Forewarned that he must look for the enemy to make his appearance
on the Chambersburg and Carlisle roads,[33] and feeling that there
was warm work ahead, Buford was keeping a good lookout in both
directions. To that end he had now taken post on a commanding ridge
over which these roads passed first to Seminary Ridge, and so back
into Gettysburg. First causing his troopers to dismount, he formed
them across the two roads in question in skirmishing order, threw
out his vedettes, planted his horse-artillery, and with the little
valley of Willoughby Run before him, the Seminary and Gettysburg
behind him, and the First Corps in bivouac only five miles away
toward Emmettsburg, this intrepid soldier calmly awaited the coming
of the storm, conscious that if Gettysburg was to be defended at all
it must be from these heights.
A pretty little valley was this of Willoughby Run, with its
green banks and clear-flowing waters, its tall woods and tangled
shrubbery, so soon to be torn and defaced by shot and shell, so soon
deformed by drifting smoke and the loud cries of the combatants.
The night passed off quietly. Nevertheless, some thirty thousand
Confederates, of all arms, were lying in camp within a radius of
eight miles from Gettysburg. Their vanguard had discovered the
presence of our cavalry,[34] and was waiting for the morning only to
brush it away.
[Sidenote: Heth comes down the Pike.]
Next morning Heth's division was marching down the Chambersburg
pike, looking for this cavalry, when its advance fell in with
Buford's vedettes. While they halted to reconnoitre, these vedettes
came back with the news that the enemy was advancing in force,
infantry and artillery filling the road as far as could be seen.
Warned that not a moment was to be lost, Buford at once sent off
word to Reynolds, who, after ordering the First Corps under arms,
and sending back for the Eleventh, himself set off at a gallop for
Gettysburg, followed only by his staff.
[Sidenote: He drives Buford.]
Buford's bold front had thus caused the enemy to come to a halt; but
soon after nine, supposing he had to do with cavalry alone, Heth
deployed his skirmishers across the pike, forming his two leading
brigades at each side of it; these troops then pushed forward, and
soon the crack of a musket announced that the battle of Gettysburg
had begun.
[Sidenote: Wadsworth comes to Buford's Aid.]
After an hour's stubborn fighting, Buford was being slowly but
surely pushed back over the first ridge, when a column of the
Union infantry was seen coming up the Emmettsburg road at the
double-quick. It was Wadsworth's division arriving in the nick of
time, as the enemy's skirmishers, followed by Archer's brigade,
were, even then, in the act of fording the run unopposed, and unless
promptly stopped would soon be in possession of the first range of
heights. It was really a neck-and-neck race to see who would get
there first.
[Sidenote: Reynolds forms the Division.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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