On July 2, the second day of battle, the Union troops under General George Meade had successfully dug in along the most defensible positions on the field. A cautious Meade dared an overconfident General Robert E. Lee to attack him.

On the first day, Lee had attacked the Union left and tried to roll the flank, but the Iron Brigade and the 24th Michigan held, solidifying the end. So on day two, Lee decided to attack Meade’s right.

If Lee could collapse Meade’s right flank, he could completely cut off Meade’s communication by taking the Baltimore Pike road. The Confederate command could not reach a quick decision on who should make the attack on the right.

Lee wanted General Ewell, one of his corps commanders to attack. Ewell wanted James Longstreet, known as “Lee’s War Horse” to do it. Longstreet wanted to hold ground and bait Meade to attack, it having been Longstreet’s idea that the entire war should be a defensive campaign.

Lee’s forces lost valuable time by squabbling, and did not issue initial orders until 11 a.m. Longstreet’s artillery did not heat up to cover the assault until 3 p.m.

The artillery on Meade’s right gave him enough indication to know where the attack was going to come from, and he made great haste to strengthen that section of the line.

On that little-defended section of the right flank was a hill known as Little Round Top.

Confederate forces under General John Bell Hood had taken the neighboring hill, Round Top, and hoped to keep pressing the Union right. They would meet stiff opposition on Little Round Top from Union units such as the famed 20th Maine under Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, and the 16th Michigan under Colonel Welch.

The 20th Maine was the extreme left flank of the Union line, and the 16th Michigan was at the very right of Little Round Top itself, already taking rifle fire as they fell into line.

Little Round Top was steep, and the rebel forces had to climb up the face of the hill to properly fight Vincent’s brigade, comprised of the 20th Maine, 16th Michigan, 83rd Pennsylvania, and 44th New York. Union artillery had to be dragged up the backside of the hill to support the Union infantry.

The official report of Lt. Col. Norval Welch vividly describes the 16th Michigan’s role on Little Round Top. After having first fell into line under heavy fire, the 16th remained in place for a half hour, exchanging rifle fire.

An unknown officer from behind the 16th’s location called for them to fall back further up the hill, “where a much less exposed position could be taken up.” Col. Welch disobeyed the vague order from a poorly identified figure, and held his position in the line.

Had the 16th fallen back, it would have left the Union right exposed, allowing the rebels to flank and roll up Vincent’s brigade. The line would have collapsed and Little Round Top would have been lost, allowing Meade’s army open to flanking, and Meade would have had to quit the battle.

Hood’s Texans had to claw like devils up the side of Little Round Top, in the face of Union rifles aimed down on them. The 16th Michigan was behind an earthworks barricade, and the Texans had rocks and trees to hide behind, making a fire fight costly on ammunition and generally ineffective.

The Texans charged the crest of the hill, push after push, engaging the 16th in hand-to-hand combat. When the 16th had marched from Detroit in 1861, they numbered some 761 men. On the second day of Gettysburg, they held their ground with only 200 men; 150 men in line and two companies of skirmishers, numbering 50 men.

According to the American Battlefield Trust, the 16th was up against the 4th and 5th Texas Regiments, equalling about 800 men, a force four times the 16th’s size.

The fighting on Little Round Top was so fierce and drawn out that ammo became a problem, and the 16th had to take the ammunition of their own wounded and dead.

A special correspondent to the New York Tribune witnessed the fight, and submitted a dramatic retelling. Should the Tribune be believed, Vincent’s brigade on Little Round Top so desperately defended the hill that they pushed boulders down on the advancing Texans.

The Tribune reported that near the end of the struggle, the ammo of the 16th and Vincent’s brigade ran dry. Another rebel assault was coming, and Colonel Chamberlain of the 20th Maine shouted, “Men! Our only hope is the steel (bayonets); charge with me!”

Chamberlain and the 20th’s Maine’s famous charge has been credited as the most successful counterattack in the entire war.

Chamberlain’s surprise charge with extreme momentum from coming down from high ground into two exhausted Alabama regiments, plus the long cut-off Company B of the 20th Maine having repositioned and firing into the backs of the regiments Chamberlain had been pushing against, caused the rebels to retreat and put the 20th Maine into a flanking position on the Confederate right flank, crumbling the entire attack on Little Round Top.