For a Few Minutes the Fighting Was Terrific: Dodson Ramseur's Forgotten Attack at Oak Ridge on July

Abstract

Although it saved Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes’ division from a day of disaster, Brig. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur’s brilliant attack against the Federal troops from Gabriel Paul’s brigade, who were deployed just north of Gettysburg along Oak Ridge, remains largely forgotten amid the controversies surrounding the corps commander’s subsequent decision not to assault Cemetery Hill. Th e action there began during the midmorning on July 1, when Rodes’ troops, who formed part of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s famed Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, arrived on the fi eld along the road running south from nearby Middletown. Th e division included the brigades commanded by Brig. Gens. Ramseur, George P. Doles, Alfred H. Iverson, Junius Daniel, and Col. Edward A. O’Neal.1 While the skirmishers from three of his brigades were engaged with some Federal cavalry videttes on their front, Rodes led the rest of his men to the right along the main ridge line toward “a prominent hill” that overlooked the area northwest of town. “On arriving on the fi eld, I found that by keeping along the wooded ridge, on the left side of which the town of Gettysburg is situated, I could strike the force of the enemy with which Gen. Hill’s troops were engaged upon the fl ank, and that, besides moving under cover, whenever we struck the enemy we could engage him with the advantage in ground,” Rodes stated in his offi cial report.2 Th e general based that decision on a reconnaissance report from Lt. J. Coleman Alderson of the 36th Virginia Cavalry Battalion in Brig. Gen. Albert