Fortunately, the Sixth Wisconsin had been left in reserve near the
Seminary a little earlier, and it was now ordered to the rescue.
Colonel Dawes led his men up on the run. This regiment, with two
of Cutler's that had turned back on seeing the diversion making in
their favor, drove the enemy back again, up the ridge, to where it
is crossed by a railroad cut, some two hundred yards north of the
pike. To escape this attack most of them jumped down into the cut;
but as the banks are high and steep and the outlet narrow, this was
only getting out of the frying-pan into the fire, since while one
body of pursuers was firing down into them from above, still another
had thrown itself across the outlet and was raking the cut from
end to end. This proved more than even Davis' Mississippians could
stand, and though they fought obstinately enough, all were either
killed, taken, or dispersed.
[Sidenote: Heth brought to a Standstill.]
Heth's two attacking brigades having thus been practically used up
after a fierce conflict, not with cavalry alone, with whom they had
expected to have a little fun, but with infantry, in whom they
recognized their old antagonists of many a hard-fought field, and
who fought to-day with a determination unusual even to them, Heth
hesitated about advancing to the attack again in the face of such
a check as he had just received, without strong backing up; but
sending word of his encounter to Lee, he set about forming the
fragments of the two defeated brigades on two fresh ones, where they
could be sheltered from the Union fire.
Yet Hill, his immediate chief, had told him only the night before
there was no objection in the world to his going into Gettysburg the
next day.
This success also enabled Doubleday[37] to reform his line in its
old position. The troops on the left had not been shaken, and
Cutler's men were now coming back to the front eager to wipe out the
disgrace of their defeat.
If the enemy's van had not been without cavalry to clear its march,
Heth must inevitably have got into Gettysburg first. As it was, the
unexpected resistance he had met with made Heth cautious. Lee's
orders to his lieutenants were not to force the fighting until the
whole army should be up. Pender was therefore forming behind Heth,
the artillery set at work, and all were impatiently looking out
for Rodes' appearance on the Carlisle (or Mummasburg) road, before
renewing the action.
[Sidenote: Eleven o'clock.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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