GDG- "Down this way, boys"

[Dennis Lawrence]

 From the archives of the GDG


JOHN BUFORD AND THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN
by
  Eric Wittenberg http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Buford/wittidx.html#Index

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At 11a.m., on the last day of June, Buford's exhausted troopers clattered 
into Gettysburg, and the general established headquarters in Tate's Blue 
Eagle Hotel, west of the square. Buford had expected to find Copeland's 
cavalry in possession of the town, and was surprised to find the town 
unoccupied."115 The town was in "a terrible state of excitement." Buford 
reported that he had sent scouting parties toward Cashtown, Chambersburg, 
Littlestown, and Mummasburg to locate the Confederates, and that, "My men 
and horses are fagged out. I have not been able to get any grain yet. It is 
all in the country, and the people talk instead of working. Facilities for 
shoeing are nothing. Early's people seized every shoe and nail they could 
find."116

The presence of Union cavalry in the Gettysburg area did not go unnoticed 
by approaching Confederates. One of Buford's scouts on the road to Oxford, 
Pennsylvania, captured a dispatch from Early to one of his colonels, 
requesting the addressee to investigate reports of the appearance of Union 
cavalry between Gettysburg and Heidlersburg. Buford found time to endorse 
the dispatch and pass it on to Reynolds before reconnoitering the town and 
environs. 117

Gettysburg lies in an area of foothills leading to South Mountain, west of 
town. The area consists of a series of parallel ridges, undulating across 
the surrounding countryside. Evergreen Cemetery sits on a commanding 
elevation south of town. A half mile east lies a steep, densely wooded 
eminence, Culp's Hill, which connects with Cemetery Hill just east of town. 
Cemetery Hill also anchors a north-south ridge of high ground known as 
Cemetery Ridge, ending approximately three miles south of town with the 
twin hills called Big Round Top and Little Round Top. Big Round Top is the 
highest point in the area, but was densely wooded, and had little strategic 
value as a result. The west face of Little Round Tap, on the other hand, 
had recently been cleared, and provided a commanding artillery platform 
which had fields of fire to the west and to the north.

Buford, with his trained eye, recognized the strategic significance of the 
high ground to the south of the town, and decided that it offered a 
defensible position for the Army of the Potomac.118 Under orders to hold 
the town at all costs, Buford decided to defend the high ground by 
conducting a defense in depth to the north and west of the town until 
Reynolds's infantry, eight miles away in Emmitsburg, could arrive to assume 
positions south of Gettysburg. Buford reconnoitered the area to the north 
and west of the town and found it to his liking. It consisted of a series 
of ridges extending west toward Chambersburg, along the Chambersburg Pike. 
Near the Blue Eagle Hotel was the Lutheran Seminary, atop a commanding 
ridge known as Seminary Ridge. Several hundred yards to the west lay the 
twin rises of the two branches of McPherson's Ridge, capped at the north 
end by the heavily wooded Oak Hill. Buford decided to extend his positions 
to the west of McPherson's Ridge, in order to provide a defense in depth, 
to buy time for the approach of Reynolds' command should the Confederate's 
approach the town. Buford had chosen his battleground.

http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Buford/wittidx.html#Index