July 1st. Union General John Buford at Gettysburg

John Buford knew good ground when he saw it, and there was no ground this good for miles around. It must be held. Two great armies searched for each other across upper Maryland and lower Pennsylvania and whichever one held these hills south and east of Gettysburg would make the other pay in blood. So, on the evening of June 30th, 1863, Buford came to a decision. He and his two brigades of Cavalry – 3000 troopers – had to secure them and hold them until the rest of the Union Army could arrive. He told his unit commanders:

“They will attack you in the morning and they will come booming – skirmishers three deep. You will have to fight like the devil until supports arrive.”

Buford had a good plan. And he had good troops and excellent equipment with which to execute it. He planned a defense in depth covering the approaches north and west of town. There was a series of low ridges west of town — Herr Ridge, McPherson Ridge, Seminary Ridge. They marched away to the west like shallow waves on a grassy sea. Somewhere out there … close …. was the Confederate Army. A P Hill’s Corps. Earlier in the day, Buford’s and Hill’s forward units had got close enough to see each other on the Chambersburg Pike west of town. Hill’s boys had retired without a fight. But they’d be back. And there was no question the Rebs knew that Union Cavalry was in the town.

They might be cavalry, but Buford employed them as light infantry. He was not your typical Civil War cavalry commander. Before the war he had cut his teeth fighting Indians on the frontier. The experience had rewired his thinking about how cavalry ought to be used. He had watched mounted charges dissolve into chaos when the enemy simply declined to cooperate … ducking behind a log or a rock and shooting the charging horseman out of the saddle before he got close enough to use his saber. Buford drew the obvious conclusion. He took the sabers away. He believed the horses’ job was to get you to the fight fast … and to get you out even faster if you got into trouble. Once you were there, you dismounted, sent every fourth man to the rear with the horses, and fought on foot from cover. It was not a popular idea among the more romantically inclined officers of the Army of the Potomac. But it worked.

Buford's plan was elegant in its simplicity. Buford pushed some of his troopers as far out west as he dared …to Herr Ridge, nearly three miles from town. Behind them, he constructed consecutive layers of defense along those low ridges, each one a bit thicker as they got closer to town. That way, as his forward positions were forced to retreat, they’d fall back on a stronger line. And the rebels would face increasing strength as they came forward. Buford knew they couldn’t be stopped. Not entirely. The idea was to slow them down. Trade ground for time. Buy enough precious time to allow the heavy columns of Union infantry somewhere to the south to arrive and take possession of those lovely hills.

The cavalrymen were tired but confident. The two brigades Buford had to work with were solid. Colonel William Gamble commanded the 1st Brigade — Illinois, Indiana, and New York troopers, veterans all. Colonel Thomas Devin held the 2nd Brigade — New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia regiments, reliable and steady. And they punched above their weight. They were armed with a variety of breech-loading carbines – Sharps, Burnsides, and Merrills. State of the art. These weapons could be fired five to eight times a minute from a prone position, compared to two or three rounds per minute from the Confederate infantry's muzzle-loaders. There is a popular and persistent notion that they had repeating rifles. However, the records of the Ordinance Department show that’s not the case. But the breechloaders were plenty quick-firing enough. There was a six-gun battery of horse artillery as well. They’d need everything they had.

The morning of July 1st began just as planned. Harry Heth’s Division of AP Hill’s corps came swinging down the Chambersburg Pike at around 6 AM. They thought they’d find some blue militia and some oddments of cavalry. Nothing of any particular concern. They figured to brush aside whatever there was. It was not to be. After a few long-range shots that hit nothing, the Union pickets finally opened a deliberate fire. That brought Heth up short. The fire was too disciplined to be militia. He had to shake his forward brigades - Archer's and Davis's - out of column on the road and into line of battle in fields on either side … Archer's Brigade south of the road, Joseph Davis's Brigade to the north. It wasn’t well done and consumed the better part of two hours. Buford couldn’t be happier. But he’d surprised Heth once. He knew he wouldn’t be so lucky again. He sent couriers south with messages telling the infantry to hurry.

This time Heth’s troops were serious. The southerners drove Buford’s pickets back to McPherson Ridge. But there, it was a grinding, 45-minute struggle before they forced them back yet again. This was the last line. Seminary Ridge. The town was directly behind them.

The Confederates regrouped and came on again. For over an hour the fighting surged back and forth. Buford was desperate. His lines were thinning steadily and ammunition was low. He climbed into the cupola of a cupola of the Lutheran Theological Seminary — the tallest structure on the ridge — and raised his field glasses to the southeast. There, leaving the Emmitsburg Road and coming across country to the sound of the guns was the leading brigade of John Reynolds’ corps. Even at a distance, Buford could see the distinctive black hats of the Wisconsin Iron Brigade. Wisconsin. Indiana. Michigan. Some of the best infantry in the Army of the Potomac.

Buford had held.

Reynolds arrived minutes later, riding ahead of his corps. He met Buford briefly. There is no record of their conversation. Reynolds immediately committed his infantry to the fight … the regiments deployed as they came up. But Reynolds was dead within the hour, shot behind the right ear while directing the deployment of the Iron Brigade into McPherson's Woods. Major General Abner Doubleday assumed command. But the whole Union Army was now streaming north toward Gettysburg.

It was still a brutally long day. The Union infantry northwest of town was eventually overwhelmed — two Confederate corps pressing from the west and north proved too much — and the Federals were driven back through the streets of Gettysburg in considerable disorder. But they rallied on Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill. Buford's hills. The high ground he had identified the evening before and held through three hours of fighting against long odds.

And for the next two days, the Confederate Army broke itself trying to take them.

Buford never got to see his accomplishment properly recognized. He contracted typhoid in the autumn campaign and died on December 16th, 1863 — six months after his finest hour. He was promoted to Major General on his deathbed, the promotion backdated to July 1st, 1863.