Baseball’s Supposed Inventor Discovered That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Without Doubleday’s ferocious stubbornness on the first day of Gettysburg, things could have gone differently in the war’s greatest battle. The story could well have been one in which the Confederates were the ones to first secure and occupy the heights south of Gettysburg. The Army of the Potomac’s morale was none too high after humiliating defeats in the preceding months in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. It also had a new commander, whom most did not know. Rather than defend, it would have been forced to attack strong defensive positions situated on high ground, manned by an enemy brimming with confidence after a string of recent successes. Doubleday spared the Union that nightmare. However, because sometimes no good deed goes unpunished, he was penalized rather than applauded.
General George Meade, the Army of the Potomac’s new commander, disliked Doubleday. He was primed to believe false reports that I Corps under Doubleday, rather than save the day, had broken and fled, causing the entire Union line to unravel. So Meade took I Corps from Doubleday, and sent him back to command his division. Doubleday fought well in charge of his division during the remainder of the battle, and was wounded in the process. But for the rest of his life, he never forgave Meade. After the Civil War, Doubleday was stationed in San Francisco, where he secured a patent for the cable car railway that still runs there to this day. Retiring from the US Army in 1873, he became a New York lawyer, and wrote memoirs and histories of the Civil War. He died in 1893, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.