Part 22

The battle of Gettysburg (q.v.) began on the 1st of July with the defeat of the left wing of the Army of the Potomac and the death of General Reynolds. About the middle of the afternoon Hancock arrived on the field with orders from Meade to assume command and to decide whether to continue the fight there or to fall back. He decided to stay, rallied the retreating troops, and held Cemetery Hill and Ridge until the arrival of the main body of the Federal army. During the second day's battle he commanded the left centre of the Union army, and after General Sickles had been wounded, the whole of the left wing. In the third day's battle he commanded the left centre, upon which fell the full brunt of Pickett's charge, one of the most famous incidents of the war. Hancock's superb presence and power over men never shone more clearly than when, as the 150 guns of the Confederate army opened the attack he calmly rode along the front of his line to show his soldiers that he shared the dangers of the cannonade with them. His corps lost in the battle 4350 out of less than 10,000 fighting men. But it had captured twenty-seven Confederate battle flags and as many prisoners as it had men when the fighting ceased. Just as the Confederate troops reached the Union line Hancock was struck in the groin by a bullet, but continued in command until the repulse of the attack, and as he was at last borne off the field earnestly recommended Meade to make a general attack on the beaten Confederates. The wound proved a severe one, so that some six months passed before he resumed command.

In the battles of the year 1864 Hancock's part was as important and striking as in those of 1863. At the Wilderness he commanded, during the second day's fighting, half of the Union army; at Spottsylvania he had charge of the fierce and successful attack on the "salient"; at Cold Harbor his corps formed the left wing in the unsuccessful assault on the Confederate lines. In August he was promoted to brigadier-general in the regular army. In November, his old wound troubling him, he obtained a short leave of absence, expecting to return to his corps in the near future. He was, however, detailed to raise a new corps, and later was placed in charge of the "Middle Division." It was expected that he would move towards Lynchburg, as part of a combined movement against Lee's communications. But before he could take the field Richmond had fallen and Lee had surrendered. It thus happened that Hancock, who for three years had been one of the most conspicuous figures in the Army of the Po