Battle of Gettysburg: Major Eugene Blackford and the Fifth Alabama Sharpshooters

About 10 a.m. an officer reported to me from my left saying that he commanded the skirmishers of [Brig. Gen. Harry] Hays’ Louisiana Brig. and had been ordered to receive directions from me. I showed him where to connect with me, and left him. About an hour or more after I went over to see what he was about, and found a truly amusing scene. His quarters were in a very [nice] house, and he had selected the parlor as his own bivouac. Here one was playing the piano, which sounded sadly out of harmony with the roar of musketry. Without several men were laying around on the sofas, and the room was full of prints & engravings which the rude fellows examined, and then threw down on the floor. On the table there was have a doz. brands of wines and liquors of which all partook freely. The commanding officer thought it was very strange that I at once insisted upon his visiting his posts, and making the men fire. I ran rapidly back across the street. A Yankee fired at me, but I was behind the wall in time, the ball having struck the … post & … struck me on the knees, hurting me very much for a trice, but not by any means disabling me.

I could write a month of the nice events of this day, but must stop, only narrating my intense excitement when I saw [Maj. Gen. George] Pickett’s Division during … the charge, their waver, when almost in the works, and finally fall back. How my heart ached when I saw the fearful fire with which they were received. I could scarcely contain myself. The attack made the enemy mass more than ever, and so expose themselves to our fire more plainly. I fired 84 rounds with careful aim into their midst, one gun cooling while the other was in use. My shoulder pad became so sore that I was obliged to rest. Now and then the enemy’s gunners would turn a gun or two on us, and give us a shot, but this was too destructive of the lives of gunners, so it was soon stopped. A Yankee sharpshooter established himself in a pit in the street to which I have alluded, and keeping his gun ready cocked, fired away at any one attempting to cross at our end. Many of the men of mine, and of the adjoining battalion, amused themselves by drawing his fire, running quickly across, seeing how much behind the bullet would be which was sure to follow. At this reckless sort of sport, where a stumble or fall would have been almost certain death, they carried themselves as … children at play.

Thus the sun went down the same steady fire being kept up from my line. This evening also another tremendous cannonade occurred, the [greatest] ever known on this continent certainly, probably the greatest that ever occurred. It is a low estimate to say that 500 pieces were in action. I enjoyed its grandeur this time more than that of the day before, not being under range. At night little was done, I kept up a very vigil watch, making rounds frequently.

Towards day I was awakened by a staff officer, who told me to withdraw my men at daylight, and fall back thro’ the town to the base of the ridge in which the main line was stationed and there deploy. At dawn therefore with a heavy heart I called in the men silently, and sullenly drew slowly out of the town, returning the sour looks of the citizens with others equally as stern. The enemy did not molest us at all, tho’ I was in hope that they would, being in a savage mood. A heavy rain was falling too, and just then I remembered that it was the 4th of July, and that the villains would think more than ever of their wretched Independence Day.

Soon after we formed our new line, a battalion of Yankee skirmishers came out of the town and deployed in our front. They used the bugle, the first I had seen with them. Their signals sounded clear & [distant], thro’ the damp air. I moved against them at once, but they slowly withdrew, and evidently were but overseeing us. A squad of them however came forward and gained unobserved a small house filled with hay midway between our lines, from which they began to annoy us with their fire. Taking a few men I went forward at a run, and came up quite close before the rascals could get out of the rear. They lost no time then in scudding away to their lines, but one of my men brought one down before they reached it … I fired the hay, and soon there was a magnificent blaze.

So we went on all the day, but seeing work ahead of me, I slept most of it away, leaving the command to one of my subordinates. At nine I reported to Gen. R[odes] who directed me to assume command of the sharpshooters from each of the Brigades (4) and line our rear when the army moved, which it would begin to do at midnight. I was to keep my line until day or longer if I saw fit, and then follow keeping a half mile or more in the rear, and acting as rear guard. Accordingly by 11 p.m. the troops all disappeared on the proscribed route and I was left in sole command at Gettysburg. It was the first time I had ever commanded more than one battalion and now I had five. My only embarrassment was in not knowing the officers but this I soon remedied, and got on quite well.

At sunrise I quitted my positions, and followed the main body. I continued my route unmolested until about 12 o’clock when some cavalry appeared, but they did not molest us. At 2 p.m. so many came up that I halted and deployed. They then brought up a field piece but did not use it. Seeing that they now wished to molest us, I hit upon this plan. All the front rank men kept their round & fired away, the rear rank men meanwhile retired to some good positions in the rear. I then formed a new line leaving vacancies for those of the first. I here would seize a favorable occa-sion after the new line was formed, and retreat at a run, suddenly disappearing before the enemy. These would then come in quickly thinking our men had been routed, they would be checked by the fire of the new line, snugly posted behind trees, stone fences &c. My worry had been that when I wished to retire, the enemy would push us so that we were in danger of being broken, but by this arrangement I [avoided] all difficulties — I had read of it in [General Sir William F.P.] Napier’s Peninsular War, as being a dodge of Marshal [Nicolas Jean de Dieu] Soult.

The men towards evening became worn out for food, so seeing that we would not hear from our [commissary] for a week or more, as it had gone to the Potomac, I sent orders to the officer to take all the provisions they could find in the houses by which we passed. In one occasion, riding along at the head of my own battalion marching quickly in retreat, we passed a cottage situated some distance from the main road & not visited by stragglers — around it were countless fowls, my hungry fellows looked eloquently to me for leave, I told the bugler to sound the ‘disperse,’ and then shouted ‘one minute.’ Instantly a hundred cartridges were drawn which thrown skillfully at the heads of the fowls bringing them down by scores; these fellows were used to the work evidently, but now they knew that it was for their actual subsistence as we had nothing, and were following in the rear of a great Army, which would leave us nothing. When the ‘Assembly’ sounded two minutes afterwards, every man had one, two or more chickens slung over his gun, and the march was resumed with out delay.

This article was written by Noah Andre Trudeau and originally appeared in the July 2001 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

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