I Wish to God You Could, Sir

Abstract

At the Leister house, Meade’s headquarters on the morning of July 2, Meade ordered his son, Captain George Meade, to determine if Sickles’s Third Corps had taken up the position assigned to it. Sickles appeared at the Leister House, and Meade gave him explicit instructions; the Third Corps’ left flank must occupy the north slope of Little Round Top and its right flank join the left flank of Hancock’s Second Corps along Cemetery Ridge. Sickles argued for his corps to move to the Emmitsburg Road; Meade sent General Henry Hunt to examine Sickles’s desired positions, but Hunt told Sickles he could not recommend them. Meade called a council of all his corps commanders at the Leister house, and there he was informed that Sickles was moving his Third Corps forward to the Emmitsburg Road. Meade rode to Sickles and told him his position was untenable, and he must return his corps to the position it had been previously ordered to occupy. Just then, Confederate artillery opened fire, and Meade ordered Sickles to keep his corps where it was, and he would bring up reinforcements.