The staff officer reined in his horse before General James Longstreet, delivered the message, and waited. General John Bell Hood had sent him with a petition, a plea born of a hard look at the ground ahead. Hood wanted permission to swing his division around Round Top Mountain and strike the Union flank and rear instead of doing what he had been told. Longstreet’s answer came back without hesitation.

General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emittsburg Road. Hood tried again. He sent a second officer with the same request and the same reasoning. The reply was identical.

He sent a third, his adjutant general, Colonel Harry Sellers, a man Hood trusted to be both competent and persuasive. Sellers returned bearing the same communication. General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emittsburg Road. Almost immediately afterward, Colonel Fairfax of Longstreet’s own staff arrived and reiterated the order one more time.

It was the first and only formal protest John Bell Hood ever lodged in his entire military career. It did not change a thing. He ordered his line forward to commence the assault. To understand how a Confederate general came to be standing on that road, pleading against an order he could not refuse, the story has to go back to the night before the attack and the morning that followed.

The Battle of Gettysburg had already produced two days of savage fighting by the time John Bell Hood’s division arrived on the field. The engagement had transformed ordinary farmland into ground that would carry legendary names for the rest of American history. Devil’s Den and Little Round Top were about to become two of the most recognized locations of the entire war, infamous for the ferocious and sanguinary fighting that would occur there within hours. Hood arrived with his officers on the Gettysburg Heights a little while after dawn had broken on the morning of July 2, 1863.

His division moved into a nearby open field, where the troops were permitted to stack arms and rest briefly while they waited for further instructions from headquarters. In the early hours of that same morning, Hood participated with Generals Robert E. Lee and A. P.

Hill in a close observation of the Union Army’s dispositions. For Hood, the scene was one he would remember in precise detail for the rest of his life. General Lee stood in his complete uniform, his jacket buttoned to the top, his sword belt fastened about his middle, pacing steadily beneath the shade of the large trees surrounding their location. He kept his field glasses close at hand and would intermittently stop to gain a clearer view of the enemy’s lines.

He seemed confident, yet at moments he appeared absorbed in deep reflection, pondering the challenges before them. Nearby, the English observer Colonel Freemantle perched in the crook of a tree, constantly training his field glasses on the elevated terrain occupied by the federal forces. It was evident to Hood that General Lee was anxious for them to launch an assault that morning. Lee stated to him directly, “The foe is here, and if we do not defeat him, he will defeat us.

” Hood nevertheless believed it more prudent to wait for the arrival of Major General George Pickett’s division, which was still to their rear, before commencing any operation. Later, while Hood and Longstreet sat together near the trunk of a stout tree, Longstreet remarked to Hood, “The general appears somewhat uneasy this morning. He is urging me to attack, but I am reluctant to do so without Pickett. I have always been uneasy about beginning an engagement without full preparation, declaring I never wish to enter a battle half ready.

”

So the morning passed slowly, filled with anticipation and tension, until the afternoon arrived. Around three o’clock, a decision was made. They could delay no longer for Pickett’s division. They determined to shift their focus to their extreme right and prepared to advance along the Emittsburg Road.

Major General Lafayette McLaws moved forward, and Hood followed immediately behind with his own division. Shortly thereafter, Hood received orders to quicken the march of his troops and to advance ahead of McLaws. To accomplish this, he deployed an advance party tasked with removing fences and clearing a path for the movement. His instructions were straightforward.

He was to position his division astride the Emittsburg Road, form a battle line, and prepare to commence the assault. But before reaching the Emittsburg Road, Hood decided to dispatch ahead several of his trusted Texas scouts. Their mission was to discover the placement of the enemy’s extreme left flank. They returned to him promptly with troubling news.

The enemy’s flank rested upon Round Top Mountain. The scouts reported that the ground was open, allowing a movement through a wooded pasture around Round Top and a potential strike against the enemy’s side and rear. They also noted that the federal supply trains were densely packed behind the Union lines, rendering them vulnerable to an attack from that direction. Upon reaching the Emittsburg Road, Hood did not delay.

He promptly positioned one or two artillery batteries and opened fire, ready to engage the enemy and alter the course of the engagement. A swift reply from the enemy’s artillery soon revealed their locations. The federal left flank was positioned around Round Top, their formations curving inward, creating a concave curve as Hood advanced along the Emittsburg Road. A substantial force was deployed ahead of their primary position, stationed between the Emittsburg Road and Round Top Mountain.

This body was arranged for battle upon a crest adjacent to a peach orchard. Hood perceived that to obey his instructions and advance along the Emittsburg Road, he must initially confront and displace this forward battle line. Moreover, at the base and upon the ascent of the mountain lay massive boulders piled together, forming narrow gaps that would disrupt the Confederate formations and scatter the men as they scaled the rocky slope. He recognized that his division would be exposed to punishing fire from the enemy’s principal line, which was established upon the summit of the heights, with Round Top constituting its extreme left.

Because of the concave nature of the enemy’s main line, his men would endure devastating fire from the flank and rear in addition to the front. Hood considered it nearly impossible to ascend that steep, rugged mountain through those boulders under such an enfilade and still succeed in dislodging the enemy. He understood that any victory would be achieved at a terrible cost to some of the most gallant and devoted soldiers ever to serve under arms. The reconnaissance by his Texas scouts and his observation of the federal positions were completed very swiftly, indeed faster than he could relate the facts, though the occurrences of that day remained vivid in his memory as if the engagement had taken place merely the day before.

Having gathered this critical intelligence soon after arriving at the Emittsburg Road, Hood felt it his duty to immediately inform Longstreet of his conviction that an assault directly up the Emittsburg Road as directed was unwise. He petitioned Longstreet to allow him to move around Round Top and strike the enemy’s flank and rear instead. He dispatched the first staff officer to convey his petition, citing the reasons he had outlined. The response was prompt.

General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emittsburg Road. Throughout this period, Hood maintained artillery fire upon the enemy and grew increasingly convinced the federal line extended to Round Top. He could not reasonably anticipate achieving any significant result through the attack as ordered. Indeed, it appeared to him the enemy occupied a position so naturally formidable it could be described as impregnable.

They could likely repel the Confederate assault merely by rolling stones down the slope as the men climbed, independent of their flanking fire. For the third time, he sent a staff officer to thoroughly explain the situation and suggest Longstreet come to see it personally. He selected his adjutant general, Colonel Harry Sellers, for the duty. Sellers returned bearing the same communication.

General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emittsburg Road. Then came Colonel Fairfax from Longstreet’s staff, reiterating the orders once more. After lodging this earnest protest, Hood ordered his line forward to commence the assault. As his men advanced, Longstreet came to him personally.

They held a brief conversation during which Hood once again expressed his concerns and his regret at not being permitted to flank Round Top. Longstreet replied, emphasizing their necessity to adhere to General Lee’s orders. Hood then proceeded onward with his line under grievous fire. Approximately twenty minutes after reaching the peach orchard, he suffered a severe wound to his arm and was carried from the field.

The injury concluded his participation in that great battle. As he was borne away upon a litter, he felt profound distress, fearing for the fate of his valiant soldiers who composed one of the finest divisions in that celebrated army. The positions Hood had failed to turn, Devil’s Den and Little Round Top, would see some of the most brutal fighting of the entire Civil War. The assaults mounted at those sites counted among the most desperate engagements of the conflict, distinguished by savage combat and catastrophic casualties.

Hood’s division advanced into that fire without him, fighting on through the afternoon among the boulders and the rocky slopes while their general was carried to the rear, his fighting arm shattered. Years later, in 1875, General James Longstreet reached out to Hood. Longstreet had become somewhat isolated from many former Confederates due to his shifting political allegiance after the war, and he was interested in Hood’s perspective on the Gettysburg campaign. Hood responded with a dispatch in which he meticulously detailed his personal actions during the fight.

That letter is the record of what happened on July 2, 1863, told by the man who led the assault and who protested against it before it began. In that letter, Hood describes arriving on the heights, the morning spent watching General Lee pace beneath the trees, the order to advance, the reconnaissance that showed him the enemy’s strength, and the three frantic attempts to change the plan. He names the staff officers he sent, quotes the replies he received, and explains why he believed the attack would fail. He also records the moment his war ended that day, the severe wound to his arm suffered approximately twenty minutes after reaching the peach orchard, and the distress he felt as he was carried from the field, fearing for the fate of his soldiers.

The echo of that final order fades across the decades. General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emittsburg Road. A sentence that meant carnage in a peach orchard and bravery among the boulders of a rocky hill. Hood’s pen, dipped in regret ten years later, gives more than a report.

It gives a reckoning. The letter leaves its reader not with a clear hero or villain, but with a man forever caught between duty and disaster, between what he knew was right and what he was commanded to do. John Bell Hood carried the physical and moral wound of Gettysburg for the rest of his life, a man who protested the order, obeyed it anyway, and spent the following decade recording exactly what he had seen and what he had been forced to do.