Fighting and Dying for the Colors at Gettysburg

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In 1885 the veterans of the 13th Massachusetts erected a granite monument surmounted with a likeness of Morris upon the spot where he fell on that memorable July afternoon.

The 5th Alabama was originally held in reserve but later joined in the attack on the Union forces occupying Oak Ridge. As the regiment rushed down the lane of the Moses McClean farm, it was subjected to volleys from the front and blasted by musketry and artillery fire from the left. Caught in a deadly crossfire, the men fell back after an action that lasted only about 15 minutes.

In the short but spirited encounter, Company D lost one killed, five wounded and three captured. The lone mortality devastated the tightly knit Greensboro Guards. As the attack ground to a halt, the regimental color-bearer, Private George “Tone” Nutting, shouted “Come on boys!” to encourage his faltering comrades. Shot down almost immediately, he died on the field moments later.

Corporal Samuel Pickens, who had left the field to assist a wounded comrade, received the sad news later in the day. He recorded in his diary that his friend and messmate died with the colors, and that “a nobler, more generous boy never lived. He was a great favorite & will be much missed.” A few days later a grief-stricken Lieutenant E.P. Jones wrote his sister: “Our loss was not heavy compared to what the loss was in some other companies of the regiment; but still we feel deeply and mourn much the death of poor ‘Tone.’ I know of no one in the company who would have been missed more and talked of as much as he, in fact, he was the life of the company, always in a good humor, full of fun and as brave as a lion. Every one in the company liked him, and feel that we have not only lost a brave soldier, but a friend whose place cannot be filled.”

The 1st Texas vs. the 99th Pennsylvania

By the evening of the first day, the Union forces had been driven through the streets of Gettysburg. During the night and throughout the next day, the remainder of both armies streamed into the area. The new defensive line of the Army of the Potomac stretched from the wooded Culp’s Hill, just southeast of the town, around Cemetery Hill, down the spine of Cemetery Ridge and to the base of Little Round Top. Encouraged by his success on the previous day, General Robert E. Lee planned to dislodge the Union army from its strong position. He ordered Lt. Gen. James Longstreet to strike the Federals’ left flank with his veteran First Corps and roll it up with successive attacks spreading northward. But delays hampered Longstreet, and by the time he maneuvered his troops into position, Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles had placed his two III Corps divisions directly in the path of the Confederate assault.

The vital assignment of leading Longstreet’s attack on the Union left fell to the nearly 8,000 combat veterans of Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Division. About 4:30 p.m., following a sharp artillery exchange, Hood rode along his front line before halting near his old command, the Texas Brigade. The general stood majestically in his stirrups, and gesturing east toward Little Round Top, he shouted, “Fix bayonets, my brave Texans; forward and take those heights!”

In response, Lt. Col. Phillip A. Work, commander of the 1st Texas, pointed to his unit’s flag and urged his men to “follow the Lone Star Flag to the top of the mountain!” Early in its history the regiment received the nickname the “Ragged First” because of its shabby appearance and lack of discipline. Despite that less than flattering sobriquet, the regiment knew how to fight. As Colonel Work later asserted, “The success of the Texas regiments was not due to the training of Hood or any other commander, but that they were composed of an intelligent, educated, adventurous and high-spirited people.”

Color-Sergeant George A. Branard of the 1st Texas certainly fit this description. Originally the fourth corporal of Company L, “The Lone Star Rifles,” and a member of the color-guard, Branard was promoted to color-sergeant on May 11, 1862, after bravely bearing the flag during the brigade’s first experience under fire at Eltham’s Landing along the York River.

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