The Destiny of Men
The Road to Gettysburg
by
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“Fix bayonets!” The five Louisiana regiments, some 1200 men strong, affixed their bayonets in unison. Officers drew their swords and held them at attention. Everyone waited for the command. Hearts pounded within their chests like hammers on an anvil. This was it! Breaths were short and rapid, men perspired, some rather profusely as they waited.
The sun was setting across the Pennsylvania countryside. It was twilight; visibility would be limited at best and only for a brief few minutes. The battle flags were unfurled and moved to the front. General Hays and Colonel Avery sat on horseback looking toward General Early waiting for the signal to advance. Early rode over to Hays who had been given overall command of both brigades. The two exchanged pleasantries, shook hands and with a salute, Hays returned to the line, dismounted and watched as Avery rode to his brigade. All was ready.
“Forward!” Hays bellowed the command everyone had been waiting for since sunrise. Over on the left, a solitary bugle in Avery’s brigade trumpeted the advance. Worcester, with his sword in his right hand, motioned forward as Company B stepped off. The giant serpentine line moved out. Hays’ brigade was lined up right to left, 5th, 6th, 9th, 7th, 8th Louisiana. Avery’s brigade had the 6th, 21st, and 57th North Carolina.
Immediately, Union men on the rise, whose attention had been riveted on the action at Culp’s Hill, turned to the line of men advancing in the twilight. The cry went out. “Look at those men!” Almost immediately Federal cannons roared with shot and shell at the advancing gray line.
Confederate skirmishes led the way as the battle line moved forward as one. Batteries on Cemetery Hill and the knoll between Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill found the range immediately. Screaming and hissing shells exploded over head and plowed deep ruts into the earth, sending a shower of dirt and fragments unto the advancing Confederate line. With the fading light and the lingering acrid smoke, visibility almost immediately became impossible. However, the gunners dared not cease firing to allow the smoke to clear. The Rebel attack, which started a mere 400 yards distance from the Federal works, would be upon them before they knew it.
Troup reached down into the limber chest as quickly as possible, getting the next deadly round and handing it to the runner. There was a continuous stream of runners bringing rounds to the guns. The gun crews were firing at a remarkable four rounds per minute, well beyond what the manuals called for. Under optimum circumstances, three rounds per minute would be considered excellent, but four was unheard of--except on this day.
The Confederate line climbed the intervening fences and sloshed across the ditches and marsh bogs as they moved in formation. Men began to fall at every step as the canister rounds began to take their toll. Early casualties could have been worse, but the poor visibility, due to darkness and the accumulation of smoke, had Federal gunners shooting high and over the heads of most of the advancing lines.
Officers moved along the line of Federal infantry giving orders to shoot low. The great guns, with each blast, sucked the air away from the men along the stonewall at the base of the rise. Already, a soldier had been killed by friendly fire. It occurred when one of the guns discharged its round; the lead sabot separated from the shell as it left the cannon barrel and struck one of the infantry men in the back of the head, opening his skull, killing him instantly. The Union infantry, unable to see the Confederates, were ordered to get down next to the stonewall to avoid any further accidents. As they waited there, they could hear the “Rebel Yell” rent skyward; it could only mean one thing, the attack was near. Each man clasped tightly his musket waiting for the order to fire. Each man peered into the shadows across the field for the first sign of the Rebel line.
The first the Yankee infantry saw of the Confederate infantry was Avery’s brigade situated on the Confederate left. The North Carolinians appeared to be heading straight forward as reinforcements for the attack against the base of Culp’s Hill, and were the focus of the artillery’s case shot. Suddenly, Avery’s brigade reached a cornfield midway through their advance, and made a long sweeping right wheel and the angle of its attack shifted from Culp’s to East Cemetery Hill. General Ames, seeing the threat no longer to Culp’s Hill, but instead to the Union right of East Cemetery Hill, ordered the 17th Connecticut out of its place in line at the Union center and shifted to the right, where it would reinforce the point of Tar Heel attack. Ames had not seen Hays’ brigade advancing to his left. This movement of the 17th Connecticut would soon prove to be costly to the Union defense of the hill.
Seeing the change in direction of Avery’s brigade, Ricketts ordered, “canister!” Troup jumped up onto the limber, reached into the chest and brought out two rounds of canister. He handed one to the first runner, and then immediately handed off the second to the other runner. The call for canister this early meant the situation was serious, and the rounds would need to be served up quickly.
Almost immediately after stepping off, the advancing Louisianians came to a series of fences that crisscrossed the fields of Timothy grass. The men struggled to get across them, and immediat
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About the Book
“The Destiny of Men,” is a true and moving account of the lives of two ordinary Americans at a time in America’s history, when ordinary men were called upon to do extraordinary deeds. Louis Worcester, a Northern born Southerner and William Troup a youth from Pennsylvania were just two of the many who were called to arms by the cataclysmic events of the 1860’s. The lives of these two patriots to their causes, forever changed that summer of 1861, when they began different; yet, parallel paths that would ultimately culminate on the fields of a southeastern Pennsylvania crossroads in the summer of 1863.
Troubled by the horrors of war, these two men on different sides of a national crisis were determined to do their duty in spite of the potential cost to themselves and to their families. Their destiny, as is the destiny of all men, lay in the hands of God. This they believed and in this belief they trusted. Troup and Worcester perceived the war from two different military perspectives. One an artilleryman and the other an infantryman, participated in every major battle between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, prior to the fall of 1863. Each witnessed the ultimate sacrifice made by so many for the causes they so fervently believed. Each was equally willing to make the same sacrifice if so called upon by their nation or their Almighty. “The Destiny of Men” follows Troup and Worcester from their enlistments in pre-war excitement of 1861 through the arduous first two years of the war, climaxing on the slopes of a hill outside Gettysburg.
About the Author
Keith G. Bauer, a practicing psychotherapist in the New Orleans area, first developed his love for the American Civil War as a youth growing up in the Crescent City. His interest in this sentinel event in American history grew, eventually consuming much of his time and energy. A former teacher of American history and a historian of the war, Bauer’s interests include being an avid collector of Civil War memorabilia, as well as a living historian with the 7th Louisiana, Co K. His first book entitled, “A Soldier’s Journey, the Civil War Diary of Henry C. Caldwell, Co. E, 7th Louisiana CSA” was published in 2002. His inspiration to publish, “The Destiny of Men” came from items in Bauer’s collection of artifacts, which once belonged to the two main individuals in this book, and the uniqueness of Troup and Worcester’s story.