Abner Doubleday: Father of Baseball, Hero of Gettysburg

Abner Doubleday is remembered, if recalled at all anymore, as the "inventor" of baseball. Baseball myth says Doubleday invented baseball by tossing a ball around old Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown, NY in 1839.

That might be mere myth but what Doubleday, Major General Doubleday, did a bit south of Cooperstown on a very hot day in July in 1863 is pure, blood soaked fact.

It's a bloody tale beyond baseball lore. It's a story of war torn wheat-fields and gore covered orchids, not one of peaceful cow pastures and idle summer days at play.

On July 1, 1863 Robert E Lee's battle tested Army of Northern Virginia was invading the North to threaten Washington, destroy the Army of the Potomac, and end the American Civil War.

With the audacious Lee at its head, the Southerners had hardly ever lost and seldom even been stalemated. But now Lee's Army was strung out and its forward elements had stumbled, searching for shoes, into a tiny crossroads Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg.

The Rebels had also stumbled into the forward portion of the Army of the Potomac. The Southerners not only stumbled into the Union men they had struck them hard, struck the Yankees so hard they almost shattered.

The Union commander, General John Reynolds, was dead, shot by a sniper, on the field. His corps, which had held five violent hours despite being outnumbered two to one, was badly bloodied and in retreat through the steaming streets of Gettysburg.

The Rebel yell and blood was in the air. The Union army could be destroyed piecemeal; first the retreating corps then the rest of the Army of the Potomac as it marched in during the next days. 

Washington and the War was there for the taking. Victory was just over those rolling green Pennsylvania hills.

The Union commander, replacing the dead General Reynolds, had never won much battle field acclaim before but now would be his finest hour.

General Abner Doubleday, mostly known as a slow moving, methodical general, replaced his commander and immediately stopped the retreat from becoming a rout. The man, who later famous for baseball, picked the perfect spot to make his stand; he reformed his tired men on the high ground just outside of town.

Doubleday rallied the remnants of his Corps on a place called Cemetery Hill.

It would prove to be very valuable real estate because the high ground commanded the battlefield. That high ground that would haunt the South throughout history.

Despite having only a third of his men able for duty Doubleday held the high ground south of town all night and until the next day when the rest of the Union Army arrived to reinforce that precious, precarious position.

The Confederates would run up a big butchers bill trying to take that valuable ground in the next two days. They never would. The high ground would hold.

The Union would hold.

The Southern high tide would roll slowly back until Appomattox.

The outnumbered Union Corps five hour stand blunted the always aggressive confederates early. It blunted the Confederates enough under Doubleday's able leadership the bloodied Union men were able to retreat through the streets of Gettysburg and hold the hot high ground south of town all night long.  

It was Doubleday's finest hour.

The General should be remembered more for his stand, a stand that perhaps saved the Union, then for baseball but celebrity is a bizarre thing. Doubleday, disliked by his Commander General Meade, never received much credit for his actions on the First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

In fact at first he got only grief from Meade for his misunderstood actions that day. Misinformed Meade believed Doubleday's men crumbled and he replaced him with a subordinate.

When the fog of war cleared Doubleday was promoted for his actions. But events on the bloody second and third days at Gettysburg, especially Pickett's doomed Charge, overshadowed Doubleday's actions on the first day of the epic battle.

But Doubleday did become famous for baseball. A sport he may, or may not, have invented. As John Ford wrote in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, "When the legend becomes fact print the legend.", so the baseball foundation myth has become an American legend.

The Doubleday baseball lore might be more of of a myth but the bloody facts of Gettysburg are built on broken bones, bullets, and blood.

On the second day at Gettysburg Doubleday was wounded. The General recovered to serve through out the war, including accompanying President Lincoln from Washington to Gettysburg for his famous Gettysburg Address.

Perhaps when the pitches fly and the beers flow this Fourth of July one can toast the man who might have invented the National Pastime but who did make a big home-stand on a very hot day near the Fourth of July a long, long time ago.