Intensity of Battle

New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield defended this sector of Porter’s line. During the early afternoon, the greatest threat to these men was the falling limbs severed by the hundreds of artillery shells that screeched overhead. Late in the evening Confederate infantry appeared at the opposite crest of the hill. Butterfield’s men met them with a blaze of musketry fire that staggered the front ranks and wounded Brig. Gen. George E. Pickett. The Southern pause was only momentary. Soon the advancing Confederates nearly wrapped around Butterfield’s position, and his thinking changed from defense to survival. For his determined efforts to rally the retreating Union soldiers, General Butterfield was awarded the Medal of Honor. In a few days he would arrange the haunting music of “Taps.”

Virginia · United States