Editing Battle of Gettysburg (section)

===Attacks on the Union right flank===
[[File:Union breastworks Culp's Hill Gettysburg.jpg|thumb|[[Union army]] [[Breastwork (fortification)|breastworks]] on [[Culp's Hill]] in 1863]]
Ewell interpreted his orders as calling only for a cannonade.<ref name="Edward Porter Alexander 1907 p. 408"/> His 32 guns, along with A. P. Hill's 55 guns, engaged in a two-hour artillery barrage at extreme range that had little effect. Finally, about six o'clock, Ewell sent orders to each of his division commanders to attack the Union lines in his front.<ref name="Alexander409">Edward Porter Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate. (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1907), p. 409</ref>

Major General [[Edward Johnson (general)|Edward "Allegheny" Johnson]]'s division had contemplated an assault on Culp's Hill, but they were still a mile away and had Rock Creek to cross. The few possible crossings would make significant delays. Because of this, only three of Johnson's four brigades moved to the attack.<ref name="Alexander409"/> Most of the hill's defenders, the Union XII Corps, had been sent to the left to defend against Longstreet's attacks, leaving only a brigade of New Yorkers under Brigadier General [[George S. Greene]] behind strong, newly constructed defensive works. With reinforcements from the I and XI corps, Greene's men held off the Confederate attackers, though giving up some of the lower earthworks on the lower part of Culp's Hill.<ref>Eicher, pp. 537–538; Sauers, p. 835; Pfanz, ''Culp's Hill'', pp. 205–234; Clark, pp. 115–116.</ref>

Early was similarly unprepared when he ordered [[Harry T. Hays]]'s and [[Isaac E. Avery]]'s brigades to attack the Union XI Corps positions on East Cemetery Hill. Once started, fighting was fierce: Colonel [[Andrew L. Harris]] of the Union 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, XI Corps came under a withering attack, losing half his men. Avery was wounded early on, but the Confederates reached the crest of the hill and entered the Union breastworks, capturing one or two batteries. Seeing he was not supported on his right, Hays withdrew. His right was to be supported by Robert E. Rodes's division, but Rodes—like Early and Johnson—had not been ordered up in preparation for the attack. He had twice as far to travel as Early; by the time he came in contact with the Union skirmish line, Early's troops had already begun to withdraw.<ref>Report of Major General R. E. Rodes, CSA, commanding division. June 3 – August 1, 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign. O.R. – Series I – Volume XXVII/2 [S# 44]</ref>

[[Jeb Stuart]] and his three cavalry brigades arrived in Gettysburg around noon but had no role in the second day's battle. Brigadier General [[Wade Hampton III|Wade Hampton]]'s brigade fought a minor engagement with newly promoted 23-year-old Brigadier General [[George Armstrong Custer]]'s [[Michigan]] cavalry near [[Battle of Hunterstown|Hunterstown]] to the northeast of Gettysburg.<ref>Sears, p. 257; Longacre, pp. 198–199.</ref>