The Hero of Gettysburg

July 1-3 is the anniversary of the turning point of the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg. As we remember Gettysburg, we should take care to remember the man who was dubbed "The Hero of Gettysburg." After proving himself one of the greatest American generals of all time, he later became the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Throughout his life, he offered a model of honesty and patriotism which should forever be emulated by Americans.

When he was a child, he befriended and defended the victims of bullies. At a time when even abolitionists looked down on black people, his son said of him, "My father has always impressed on my mind that all men are born free and equal."

He was a great warrior. When he was the Democratic nominee for president, he refused to accept campaign contributions. He was a superb American, admired by people of all political persuasions for his unimpeachable integrity and devotion to public service.

He was Winfield Scott Hancock, born on February 14, 1824 near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And in 1881, he was elected the sixth president of the National Rifle Association.

Named after the military hero Winfield Scott, Winfield Scott Hancock served ably as an infantry lieutenant in Indian Territory, and then as an officer in the Mexican War. As a child, he learned from his lawyer father a deep respect for Common Law. When Winfield departed for the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1840, his father placed in his luggage the Constitution of the United States, and Blackstone's Commentaries, with the instruction to read each at least once a year. Blackstone, of course, was the author of the most influential legal treatise ever written, the analysis of common law and civil liberty which declared the right "of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition" to be one of "the natural rights of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."

In 1856-58, Hancock and his wife Almira were stationed in Florida, where the Seminole Indians still carried out raids. While in Florida, Almira Hancock learned how to shoot.

When the Civil War began, the Hancocks were serving in Los Angeles. There was very little pro-Union sentiment in the city; most people wanted California to join the Confederacy, or to create an independent Western republic. As historian Glenn Tucker explains:

Probably all that saved the faraway section of Southern California for the Union at this critical moment was Hancock's care in seeing that his precious guns, ammunition, and supplies were adequately protected. He assembled 20 or so derringers for his own use in an emergency, then recruited every Union sympathizer in the neighborhood to be ready on a moment's notice. He armed Mrs. Hancock... [In a federal arms depot, Hancock] hid the boxes of guns and ammunition underneath great heaps of grain, drew up his wagons to form a barricade and prepared to fight it out. No officer was closer than a hundred miles, but Hancock faced attack with some confidence. Finally a squadron of cavalry arrived from Fort Tehone, a hundred miles away, and paraded, and the danger of the loss of Southern California was minimized. Many credited Hancock with holding it for the Union cause.

Having saved Southern California for the Union, Hancock headed east to join the fighting. His first major engagement was the battle of Williamsburg (May 4-5, 1862) in the Peninsula campaign; there he forced the Confederates to retreat by breaking their left flank. General George McClellan said "Hancock was superb today." Thereafter, he was known as "Hancock the Superb."

At Antietam (Sept. 17, 1862), Hancock took command of the Second Corps after Israel B. Richardson was killed in action. Hancock's division fought at Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862), in the grueling assault on Marye's Heights. After the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville (May 3, 1863), Hancock led the rear guard which protected the Union withdrawal.

On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1, 1863), Hancock formed the Union defensive positions at Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge — the key positions which held the Union center. As McClellan had observed, Hancock "had a wonderfully quick and correct eye for ground."

On the third day of Gettysburg, Hancock commanded the First, Second, and Third Corps — three-fifths of the Union army. That day, Robert E. Lee flung the Virginia militia and Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet into "Pickett's Charge," a bold offensive gamble to win the battle, and perhaps the war, in a single day.

The charge began, and Hancock was everywhere, ordering the regiments and brigades. The steady advance of Picketts' men was the high water mark of the Confederacy. A bullet ripped through Hancock's saddle, opened an inch-wide hole in his body, and lodged eight inches inside his groin — along with a nail and a piece of wood as big as the bullet. Hancock looked as if he had been cut with a butcher's knife.

Hancock refused to be carried to safety, and continued to direct the combat from his stretcher. Pickett's Charge was repulsed, and the Union dubbed Hancock "the hero of Gettysburg." The Confederates called him the "Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac."

President Lincoln explained, "When I go down in the morning to open my mail, I declare that I do it in fear and trembling lest I may hear that Hancock has been killed or wounded." Lincoln also wrote "Some of the older generals have said to me that he is rash, and I have said to them that I have watched General Hancock's conduct very carefully, and I have found that when he goes into action he achieves his purpose and comes out with a smaller list of casualties than any of them."

Fittingly, the Uberti "Gettysburg Tribute" historic rifle includes an engraving of Hancock.

Although the wound caused him pain for the rest of life, Hancock recuperated sufficiently to return to fight in the Wilderness Campaign, where, in the Battle of Spotsylvania (May 12, 1864) he earned the rank of "major general" for breaking through a Confederate salient in less than an hour and capturing almost 3,000 prisoners.

He was not always victorious in battle, and his Second Corps suffered terrible losses at Cold Harbor (June 3, 1864). But as General Grant recalled, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible." McClellan called him "brilliant in the extreme." William Tecumsah Sherman declared him "one of the greatest soldiers in history."

During Reconstruction, Hancock was appointed Governor of the 5th Military District, which encompassed Texas and Louisiana. Hancock refused to bully the defeated and vulnerable citizenry of Texas and Louisiana. His General Orders No. 40 of November 29, 1867, announced how he intended to govern. Predicting "they will crucify me," Hancock wrote:

General Orders No. 40 was soon published all over the country. Hancock's policy was joyfully received by the south as a sign that the war was finally over, and by Northerners who looked forward to reconciliation and the restoration of constitutional government.

But for the radical majority in Congress who believed that the southern states were conquered areas deserving punishment, Hancock's words were anathema. In a famous letter to the civil governor of Texas, William Pease — one of those who found fault with General Orders No. 40 — Hancock defended the right of critics of the national government to express their opinions, no matter how vehement:

Hancock recognized that there was a great deal of intimidation by carpetbaggers who had employed the threat of federal retaliation in order to prevent their political enemies from voting. Hancock refused to allow the military to be part of the problem. In Special Orders No. 213 of December 18, 1867, Section IX, he declared:

He likewise refused to use military force to interfere with the operation of the courts, unless the civil authorities asked him for aid.

Hancock's generous policy toward the conquered South was unique among the military governors of the time. His supporters thought he provided a model for national reconciliation. Congress and the military hierarchy disagreed. General Grant repeatedly countermanded Hancock's orders. In response, Hancock wrote to a congressional ally: "I may expect one humiliation after another until I am forced to resign... [But n]othing can intimidate me from doing what I believe to be honest and right."

The conflict came to a head when Hancock, a Democrat, appointed fellow Democrats to the New Orleans City Council. On February 27, 1868, only six months after his appointment, he requested and received reassignment to the West.

Although Hancock was considered as a possible Democratic presidential nominee in 1876, the party nominated New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, who ran against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. The election of 1876 was one of the dirtiest in American history. There were disputes in Oregon, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana about who had won the state's electoral votes. Hayes was eventually declared the winner by a single vote, after a special commission voted 8-7 along partisan lines to award all the contested votes to Hayes.

But in some of the contested states, the reason the vote had been so close was that Democrats had illegally prevented many black people from voting. So although the Republicans had perpetrated numerous dirty tricks in ballot counting, Hancock the Democrat defended the legitimacy of Republican President Hayes. As Hayes recorded in his diary,

If Hancock had not written General Orders No. 40, he might have quietly achieved more of the goals expressed in Orders No. 40. However, it was those forthright written words that placed him on the path to a presidential nomination. In a letter to Hancock, former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeremiah S. Black, who had also served as Attorney General under President Buchanan, wrote that General Orders No. 40 would give him "a place in history which your children will be proud of."

In 1880, the Democrats nominated Winfield Scott Hancock for president. Hancock's running mate was William H. English, a banker from Indiana. Neither Hancock nor English would accept personal donations. Although local Democratic organizations (like local Republican organizations) spent their own money, the Republican candidate James A. Garfield also accepted huge personal donations. As Hancock's biographer notes, "Undoubtedly, his extreme punctiliousness about money at a time when the opposition party was spending lavishly impaired his prospects."

There were no personal charges that could be used against Hancock, so Republicans focused on the presumed political naïveté of military figures (a hypocritical charge for a party that had twice nominated Ulysses Grant — who, like Hancock, had not previously held elective office).

The popular vote was the closest in American history, as Garfield edged Hancock by only 9,464 votes. Garfield won the Electoral College 214 to 155. Democratic disunity in the swing state of New York, with 35 electoral votes, cost Hancock the presidency of the United States.

But Hancock did not retire from public life. Instead, he set to work to fix one of the problems which had been revealed by the Civil War. During the Civil War, it was widely known that Confederate soldiers, many of whom had grown up on farms, were superior to the more urbanized Union army with regard to firearm proficiency.

The Union soldiers' training was inadequate. Many of them fired only a single round in all of their training, and some fired none at all. In 1864, Hancock had taken an informal survey of his own men and found that a third of them had never shot their musket. It was also suspected that Custer's 1876 disaster at the Little Big Horn was partly due to the army's lack of skill with firearms.

Former Union officers founded the National Rifle Association in 1871 in New York State to promote marksmanship. Unfortunately for the NRA, Alonzo B. Cornell was elected governor of New York in 1880. Cornell was openly hostile to the nascent National Guard. Cornell naïvely predicted: "There will be no war in my time or in the time of my children." He added, "The only need for a National Guard is to show itself in parades and ceremonies. I see no reason for them to learn to shoot if their only function will be to march a little through the streets. Rifle practice...is a waste of money...."

When Gen. George W. Wingate, an attorney and then vice president of the NRA, attempted to convince Governor Cornell that American soldiers should be skilled in the use of arms, Cornell bellowed back: "Then we should take their rifles away from them and sell them to benefit the Treasury. It would be more practical and far less expensive to arm them with clubs which require no instruction in their use."

Cornell had won office as a fiscal conservative, and his cuts to the New York National Guard budget financially destabilized the fledgling National Rifle Association.

Hancock was elected NRA president in 1881, based on hopes that his prestige as a nationally recognized and beloved figure would bolster the organization. In this regard, Hancock was a forerunner of NRA president Charlton Heston, whose prestige also boosted the NRA.

As president, Hancock explained, "The object of the NRA is to increase the military strength of the country by making skill in the use of arms as prevalent as it was in the days of the Revolution."

By aiming to revive the Revolutionary tradition of the American marksman, Hancock and the NRA were taking sides in one of the cultural battles of the era. As the Industrial Revolution matured, more and more American workers were performing simple, repetitive tasks in huge factories. The view that individuals were mere cogs in the industrial machine had its parallel in warfare — in the view that the ordinary soldier should just follow orders blindly and shoot in the general direction of the enemy's mass. A random hail of bullets was all that infantry was supposed to produce.

The contrary view — of Hancock and other NRA leaders — was that Americans were more than brutes in service of the military-industrial complex. They were individuals who should be the masters of their arms, and whose personal skills should be encouraged and celebrated with competitions and prizes. The Americans of 1881 could, in Hancock's view, be every bit as competent and personally excellent as the Americans of 1781.

The same cultural conflict which led to the founding of the NRA continues today. On one side are pessimists who insist that modern Americans are too clumsy and hot-tempered to be trusted with guns. On the NRA side are people who believe that the virtues and skills of the Founding generation can and must be emulated by Americans of every generation.

The best biographies acknowledge a subject's foibles. Hancock's biographers, however, did not tell us what his faults were. His wife of 36 years, Almira, did not reveal his faults, and she destroyed many of his personal letters. His political rivals could find little more to complain about than his stubborn honesty and integrity.

General William T. Sherman told an interviewer, "if you will sit down and write the best that can be put in the English language of General Hancock as a soldier and as a gentleman, I will sign it without hesitation." When Winfield Scott Hancock passed away in 1886, former President Hayes said succinctly, "he was through and through pure gold."

— Dave Kopel is research director at the Independence Institute. Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen are senior fellows.

Besides the previous letter I posted on this thred, here's another letter I found in the Mohawk Valley Register. It is written by Lieutenant Angel Matthewson, 1st New York Artillery:

From Our Own Correspondent

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

Headquarters, Artillery Brigade
1st Army Corps, Camp near Hagerstown, Md.
Tuesday, July 14, 1863
8 o’clock a.m.

To the Editor of the Mohawk Valley Register:

I have had not one moment’s time to write you since my letter from Emmittsburg, just before the great battles of Gettysburg. The intervening time has been fraught with the greatest events and battles in the history of the war. The battle of Gettysburg may be set down as the greatest ever fought on the American Continent. Of course you and your readers have long since had the main particulars of the battle and its results. Suffice to say, it was the most complete victory the Army of the Potomac has ever won, and the country owe the highest debt of gratitude to the noble army which has fought so bravely and suffered so much in its cause.

The first day (July 1st) the advance guard of our Corps met the enemy about a mile northwest of Gettysburg, and Major General John F. Reynolds, Commanding the Corps, was instantly killed by a Minie ball from the first volley of their skirmishers. His body was being borne from the field as Colonel Wainwright and myself were rushing to the front to post the batteries, and we bared our heads in sorrow and reverence for the brave and noble General who had fallen at the moment he was most needed. Our troops were hurried forward and thrown into line of battle, and the batteries came up at a trot and were thrown into position and the battle opened immediately. Very soon after the 11th Corps, commanded by Major General Howard, came up and immediately formed line on our right. The enemy then outnumbered us more than 5 to 1, and soon becoming aware of the really small force he was contending against, threw his forces upon our lines in masses. But time after time our troops gallantly repulsed him, and a Brigade of Brigadier General Wadsworth’s Division charged and took two entire regiments of the enemy prisoners. Our Artillery, commanded by Colonel Wainwright, and the Batteries of the 11 Corps, commanded by Major T.W. Osborn, were splendidly handled and did terrible execution. The line of battle run from northeast to southwest, in a semi-circle--the center resting on the hill near the Seminary, just outside the town. About 2 o’clock p.m., the enemy threw his forces in masses on our left and center, occupied by our Corps and after a most terrible and stubborn fight, our left was turned and compelled to give way, and the order was given to retire which was done in very good order, all circumstances considered.

Battery L, 1st New York Artillery, lost one gun in coming off the field, having all the horses on the off side shot down, and Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, lost one caisson and the body part to three more, but all the ammunition had been used out of them.

While I was posting the 5th Maine Battery near the Seminary when the rebels charged our line, a Minie ball passed through the rim of my hat, and soon after when we were falling back a shell exploded over my head and a piece passed through my hat, just grazing my cheek--two close calls for one day.

Colonel Wainwright had a ball through his pantaloons near the ankle. We fell back through the town to Cemetery Hill, where we immediately established a line of battle, under the direction of Major General Hancock, Commanding 2nd Corps. The enemy occupied the town and took our wounded prisoners, but did not feel disposed to renew the attack. The loss in our Corps was very heavy--the 3rd Division alone losing over 1700 in killed, wounded and missing. The Batteries of the Brigade lost 89 men and a 106 horses. Captain J. Reynolds, Commanding Battery L, 1st New York, was severely wounded in the head and it is thought will lose his left eye.

Lieutenant Davison, Battery B, 4th U.S., was severely wounded in the ankle, and Lieutenant Hunt, 5th Maine Battery was severely wounded in the side by a ball in the thigh. Lieutenant Stewart (Stuart) of Battery B, 4th U.S., and Lieutenant Miller of Battery B, 1st Pennsylvania, were slightly wounded by pieces of shell.

During the evening and night of the 1st inst., the 2nd, 3rd and 12th Corps arrived and were immediately placed in position--the 12th Corps occupying the extreme right and the 3rd Corps the left.--Our line of battle was in the shape of a horseshoe, of which Cemetery Hill formed the toe and center. Our Batteries were posted on the right of the hill facing the town and to the right, and the 11th Corps Batteries on the Cemetery grounds, on the left of the hill, facing the town and to the left.

General Meade arrived at 2 o’clock on the morning of the 2nd, and assumed command.

About 3 o’clock p.m., July 2nd the enemy opened a terrible fire from over 100 pieces of Artillery, on our left and center, and soon after attacked our left, in force; but our men met and repulsed them handsomely in every charge and drove them completely from the field. They then attempted to take Cemetery Hill, and charged up the hill from the right of the town, in the face of 20 pieces of our Artillery pouring canister into their ranks. A few of them succeeded in getting up the hill and inside our works, when the cannoneers of “Battery I, “ 1st New York Artillery, seized rails and knocked them down and drove them back. Thus ended the second day’s battle. Our loss in General officers was very large.

The 3rd day (July 3rd) was the most terrible of all. At 4 o’clock in the morning, the enemy commenced the attack on the right, occupied by the 12th Corps, supported by one Division of the 1st and the 6th Corps. This fight was confined entirely to the infantry, in the woods, and continued until 11 o’clock a.m. without an instant’s cessation. The firing then ceased. About 1 o’clock p.m., the rebels opened an Artillery fire on Cemetery Hill from 150 pieces of Artillery, and we replied from about the same number--and for one hour and a half ensued one of the most terrible Artillery fights that has ever taken place in the world. The air was full of shrieking, bursting shells and shot. There was no place of safety or retreat. The tombstones and iron fences in the Cemetery were smashed and broken. Guns exploded, limber chests were blown up, and gun carriages knocked into fragments.--The very demons of the infernal regions seemed let loose. Horses and men lay dead, bleeding and wounded side by side. And then came the charge of 20,000 yelling, whooping rebels; but it was a sorry charge for them for they only rushed to certain death. Our Artillery turned all their fire on them, and the infantry met them with volley after volley from a line of works a mile in length. It was the last desperate struggle of the enemy to turn our left and gain a victory; but they were met by a veteran Corps (the 2nd and 3rd) supported by the 6th, the strongest Corps in the Army. They rushed on our riflepits and were met by men who had been through many a hard fought battle and learned no fear, and they were soon put to a quick rout, the Artillery mowing them down as they fled. About 3,000 of them were taken prisoners. The prisoners said that General Lee had addressed them that morning and told them they had nothing but militia to fight against and were assured a win.

We drove them two miles and occupied the field. Shout after shout rent the air from our victorious Army, and the band struck up “Hail Columbia.” Our victory was complete! But alas, the sad details! I immediately rode over the field, and God forbid I ever should see another such sight. In places I had to ride with the utmost care to keep from trampling on the dead and wounded. The shrieks and groans of the wounded were most appalling. The very air seemed filled with misery. Victor Hugo’s pen would utterly fail to describe the scene--it was beyond portrayal. In one place I counted 7 dead men piled one on the other. Our Sergeants exerted themselves in every possible manner, and the immense Ambulance train was busy night and day taking off the wounded; but still at a late hour on the evening of the 5th, there was still between two and three hundred of the rebel wounded uncared for on the field.

The male citizens of Gettysburg acted in the most cowardly, niggardly and miserly manner. Not a man offered to take up a musket in defense of their families and their homes; not one offered his services in caring for the wounded on the battlefield. They slunk into their cellars like whipped curs and never showed their dastard faces until the enemy were miles away. Bah! Such a patriotism!--They are not fit to carry hogs’ offal to bears! As soon as they found the enemy had retreated and they were safe, the miserable, sneaking scoundrels turned their houses into sutlers’ shops and charged our soldiers the most exorbitant prices ever dreamed of by the supreme god of extortion. They charged our soldiers a dollar a loaf for bread which can be bought for ten cents in any bake shop in New York; and I paid a “good Union man” fifty cents for six little, dirty, burnt biscuits.

The enemy were in full retreat and we left Gettysburg early on the morning of the 6th in pursuit. We marched to Emmitsburg, and encamped near the town for the night. Next morning, (7th) at 4 o’clock precisely, we took up our march for Middletown, Maryland, passing through Mechanicsville and Lewistown, and at the latter place turned to the right over the Kiltoctin Mountain, by way of Hamburg. It rained all day, the roads were very heavy, and the guns tugged hard over the rough mountain road. We arrived at Hamburg, just on the top of the mountain, at dark, wet and weary and the five Batteries were crowded into a little open space not large enough to park one Battery decently; but was the best we could do, as the rain was falling in torrents. The night was pitchy dark, and the horses were unable to go down the mountain.--And there we lay down on the wet ground and spent the night on the mountain.--The friends at home can hardly conceive the privations and hardships the soldier has to undergo in a campaign like this. You may think it strange, but I saw many a poor fellow struggling up the mountain that day, with his heavy knapsack, haversack, gun and canteen, and his bare feet exposed to the sharp, cutting rocks--having worn out his shoes on the long marches. And dozens of others I saw who had sunk down by the roadside by fatigue, unable to proceed another step. But all these hardships are forgotten by the soldier as soon as he gets into camp, and he scarcely remembers them as a dream.--One good night’s rest and he is ready and willing to go through with them again, if necessary.

At daylight on the morning of the 8th, the men were turned out, the rain still falling fast, and we again resumed the march for Middletown. The distance was only 6 miles and we arrived and went into camp between 9 and 10 o’clock a.m. We were happy in anticipation of a good night’s rest, and I was just about to sit down to a good dinner at a house where we had established headquarters when the order came to move immediately towards Boonsboro. I crowded down my dinner in a half masticated state and we resumed the march. As we neared South Mountain Gap, (the old battlefield) I heard the booming of Artillery and learned that our Cavalry under Kilpatrick and Buford were having a hard fight and were being driven back towards the Gap, on the other side of the mountain. The 1st and 11th Corps marched up the pike at quick-time, side by side, and we were very soon filing through the Gap.--A Division of the 11th Corps was immediately thrown forward, and the rebels struck a hasty retreat. We occupied the mountain gap until 6 o’clock on the morning of the 10th, when we commenced the march towards Hagerstown. We only marched 5 miles, to Little Beaver Creek, where our forces were thrown into line of battle on a range of hills on the north side of the stream. The Batteries were planted, earthworks thrown up in front of them, rifle pits dug along the entire line, and everything got in readiness to resist an attack, should one be made. The 1st, 6th and 11th Corps were here while the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 12th Corps took the Williamsport Pike. About noon, our Cavalry had another fight with the enemy and drove them some distance.

We lay here until 10 o’clock on the morning of Sunday the 12th inst., when we received information that the enemy had fallen back and that our Cavalry occupied Hagerstown.

The three Corps were immediately put in motion and about 3 p.m. we again formed line of battle between Funkstown and Hagerstown, and about 3/4’s of a mile from either place. The enemy’s line of battle was just the other side of Hagerstown. Again we fortified ourselves in case of an attack and passed a quiet night. During the afternoon of the 13th (yesterday) one of the enemy’s Batteries threw three shells into our skirmish line but we made no reply.

It is said that a council of war was held yesterday morning, and that Generals Meade and Sedgwick were the only two in favor of attacking the enemy in his present position.

Williamsport, Maryland, July 14, 1863.--11:15 p.m.

I take this opportunity of finishing this letter, which was interrupted by an order to move immediately. Our skirmishers advanced over a mile this morning and could see nothing of the enemy. The Cavalry was then sent out to find his whereabouts, and Lo! they went away down here to Williamsport, six miles and found that General Lee had crossed the Potomac with his entire army, while we were asleep, and “left us in the lurch”!--I have no comments to make. We immediately marched to this place and went into camp. But Mr. Lee cannot shake off the Army of the Potomac so easy.--We shall follow him up sharp and fast and now for the chase. At present it is--”all quiet on the Potomac.” Yours truly, A. Matthewson

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