Gravelly Run. Griffin took up a rear line, to ensure the position. General Meade at once ordered Miles to go in, to the right of the 5th Corps, and Griffin to advance likewise. The General rode out in person to give Humphreys the necessary orders about Miles's division, and found him at Mrs. Ramie's, at the junction of the Quaker road and the plank. There was a wide open in front, and I could see, not far off, the great tree where we got such an awful shelling, at the first Hatcher's Run fight. Miles was in the open, forming his troops for the attack. Just then the enemy opened a battery on us, with solid shot, several of which came ricocheting round us. I recollect I turned just then and saw Charlie Mills sitting on horseback, near General Humphreys. He nodded and smiled at me. Immediately after, General Meade rode to a rising ground a couple of hundred yards from the house, while General Humphreys went a short distance to the front, in the field. Almost at that instant a round shot passed through Humphreys' Staff and struck Mills in the side, and he fell dead from his horse. He was indeed an excellent and spirited young man and beloved by us all.  . . . When I rode that evening to the hospital, and saw the poor boy lying there on the ground, it made me think of Abbot, a year ago. It is the same thing over and over again. And strange too, this seeing a young man in full flush of robust health, and the next moment nothing that we can make out but the broken machine that the soul once put in motion. Yet this is better than that end in which the faculties, once brilliant, gradually fade, month after month.

About noon, Miles and Griffin went in, with sharp firing, drove the enemy back, and made a lodgment on the White Oak road. Meantime, Sheridan, after all sorts of mud toils, got north of Dinwiddie, where he was attacked by a heavy force of infantry and cavalry and forced back nearly to that place. Not to forgo our advantage on the northwest, we immediately sent the whole 5th Corps by night to Dinwiddie to report to General Sheridan and attack the enemy next morning — a hard march after the two days' fighting in the storm!

SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 330-2