History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

1863 BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 919
The command moved early on the morning of the 27th from Stafford Court
House, via Grove Church and Morrisville, and crossed the Rappahannock at
Kelly's Ford, the Seventy-fifth in advance. She march was continued on the
28th, in line of battle, driving the enemy until three o'clock on the following
morning, when the regiment bivouacked until daylight.
The Twelfth Corps then led the advance, followed by the Eleventh, the Fifth
bringing up the rear. It crossed the Rapidan at Germania Ford, and moved
rapidly on to Chancellorsville. The regiment halted north of the Hawkins'
Farm, near the plank road leading from Culpepper Court House to Fredericksburg. The flank movement of Hooker was a complete success, and inspired
him with confidence in his ability to achieve a signal victory. His order of
May 30th says, "the operations of the last three days have -determined. that
our enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences,
and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."
On the morning of the 2d of May the regiment was ordered to a position on
the right of the division, which was apparently threatened, the Eleventh Corps
occupying the right of the line of battle, which Lee determined to assail in
flank and rear. The Seventy-fifth was formed on the left of the Twenty-sixth
Wisconsin, with skirmishers thrown forward under command of Captai,
Schindler. The balance of the regiment, under command of Lieutenant Colonel
Matzdorff, except a color-guard of sixteen men, was soon after ordered to the
picket line, the Fifty-eighth New York relieving it. At a little before night of
the 2d of May, Stonewall Jackson, with forty thousand men, fell suddenly like
an avalanche upon the right wing of the Union army held by Howard's Corps.
The shock was overwhelming, and the Seventy-fifth was among the first to feel
its weight. Flanked and overborne, the command was compelled to retreat.
In doing so some confusion ensued. In crossing an open field the regiment
was much exposed to the fire of the advancing enemy. Many of the men became separated from the command, and Lieutenant Colonel Matzdorff and forty
men were taken prisoners. The scattering fragments of the regiment occupied
a position, in a line of rifle-pits, near the United States Ford, until eleven
o'clock P. M., when it was relieved by the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Pennsylvania, and assigned to a position in the second line of battle, in support of
a battery of the First Rhode Island Artillery. Among the wounded in this
engagement was Captain William Schindler, who received a severe flesh wound,
the ball passing through both his legs.
On the 6th the command re-crossed the Rappahannock, and proceeded to
its former camping ground, where it remained, performing the ordinary camp
and guard duty, until it entered upon the Gettysburg campaign, which opened
on the 12th of June. It then moved through Hartwood, Weaversville, and
Centreville, and on the 25th crossed the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry. Passing
through Middletown, Frederick City, and Emmittsburg, it reached Gettysburg
on the morning of the 1st of July, by the Taneytown Road, the Second Brigade
of the Third Division in advance, and passing through the town took position
in a field, north of the village, to the right of the Carlisle Road. The First
Corps had already engaged the enemy, and was hard pressed. After a brief
rest, to recover from the fatigue occasioned by a forced march of fourteen miles,
the Seventy-fifth, with the brigade, engaged the enemy, and after a severe conflict, in which the regiment lost two officers and twenty-six men killed, six
offcers and ninety-four men wounded, and six prisoners, it fell back through