A Simple Story Badly Told

The story of the Sixth North Carolina State Troops and the Battle of Gettysburg should be well known by the readers of this blog and there is little more that I can add. While researching the involvement of the 6th North Carolina State Troops in the Battle of Gettysburg  (way back in the in the 1990's), I came across a reference to a letter written to Governor Vance by the commander of the Sixth just a few days after the tumultuous battle. Hoping that this would add additional details to the story of the sacrifices made by our ancestors in gray, I went to the North Carolina State Archives to search this letter out. I was ecstatic when I found the actual letter, handwritten in pencil on lined stationary, by Major Tate, from the field,  nearly 135 years previously, nearly to the exact day. 

Photo of the actual letter written by Major Tate to his cousin, Governor Vance
describing the role of the 6th North Carolina State Troops in the Battle of Gettysburg 

I spent over 2 hours deciphering the neat handwriting and transcribing words and phrases from the original onto my sometimes faded photocopy. By the time I finished, I decided that there is no substitute than to share with you Major Samuel McDowell Tate’s sincere and heartfelt words "as an act of justice and in compliance with a promise to the men"

Major Samual McDowell Tate

N. C. Governor Zebulon B. Vance

Command Structure of the Sixth NC.S.T.- July 1863:

Commander : Major Samuel McDowell Tate   

Brigade       : Hoke’s Brigade (Colonel Issac E. Avery (killed)/Colonel A. C. Godwin)

                       6th NC, 21st N.C.,57th N.C.  (54th N.C. detached to escort Prisoners from Battle of Winchester)

Division       :   Early’s Division  

Corps           : Ewells Corps (Lt. General Ewell  - was  Jackson’s Corps)

Army            : Army of Northern Virginia (General Robert E. Lee)  

Location      :  Gettysburg, Pa.

Here is Samuel McDowell Tate's description of what happened to the 6th North Carolina State Troops at Gettysburg in his own words:

In Bivouack, near Hagerstown M^d

July 8, 1863.

My dear Governor,

Excuse the necessity of writing with pencil and the familiarity with which I address you; but moments are precious and while I am yet spared I must hasten to perform a sacred duty to you as the honored head of North Carolina and to her brave citizen soldiers, especially those under my command. The great reason for this is the fact that it was North Carolinians only who succeeded in entering the enemy's works at Gettysburg. That our brigade commander was slain and we have no friends who will tell of our success on the night of the 2^d July, because all but the Sixth Regiment failed.

Colonel I. E. Avery, Commanding Hokes's Brigade
Slain during the attack on East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg

Our Brigadier Genl Hoke being absent, wounded since battle Fredericksburg, 4^th May, Colonel Avery was acting in his stead. Lt Col Webb absent in V^a sick, left me in command of the 6th in this Penn^a campaign. but this, with the fear of being suspected of a desire to claim more on that account, shall not deter me from complying with a promise I have made the Regt to acquaint you as their Governor, with the truth, that history may hereafter speak truly of them.

Let me say at once, that I desire nothing and wish no notoriety; but I do want the glorious band of veterans in this Regt to be appreciated and honored at home. They are rapidly passing away, but North Carolina will have reason to point with pride to their valorous deeds.

On the 1^st July the Confed Army made a general attack on the enemy posted in front of Gettysburg. Of Early's Div, the Louisiana and Hoke's brigades were advanced to charge the enemy behind fences. It was rapidly done (& as is our usual fortune, immediately in our front it was a stone fence) the enemy driven before us thro' the town to their fortified heights behind. In this charge we lost a number of gallant officers & men, more than the bal. of the brigade and captured a battery near the fence. This battery will be credited to Early's division--SEE if it don't. The V^a and Geo brigades were held in reserve. Next day, 2^d we were ordered (La & N. C. brigades) to charge the heights. Now, it is proper to state that there are a series of heights there upon which the enemy had been driven from all around. Longstreet charged on the south face & was repulsed; A. P. Hill charged on the west face & was repulsed and Our two brigades were, late in the evening, ordered to charge the north front & after a struggle such as this war has furnished no parallel, 75 North Carolinians of the 6^th Regt and 12 Louisianians of Hays' brigade scaled the walls and planted the colors of the 6^th N. C. and 9^thLa on the guns. It was now fully dark. The enemy stood with a tenacity never before displayed by them, and with bayonet, clubbed musket, sword & pistol and rocks from the wall, we cleared the heights and silenced the guns.

"Night Assault" on East Cemetery Hill by artist Dale Gallon

In vain did I send to the rear for support. It was manifest that I could not hold the place without aid, for the enemy were massed in all the ravines and adjoining heights, and we were then fully half a mile from our lines. Finding the enemy were moving up a line I ordered the small band of heroes to fall back from the crest to a stone wall on the side of the hill where we awaited their coming. Soon they came over the hill in pursuit when again we opened fire on them and cleared the hill a second time. Very soon I found they were very numerous in the flats in my rear and now became the question of surrender or an effort to retreat. There was a calm and determined resolve never to surrender (one of our N. C. regts had done so the day before) and under cover of the darkness I ordered the men to break and to risk the fire. We did so and lost not a man in getting out.

On arriving at our lines I demanded to know why we had not been supported and was coolly told that it was not known that we were in the works.

I have no doubt that the Maj Gen^l will report the attack of the works by Hoke's and Hays' brigades which could not be taken. Such monstrous injustice and depreciation of our efforts is calculated to be of serious injury and then always to divide the honors due us among all our division is a liberality which is only shown in certain cases.

Of course the reports are not written out but I know the disposition so well that I look for no special mention of our regiment, while it is the only one in the A. N. V. which did go in and silence the guns on the heights and what is more if a support of a brigade had been sent up to us the slaughter of A. P. Hill's corps would have been saved on the day following.

I still have 300 men. Col Avery, a gallant officer, fell in front on the heights, mortally wounded. He died thirty hours afterward.

This hasty scrawl I write to you as an act of justice and in compliance with a promise to the men, before I pass off, if fall I must. We will have an engagement here or nearer the river in a day or less- perhaps. This regiment has had a reputation you know, and I fear no harm can come to it while any are left but it is due to the noble dead, as well as the living, that these men be noticed in some way. I assure you it is no sensation or fancy picture. Such a fight as they made in front & in the fortifications has never been equaled. Inside the works the enemy were left lying in great heaps- and most all with bayonet wounds and many with skulls broken with the breeches of our guns. We left not a living man on the hill of our enemy. I write this now, for fear I will not live to write at leisure hereafter. With your sense of propriety, I need not say more than that this cannot be exactly an official document, for it has no form- nor beginning nor ending, but is a simple story badly told.

All we ask is, don't let old North Carolina be derided while her sons do all the fighting--

Love to Cousin Harriet & believe me to be

Your ob^t servant,

SAM^L. McD. TATE,

Major, Commanding 6th N. C.

All my company officers are good ones, but there are alas many vacancies; how are they to be filled. By election? or appointment?

Aftermath

Tate talks about having 300 men left. Some records indicate he had nearly 472 at the start of the campaign. If so, his regiment suffered a 37% casualty rate, meaning about one out of every three men was wounded (131), killed (20), or missing (21).  . While not nearly as high as the 26th N.C., there were a lot of empty seats around the campfire as a result of this battle. 

According to the Official Records these were the causualties for the Sixth: 

	Killed		Wounded		Missing
Date	Officers	Enlisted	Officers	Enlisted	Officers	Enlisted	Agregate	Officers killed
July 1	1	12	5	66	....	....	84	Capt. J. H. Burns
July 2	1	6	2	58	1	20	88	Lieut. A. J. Cheek.
Total	2	18	7	124	1	20	172

Samual McDowell Tate visiting Gettysburg in late 1890's