Kilpatrick and Farnsworth’s brigade reached the area southwest of Big Round Top about 1 p.m. As the column of horsemen began shifting into position, massed Confederate batteries unleashed the cannonade on Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill that preceded the Southern infantry assault. Farnsworth deployed three of his regiments in Bushman’s woods, on the farm of George Bushman. The 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry held the left of the line, followed by the 1st West Virginia Cavalry and the 1st Vermont Cavalry. Behind the troopers, Lieutenant Samuel S. Elder’s gunners of Battery E, 4th U.S. Artillery, unlimbered their four 3-inch ordnance rifles on a small, rocky knoll. As support for the battery, Farnsworth placed the 5th New York Cavalry in a ravine.

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Union skirmishers soon dismounted and strung out along the northern edge of the woods. To their front, Confederate infantry pickets and a pair of batteries opened fire, with Elder’s crews replying with occasional rounds. The fitful exchanges lasted more than two hours while Pickett’s Charge climaxed on the bloody slope of Cemetery Ridge. Kilpatrick was content to wait for Wesley Merritt’s Reserve Brigade from Emmitsburg.

Merritt’s column had departed from the Maryland village around noon. During the march north, Merritt detached the 6th U.S. Cavalry to Fairfield, Pa., after receiving a report that a Confederate wagon train was foraging in the area. That regiment set off on its mission, and the rest of Merritt’s brigade met up with Farnsworth at about 3 o’clock. Merritt’s Regulars added more than 1,300 officers and men in four regiments and a battery to the Union cavalry congregating along the Emmitsburg Road.

When Merritt arrived at the southern end of the battlefield, he deployed his regiments in the fields on both sides of Emmitsburg Road. They pushed back some Confederate skirmishers and set up a line north of the David Currens farm. Companies of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry stretched toward the left flank of Farnsworth’s brigade in Bushman’s woods. Six 3-inch ordnance rifles of Captain William K. Graham’s Battery K, 1st U.S. Artillery, braced Merritt’s line.

The skirmishers that Merritt’s horsemen had pushed back were part of a line of infantry, artillery and cavalry that the Confederates had drawn up to oppose the Federals. When the fighting had ended on that portion of the battlefield on July 2, the division of Maj. Gen. John B. Hood held a line west of Little Round Top from Rose’s woods, along Houck’s Ridge, south through Devil’s Den to the southwestern base of Big Round Top. Hood had been wounded early in the action on July 2, and was succeeded by Brig. Gen. Evander Law. During the night, Law had shifted the Texas Brigade, consisting of the 1st, 4th and 5th Texas and the 3rd Arkansas, into position on the left of Law’s own Alabama brigade, the 4th, 15th, 44th, 47th and 48th Alabama, now under the command of Colonel James L. Sheffield of the 48th. Together, the two brigades covered the woods from the foot of Little Round Top to the base of Big Round Top.

At daybreak on July 3, Law ordered three companies of the 47th Alabama to form a skirmish line south of Bushman’s woods, covering the ground from the trees to the Emmitsburg Road. Later during the morning, 100 troopers of the 1st South Carolina Cavalry, commanded by Colonel John L. Black, and Captain James F. Hart’s Washington Light Artillery (two Blakely rifles) joined the skirmishers of the 47th Alabama, covering the fields west of the Emmitsburg Road. When Farnsworth’s Federals appeared about 1 o’clock, the Alabamians, South Carolinians and artillery crews withdrew farther north.

Law continued to reinforce his right flank in the face of the Union cavalry threat. The 1st Texas was withdrawn from Law’s main line along the base of the Round Tops and shifted westward to take up a position behind a stone wall that ran in an east-west direction from the southern end of the Bushman farm lane. They pulled rails from a nearby wooden fence, piling them on the wall to add to its height and increase their protection.

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