A Union cavalry general (1826 to 1863) whose division held the ground west of Gettysburg on the morning of 1 July 1863.

What did Buford do at Gettysburg?

He chose to stay at Gettysburg on 30 June and on 1 July his dismounted troopers delayed Heth's Confederate division until Union infantry under Reynolds arrived.

Did Buford really say the lines from the film Gettysburg?

No. His best-known lines in the film and in the novel The Killer Angels are fiction, not recorded words.

How did John Buford die?

He died of typhoid in Washington on 16 December 1863, aged 37.

Was Buford promoted to major general?

Yes, on his deathbed, by President Lincoln, for distinguished and meritorious service at Gettysburg.

John Buford: the Cavalryman Who Held the Line at Gettysburg

On the last day of June 1863 a Union cavalry general rode into a small Pennsylvania town, looked at the ridges around it and decided to stay. John Buford's choice to stand at Gettysburg helped decide where the greatest battle of the Civil War would be fought.

A Kentucky soldier

Buford was born on 4 March 1826 in Woodford County, Kentucky¹, and grew up mostly in Rock Island, Illinois. He graduated from West Point in 1848 and joined the dragoons.¹ For more than a decade he served on the frontier, in Texas, against the Sioux at Ash Hollow in 1855², and in Utah. Although his family had Southern ties, he stayed with the Union when the war began.

Cavalry commander

Buford became a brigadier general of volunteers in 1862 and commanded a cavalry brigade in the campaign of Second Bull Run, where he was wounded¹. In 1863 he led a division of the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps and took a prominent part in the great cavalry fight at Brandy Station that June.

Pencil and white chalk sketch on brown paper of an artillery crew firing a gun with cavalry lines beyond — A reconnaissance by Buford's cavalry toward the Rapidan River, with horse artillery in action, sketched in 1863 by the Harper's Weekly artist Alfred Waud (Library of Congress). Public domain

30 June 1863

As Robert E. Lee's army moved into Pennsylvania, Buford's division of about 2,700 troopers reached Gettysburg on 30 June³. His men saw the head of a Confederate column approaching from the west, which then turned back. Gettysburg sat where many roads met, and the high ground south of the town, Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, offered a strong defensive position. Buford decided to remain overnight and wait for the Confederates to return.

Black and white photograph of a small town and fields seen from a hilltop — The town of Gettysburg seen from Cemetery Hill, the high ground Buford recognised, with the Baltimore Pike on the left. Photograph published in Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War. Public domain

The first morning

Early on 1 July Henry Heth's Confederate division advanced⁴ along the Chambersburg Pike. Buford's troopers, fighting dismounted with breech-loading carbines⁴, met it on Herr Ridge and then on McPherson Ridge west of the town. Heavily outnumbered, they traded ground for time through the morning until General John F. Reynolds arrived with the infantry of the I Corps¹. The fighting that followed grew into the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, which the Union army under George Meade fought from the high ground south of the town that Buford had recognised as the key position.

Detailed topographic map of the Gettysburg area with Union and Confederate positions in colour — Map of the first day at Gettysburg, 1 July 1863, with troop positions compiled by John B. Bachelder and published by the US Army's Office of the Chief of Engineers in 1876. Public domain

Words and legend

Buford's stand is well known to modern audiences from Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels and the film Gettysburg. Much of the dialogue given to him there, including his most quoted lines, is the work of the novelist and screenwriters, not words recorded at the time. What the record does show is a commander who read the ground quickly and fought a skilful delaying action.

Death

Buford continued to lead his division through the campaigns of the summer and autumn of 1863. Late in the year his health gave way, by most accounts to typhoid, and in December he was taken in at the Washington home of his friend General George Stoneman. On his deathbed he received a promotion to major general from President Lincoln¹ for distinguished and meritorious service at Gettysburg. He died on 16 December 1863, aged 37¹, and was buried at West Point.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

American Battlefield Trust, “John Buford” ↩ a b c d e f
Edward G. Longacre, General John Buford: A Military Biography (Combined Books, 1995). ↩
Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968). ↩
Stephen W. Sears, Gettysburg (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). ↩ a b
Wikipedia, “John Buford”
home.nps.gov, “National Park Service: Union Commanders at Gettysburg”

John Buford: the cavalryman who held the ground at Gettysburg

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