Battle of East Cemetery Hill

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The Battle of East Cemetery Hill (July 2, 1863) was a Confederate attempt to distract the Union Army during the Gettysburg campaign. Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps tried to strike the Union right while other Confederate attacks happened nearby. After a 4 p.m. artillery bombardment from Benner Hill, Union batteries on East Cemetery Hill fired back, stopping Ewell’s batteries with heavy losses.

Around 7 p.m., as darkness fell, two brigades from Jubal Early’s division—Harry T. Hays’s Louisiana Tigers and Isaac E. Avery’s North Carolina troops—attacked East Cemetery Hill from the east. The Union line ran along a low stone wall at the hill’s northern end, with more Union troops behind them and reinforcements from the II Corps coming up.

The Confederates briefly broke parts of the Union line and even reached some batteries near the hill’s crest. But Union artillery, supported by regiments from Wiedrich’s and Carroll’s batteries and a late-arriving II Corps brigade under Samuel S. Carroll, pushed the attackers back down the slope to the base of the hill.

Seeing little chance of victory, the Confederates did not press the attack after dark. By nightfall, the Union line held East Cemetery Hill. The fighting was costly on both sides, but the Union kept control of the high ground, demonstrating their ability to defend critical positions on Cemetery Hill.