THE FIRST DAY Chapter Nineteen

I believe of the two people with the clearest idea of what was happening at Gettysburg, one was Brigadier General John Buford. Elements of his cavalry division - 3,000 troopers and a single battery of 6, 3-inch rifled cannon - was blocking the advance into Gettysburg of Henry Heth's division of 7,000 infantry and 15 cannon, and was about to be outflanked by the converging Rhodes division of almost 7,000 rebel infantry and 16 cannon coming down from Carlisle, and Early's division approaching from York with another 5,400 rebel infantrymen and 16 cannon – almost 20,000 men and 47 cannon about to crush Buford's tiny command.

At 10:30p.m. on Tuesday, 30 June, 1863 Buford (above) sent his cold and emotionless appraisal of the situation to three men - General Pleasanton, commander of the Federal Cavalry Corps and Buford's boss, and General Meade, newly named commander of the entire army. But the first recipient was the most important - commander of the only troops close enough the help Buford's men, commander of the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac - 11,000 men and 28 cannon – and the other person who fully comprehended the strategic and tactical situation in Gettysburg at that moment - Major General John Fulton Reynolds.

His older brother had gone into the navy, and risen to captain. John Reynolds (above) had become a soldier, enduring the lonely life serving on the western frontier, negotiating and fighting the native peoples of the Great Plains and in the 1859 part of the almost war with Britain over an island between Canada and Washington Territory. His devotion to the Union was unquestioned. His bravery undoubted. His mind sharp and clear. His subtly not present. 

General Reynolds had spent the last part of that brief night between June and July of 1863, 5 miles north of Emmitsburg,Maryland, wrapped in a blanket and sleeping on the floor of the empty Mortiz tavern (above) on Marsh Creek, about 7 miles south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It is amazing how little sleep the officers on both sides of any war get while on campaign, which may explain many of the mistakes and oversights that cost so many lives. On this night, after receiving Buford's message, and moving closer to Gettysburg, Reynolds was awakened again at 4:00a.m. by his aide Major William Riddle.

Riddle had to read the day's marching orders from General Meade several times while the sleep deprived Reynolds tried to process them. He was in charge of the left wing of the army, and there was little doubt in any one's mind that his was the force that was going to contact Robert E. Lee's rebels first. Buford’s late night missive made it clear to Reynolds, that this would be the day. Three hours later  Reynolds effective second in command, Brigadier General Abner Doubleday, would arrive for his instructions. While they were talking, the first shot would be fired from Herr Ridge, opening the battle. And at about 8:00a.m. Reynolds and his staff would mount up and head for Gettysburg.

Awakening that morning just 6 miles south of Gettysburg were the 3,800 men of the 1^st division, commanded by “the richest brigadier in this army”, 55 year old white haired politician and philanthropist, James Samuel Wadsworth (above) of  New York. His men loved the hesitant Republican, and during the march to Gettysburg, Wadsworth was reputed to have commandeered shoes off the feet of cheering civilians, to replace the worn out souls of his men. Unlike Heth, Wadsworth had his strength in front, the 1,800 men of the famous Iron Brigade, under Brigadier General Solomon Meredith.

The Iron Brigade was composed of five western regiments - the 2^nd , 6^th and 7^th Wisconsin, the 19^th Indiana and the 24^th Michigan - which had fought as a unit in every major battle since Bull Run. Under their second commander, General John Gibbon, the brigade had converted their dress broad brimmed soft black hats into their standard dress. Gibbon had also given them their legendary discipline. One private remembered, “There were early morning drills, before breakfast drills, forenoon drills, afternoon drills, evening and night drills...” Another soldier observed that “Probably no brigade commander was more cordially hated by his men.” 

But witnessing Gibbon's troops under fire at the 1862 battle of South Mountain, first commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George McClellan, had said, “They must be made of iron.” The label stuck, but it cost. After 2 years of war, of the 1,000 men who had joined the 2^nd Wisconsin volunteer regiment in 1861, by 1 July 1863, there were only 300 men left.

Meredith's brigade was followed by the 2,000 members of the 2^nd Brigade – the 7^th Indiana, the 56^th Pennsylvania, and the 76^th, 84^th, 95^th and 147^th New York regiments - under 56 year old Hoosier Brigadier General Lysander Cutler (above). He was a real self made man. Born in North Carolina, Cutler had walked to Indiana and climbed from store clerk to State Representative. He was maybe the poorest officer in the army. They were on the road by 6;00a.m. that morning, and would be in Gettysburg in about 3 hours.

Leaving after his infantry, Reynolds quickly outdistanced them, riding to the sound of the guns, through waves of refugees. Shortly after 9:30a.m. he reached the Lutheran Seminary (above)  and greeted Buford with the question, “What's the matter, John?” Buford replied, “The devil's to pay.” 

The 2 men talked in the cool mist for a few moments, before General Reynolds' sent a messenger back to General Wentworth. His division was advance at the double-quick and relieve the cavalrymen on McPherson's Ridge, west of Gettysburg. 

Reynolds also sent a messenger to General Howard in Emmitsburg, telling him to bring the Eleventh Corps forward to Gettysburg at once. A message was also sent to General Sickles, ordering the Third Corps to move to Gettysburg via Emmitsburg. A fourth message went back to General Meade, saying, “...we will hold the heights to the south of the town, and...I will barricade the streets...if necessary.”

Reynolds was not protecting Seminary Ridge, nor even the town of Gettysburg itself, but the high ground south of the town, Cemetery Ridge, Culps Hill and the Round Tops, Big and Little (below). He and Buford had drawn their defense of that McPearson's Ridge four miles to their front, intending on trading space for time, and delaying the rebel army. 

Had Lee been at the front, he would have seen the strategy for what it was, and probably broken contact and withdrawn back to the Cashtown Gap.  But Lee was 10 miles back, just reaching Cashtown by mid-day. While Reynolds was at the the front, and clearly the strategic superior of Henry Heth.

Marching at the double -quick across McPherson's ridge, the 2nd Wisconsin did not have time to load their muskets before Reynolds himself threw them into the 5 acre stand of trees known as Herbst's Woods. This stand topped the crest of the ridge, protecting the advancing regiments of Archer's 1,200 men as they came to the crest. Reynolds was determined they must not win that crest – at lest not yet. They rebels had to be thrown back, or not enough of the Federal army would have time to arrive to hold the round tops.

Under Reynolds orders, the Wisconsin boys fixed their bayonets at the run. Reynolds urged them into the stand of trees adjacent to a field of corn, shouting, “Forward men! Forward for God’s sake, and drive those fellows out of those woods!” Seeing the Federals approaching through the trees, Archer halted his 1,200 rebels and unleashed a murderous volley of musket fire. A third of the 2^nd Wisconsin regiment went down, dead and wounded. Every man in the color guard was out of action. But the remaining 200 men showed their iron, pressing forward. One of the rebels about to receive the fierce charge supposedly remarked, “Those are those damned black hat fellows again. Tain't no militia. That's Army of the Potomac!” Archer's men then continued their own charge, and the Tennessee and Alabama rebels engulfed the outnumbered Wisconsin boys. But as they did, without intending to, they turned their own flanks, to swallow the Yankees in a sea of gray and butternut brown.

Just as this catastrophe was occurring for the Federals, Generals Doubleday and Williams led the rest of the Iron Brigade in a more organized charge, and the fresh Federal troops fell upon the rear of Archer's turned flanks. In the shock and noise and violence, Archer's brigade was broken, smashed, its individuals falling back across Willoughby Run. 

In the assault, 200 rebels found themselves surrounded in a group of willows on the west bank of the creek, and were taken prisoner – including the “Little Game Cock” who had tried to warn Henry Heth of the dangers of such an assault - General James Archer (above). As he was being led to the rear, General Doubleday saw his old army comrade and greeted him, “Good morning, Archer. How are you? I'm glad to see you, Archer.” To which the bitter Archer replied, “Well, I'm not glad to see you, by a damn sight.”

At that moment, adrenaline rushing through his blood, Doubleday was unaware of the catastrophe which had just befallen the Federal Army. In that volley let loose from Archer's brigade against the 2^nd Wisconsin, General Reynolds and several members of his staff had also been hit.  Reynolds slumped in the saddle. 

Suddenly free from the pressure control of its rider, and perhaps hit itself, the General's horse trotted out of the line of attack, bearing Major-General John Fulton Reynolds a few yards into an open stand of trees (above, left). There, his surviving staff gathered the reins, calmed the horse and lowered their commander to the ground. They loosened his uniform, looking for the wound. By the time they found it, he was dead.

This was no sharpshooters work. A single Minnie ball had entered behind Reynolds right ear, and burrowed its way through his brain. He was effectively dead before the horse could be stopped. 

What killed John Reynolds was a random shot, a death by the anarchy, the unmitigated insanity of combat. It may even have been fired from a union musket. Like all war, this single shot had no meaning in and of itself. It was given meaning afterward to satisfy the humans who had to live with the consequences of their arrogance and stupidity. 

One of his aides, Major Joseph Rosengarten, tried to understand the grief a decade and a half later. “...Reynolds, in the full flush of life and health," marveled Rosengarten,  "....a glorious picture of the best type of military leader, superbly mounted, and horse and man sharing in the excitement of the shock of battle.”

They carried his body off the field and into the town, leaving him in a house while the battle continued around it. That night they crept into the no man's land of Gettysburg to retrieve his cold corpse, and sent it home to his family. His sisters would bury him in their home town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on 4 July. I prefer to think of John Fulton Reynolds' sacrifice as a monument to the courage and the stupidity of the entire war. And every monument to every war in the all of human history, including the battle of Gettysburg, and that memorial, and all memorial to the heroes and victims of every war, should all bear the same inscription: "What A Waste."

- 30 -

THE GREATEST SPECTACLE

I know you think that 200 laps after the clinking, clanking cacophony of 40 iron behemoths, 5 to a row, roared under the red start flag of the first Indianapolis 500, Ray Harroun flew across the finish line first (above), collected his $12,000 check and became the most famous race car driver of all time, the wellspring from whom three quarters of a billion tourist dollars flow into Indiana every year. But the real winner of that first race was the promotional manic-depressive who had designed and built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. However Carl Fisher was held in such disapproval by the straight laced devout denizens of Indiana, that more than a century later they still hold their noses when singing his praises.

Carl Fisher's first wife, Jane, (he lost most Hoosier Catholics, right there) described living with Carl as “a circus. There was something going on,” she said, “something exciting going on, every minute of the day. Sometimes it was very good. Sometimes it was very bad.” His friends called him “Crip”, short for cripple because the 6^th grade drop out kept falling off his bicycle. 

Carl owned the best bicycle shop in Indiana, and was half owner of the “Prest-O-Lite” company, making headlamps for those huge, loud, clumsy, leaky, foul smelling cloud generating contraptions that had a tendency to break down, fall over, catch fire, or just turn into a one ton paper weight in the middle of the road.

As the first 500 began a huge cheer rose from the 40,000 spectators when “Happy” Johnny Aitken, drove his dark blue “National” into the lead at the first turn. Both driver and car were local productions. 

But one lap later Aitkens was passed by a “Richie Rich” racer, silk shirt wearing 21 year old Spencer Wishart (above).

Spencer was driving his personal $62,000 “Silver Arrow” Mercedes (it was actually gray. Above). It would be a triple play newspaper year for the “charismatic” Spencer. In January his millionaire father George would be on the front page, indicted for stock fraud in Canada. All spring and summer Spencer was in the sports pages as a contender in auto races. And just after the Indy 500, he would announce his engagement on the society pages.

The 41 year old Carl Fisher and his four partners had spent $250,000 building the 2 ½ mile dirt oval Speedway. The first weekend of racing in August of 1909, produced a “Roman holiday of destruction” that killed five people, two of them paying customers. Rail birds labeled the track “Fisher's Folly”, and the Detroit News observed, “The blood of the Indianapolis Speedway has probably rung the death knell on track racing in the United States.” “No good”, an Ohio paper sermonized, “can come from making a mile in 40 seconds.” 

 But auto maker and Fisher friend Howard Marmon (above) argued in a letter to the newspapers, “It was not the track or the drivers who were not ready, but the majority of the cars.” 

Except,  Carl and his partners then spent another $180,000 resurfacing the track with 3,200,000 bricks. The dozen races held during 1910 at the Speedway were safer, but ticket sales plummeted as the track's novelty wore off.  Carl decided to gamble everything on a single 500 mile race on Tuesday, 30 May, 1911 - Memorial Day.

Thirteen laps into the first race, as 27 year old millionaire “man about town” driver Arthur Greiner and his 24 year old riding mechanic Sam Dickson (above), were approaching turn three at the north end of the backstretch, a balloon tire blew on their Number 44 “Amplex” car. The wooden rim skidded on the bricks, throwing the big machine hard left, into the infield. Hitting a drainage ditch, the race car slammed to a stop and for a second stood vertically on its square radiator, the tail lifted high into the air. 

 

Since none of the drivers or mechanics were restrained in any way, Greiner flew out of the cockpit “like a shucked oyster”, taking the steering wheel with him. He claimed later, “I was perfectly conscious when we whirled through the air,” except he was the only one flying. According to the Indianapolis News, Greiner landed 25 feet away, with a fractured skull and a broken arm. Mechanic Sam Dickson (above) stayed in the car, uninjured...until, after teetering for a second or two, the car fell forward, driving Sam into the ground head first, “like a tent peg”.  He died instantly

The $50,000 prize money for the first Indy 500 attracted auto makers from all over. There were two cars in the field built by the Case Threshing Machine Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Springfield, Massachusetts sent one car from Harry Knox's factory, and two “Pope-Hartford” cars driven to the Speedway from Colonel Pope's factory. Indianapolis sent a 2 car team from the “National Motor Company” and 2  “Marmon Wasp”s,  a single seater and the other a standard two seat version,  and a “Stutz” from the Ideal Motor Company.

 There was also a pair of “Interstate” cars, manufactured in Muncie, a pair of smoke emitting 2 stroke “Amplex” cars from Mishawaka, Indiana, and a Westcott car built in Richmond, Indiana.  Detroit sent 2 “Buick” racers - one driven by Arthur Chevrolet – and 2 cars from Harry “Loizer”'s new factory.  Columbus, Ohio provided a “Firestone”,  driven by Eddie Rickenbacker.  Germany backed a “Benz” team and a “Mercedes” team. 

And Italy sent “The Beast of Turn”, a Fiat s76 (above), built to capture the land speed record and weighing in at 3,600 pounds.  All cars were required to carry a driver and a riding mechanic  to watch the oil gauge, tire wear and overtaking traffic.  However one team was an allowed an exception to the rules.

During the race the flimsy balloon tires were blowing all over the place. It took anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes to change a tire, depending on the design and the skill of the pit crew. The skills of the scoring judges was even diceyer. Popular sports columnist Crittenden Marriot noted, “The workers at the great score boards...keep very bad tally on the laps.” At about lap 30 the timing wire across the front straight broke (above-right) . It was fixed but kept breaking. Said the New York Times, “It was acknowledged that the timing device was out of repair...for an hour during the race.” 

The positions of the remaining 39 cars was now determined by the 100 local nabobs named as judges. Most saw their appointments as free tickets, and showed little dedication. The manual chalk scoring boards around the track quickly diverged from each other and reality. “Motor Age” magazine was downright disgusted, saying, “There are too many cars on the track. The spectator could not follow the race.” They added the race had become a mere spectacle. Ignoring the insult, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took to calling it's race “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” .

About the only person who seemed to know what was going on was 29 year old Ray “The Little Professor” Harroun, designer, builder and driver of the number 32, “Marmon Wasp”. Ray was a mechanical engineer by trade and temperament, in fact the primary engineer for the Marmon Motor Company and perhaps the greatest innovator in the auto industry before Henry Ford. 

Enticed back into the driver's seat by a large paycheck and a hectoring Howard Marmon, his boss, Ray recognized he did not have the fastest car, but determined to save time by saving his tires with a steady 75 miles per hour.  He carried no riding mechanic, instead borrowing an innovation used in urban horse drawn wagons – a rear view mirror (above).  Pit row denizens called it his “dumb mechanic”, but Carl Fisher allowed it over numerous protests. Marmon. after all, had defended him. 

As the race approached the midway point, (100 laps, 250 miles, 3 ½ hours) Ray had climbed up to 7^th place on some scoring boards, third on others and 10^th on a few. Then at lap 150 (approximately) he handed the yellow Wasp to his 25 year old relief driver, Cyrus Patschke (above). And Patschke hit the throttle. Said the Wasp's chief mechanic, Harry "Billy" Goetz,  “Ray paced around the pit area muttering to himself, watching every move the Wasp made.” 

Some time around lap 170 a suspension member on the Number 8 Case car, driven by 28 year old Austrian immigrant Joe Jagersberger, snapped. Somehow Jagersberger kept the car under control, but at 80 miles an hour it violently wobbled down the main stretch. Mechanic Charlie Anderson either “fell or perhaps jumped in panic” to the pavement, where his own rear wheel ran over him. Charlie started to get up when he saw another car coming at him and did the smart thing – he stayed put. 

According to the Indianapolis News, “Harry Knight (above- the number 7 car)...to avoid striking the prostrate (mechanic) skidded sideways at great speed” Knight slammed broadside into two cars being serviced at the end of pit row - which had no barrier separating it from the track. . “That several people were not killed was a mystery to the great crowd in the grand stands” said the News.

The stands in this case were the judges' stands, and almost all 100 of the spectator/jurists dropped everything they were supposed to be doing (scoring) and raced to the wreck to gawk, rubberneck and get a better view, offer useless advice, or (a few) to actually help. By the most generous judgment of the New York Times, “no one was keeping track of the timing and running order for at least (another) ten minutes.”

There seems to be general agreement that Ralph Mulford (above) was first to take the green flag, indicating a finished race. The Loizer team signaled Mulford to take an extra “insurance” lap, just in case the judges had miscounted. They had. Probably. But just which way and by how much it is impossible to say. After his insurance lap, when Mulford's Lozier tried to pull into victory circle, they found it was occupied by the Number 32, Marmon Wasp, of Ray Harroun.

The Speedway quashed all debate by immediately by declaring that Ray Harroun had won the first Indianapolis 500, while all other positions would be “under scrutiny” until morning. In the victory circle where speedway officials had directed him to park, the stoic "Little Professor" would say only“I’m tired—may I have some water, and perhaps a sandwich, please?” Then when reporters continued to shout questions at the engineer, he rasped, "It's too long a distance. It should not be repeated. This is my last race. It is too dangerous. That was the worst race I was ever in, see? Gimme something to eat.” Then he climbed out of his Wasp and wisely refused to discuss any details of the scoring until his death in 1968. His official time to cover the 500 miles was declared to be 6 hours and 46 minutes and 46 seconds. It was as good a number as any other.

Carl Fisher (above)  spent most of the 1920's promoting and building Miami Beach. He sold the Speedway to Eddie Rickenbacker in 1927. Then in October of 1929 Carl lost his fortune in the stock market crash. After decades of alcoholism, he died in Miami of a gastric hemorrhage, in July of 1939.

Ralph Mulford, was the national driving champion in 1911. He competed in the Indy 500 a total of 10 times, and never won. In fact, he never claimed to have won. At the age of 85, he eulogized the man who was awarded the race he likely won. "Mr. Harroun was a fine gentleman,”  said Ralph, “a champion driver and a very great development engineer, and I wouldn't want him to suffer any embarrassment.” Ralph pointed out that each year the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, “...send me something as a remembrance and to let me know I have not been forgotten." Ralph died in 1973.

The forgotten man of the first 500 was Cyrus Patschke (above), who “put the sting in the Wasp”   It was Cyrus who put the Number 32 in the lead. But after 7 years as one of the best “relief” drivers in America, with 3 wins, 1 second place finish and 2 thirds, he retired in 1915, to open a auto repair shop at 10^th and Cumberland streets in his home town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, half way between Harrisburg and Reading. In 1948, a young driver stopped him coming out of a diner in Lebanon, and asked, “Say, didn't you used to be Cy Patschke?” Cy grinned and replied, “I used to be Cy Patschke, son. I used to be.” He died of a heart attack on 6 May, 1951.

Silent Film of First Indy 500

- 30 -