Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia on June 1, 1862, replacing the overly cautious General Joseph E. Johnston who had been wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines. He would prove to be Johnston’s antipode – aggressive to the point of overplaying his hand at times.
Under Lee’s command, the Confederate army won the Shenandoah Campaign led by Stonewall Jackson, the Seven Days Campaign, and Second Battle of Bull Run – a terrible Union army loss. Lee then took the war into Maryland where, although winning at Harper’s Ferry, he lost a quarter of his army in the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The northern and southern armies each lost nine generals and 23,000 soldiers combined. Essentially a draw, Lincoln considered it enough of a Union victory after the string of Union losses to issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, albeit only those in the secession states.
With his army refitted and losses filled as much as possible, Lee’s army won two significant battles – Fredericksburg followed by Chancellorsville, although the latter cost the life of Stonewall Jackson, his most resourceful general. He won at Brandy Station – the largest cavalry battle of the war – under the command of his flamboyant cavalry commander, General J.E.B. Stuart. Stuart held the field at the end of the battle and therefore claimed victory, but some – especially the southern press – considered it a draw and severely criticized Stuart for “bad management” of the fight.
Then, for the second time Lee took his army north in late June 1863 into Pennsylvania primarily to shift his summer campaign away from war-ravaged northern Virginia which could no longer support his need for food and horses. For the campaign, Lee reorganized his army into three corps under Lt. Generals Ewell, A.P. Hill, and Longstreet. The old corps of the now-dead Stonewall Jackson was split up and assigned to Ewell and Hill.
Lee’s army was in high spirits as it once again invaded the north where Lee hoped a substantial defeat of the Union army would provide the growing northern peace party the fodder needed to pressure Lincoln to stop the war and to recognize the legitimacy of the seceded Confederate states.
As the Army of Northern Virginia turned north, Lee ordered Stuart to protect the right flank of his army. An army on the move is particularly vulnerable, not only because it is strung out and can be easily attacked by a massed enemy, but also because it is moving into unfamiliar territory. Poor communications required the cavalry to be the “eyes and ears” of the army. Twice previously Stuart had taken his cavalry in a complete circle around the Union army – a feat which humiliated their commanders. Still smarting from the criticism received from the press after Brandy Station, Stuart thought a dash around the Union army, which was paralleling Lee’s movements northward, would restore his prestige as well as let him confiscate Union supplies he believed Lee’s army needed.
But the movement of the enemy kept pushing Stuart’s circumnavigation of it farther north. With a significant clash of the opposing armies inevitable, Lee was deprived of his eyes and ears. Stuart, meanwhile, had captured Union wagons and supplies which slowed his advance even more. He would arrive on the Gettysburg battlefield on the afternoon of the second day of battle, July 2, whereupon he received a rare reprimand from Lee for his absence. “Well, General, you are here at last.”
After his disappointment with Generals McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, Lincoln was still looking for a general who would fight – at least as aggressively as Lee. He wouldn’t find him in his latest choice: General George G. Meade. The outcome of the impending battle would be determined by geography rather than the new Union leader. Meade had sent ahead General Hancock, one of his corps commanders, to determine whether Gettysburg was an appropriate place for a major battle. Hancock observed the terrain and said, "I think this the strongest position by nature upon which to fight a battle that I ever saw." Another Union general agreed, and Hancock said: "Very well, sir, I select this as the battlefield."
The most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought over a three day period that summer – July 1, 2, and 3 – in the outskirts of a small farming community, Gettysburg, PA. It would start out as a skirmish and end engaging 160,000 in the fighting.
The skirmish began when a unit of Lee’s army, out looking for food and a cache of shoes, collided with what they thought was local militia and began firing to push it back through Gettysburg. In fact, their opponents were units of Brig. General John Buford’s cavalry attached to Meade’s army who were scouting the outskirts of town.
Lee had given his generals strict orders not to start a fight until he could get all of his army on the battlefield. He wanted to select a defensive position that would force Meade to attack him. But the skirmish preempted that. Thinking that they were forcing Buford’s men to retreat, the Confederates were actually part of Buford’s “defense in depth” – a maneuver in which a defender selects the ideal position to defend and executes a retrograde, pulling back unit over unit to the ideal position while fighting a delaying action.
By late afternoon on July 1, the Union cavalry, fighting dismounted, had retrograded through Gettysburg to Buford’s position, which he had chosen to be the Union right flank as Meade filled in the line. Buford’s losses numbered slightly over 9,000, including some 3,000 captured, compared with Confederate losses of about 6,500.
In that sense, the day could be called a Confederate victory, but Union forces now held the high ground south of Gettysburg and Lee would have to fight on offense. Understanding this, Lee had earlier that day sent orders to Ewell to dislodge Buford’s position "if practicable." Ewell decided such an assault was not “practicable” and, thus, did not attempt it, even though, unknown to Ewell, his forces outnumbered Buford by 5,000 and reinforcements had not yet arrived. Ewell’s failure to test Buford’s strength before deciding not to attack was a significant missed opportunity and set the course of the later battle.
Throughout Wednesday evening, July 1, and Thursday morning most of the remaining infantry of both armies arrived on the field. When Confederate General Longstreet arrived, he declared the Union position nearly impregnable and told Lee it should be left alone. Instead, Longstreet recommended, Lee should move his army to the south and east of Meade’s west-facing battle line, putting the Confederates between Meade and Washington D.C. The threat to the Capitol would compel Meade to come out and attack them, putting Lee on defense.
Lee declined. His aggressiveness and belief that his army was invincible no doubt blurred his judgment. Throughout the centuries, however, military theorists believed the attacker should outnumber an entrenched defender by a three-to-one ratio. Lee brought 72,000 men to the field; Meade had 94,000. Moreover, Stuart had not yet shown up, so Lee was without the cavalry resources to reconnoiter the Union lines looking for weaknesses. However, it’s also known that during the three days of the battle Lee was suffering with diarrhea, a common malady among soldiers caused by the unsanitary habits and conditions of that time. Diarrhea causes dehydration, lethargy, and disorientation, especially among the elderly. Lee was 56 years old at the time – older then than it is today – and surely not at his best during the battle.
The success of his army in the fighting on July 1 encouraged Lee to continue trying to destroy the Union army. So, he ordered attacks on its flanks, attempting to roll them up. The Confederate assaults were not coordinated well, and the Union was effective in responding with counterattacks. Thus the outcome of July 2 was an inconclusive slugfest.
Still, Lee's confidence was unshaken. He decided to make his biggest gamble yet to win the battle and the war by attacking the center of the Union – a maneuver that would require Confederate infantry troops to march unprotected in close order formation for one mile across a field under the Union guns. Their pole star was a copse of trees located near the center of the Union line. When the survivors got within 100 yards of the copse, they were to fire their muskets in volleys and then run to the Union lines in a bayonet charge. It was a desperate, gutsy tactic.
Longstreet, who had been reinforced by Maj. General George Pickett's division Thursday afternoon, would be in command of the attack on the Union center. Simultaneous attacks were to be made against the Union right and left flanks to prevent reinforcement of the center where Pickett’s men would be at the forefront of the attack. Two exhausted divisions of A.P. Hill would be on Pickett’s left flank. In all, about 15,000 men would be engaged in the attack.
Prior to launching the attack, Longstreet’s artillery was to unleash a 170-cannon bombardment of the Union center for as long as ammunition held out, excluding the reserve ammunition.
Stuart’s cavalry was to circle around the Union northern flank, get behind the Union position, and upon hearing a signal cannon, initiate a cavalry charge on the rear of the center timed to coincide with Pickett’s frontal attack. In a day of primitive communications during a battle, the assault plan was too complex with not much hope of total success, if any success at all.
When Lee explained the assault plan to Longstreet, Longstreet asked how many men would attack the center, Lee guessed 15,000. Longstreet was stunned. He had earlier suggested that twice this number was the minimum necessary. "General, I have been a soldier all my life," Longstreet remonstrated, speaking as frankly as he could to his commanding officer, "I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions and armies, and should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." Longstreet continued to protest "the sacrifice of my men" when Lee lost his patience. After the war Longstreet would recollect the meeting and say Lee was tired "of listening, and tired of talking, and nothing was left but to proceed;" but Longstreet would continue to brood after the meeting, convinced that the plan would fail and cost the lives of irreplaceable men. He would be correct.
Throughout Friday morning and into the afternoon amid 90° July heat and stifling humidity the Confederate assault force moved into position in the woods opposite the Union center. Interestingly, Meade had ordered some of the troops in the center to move to his left flank, which he thought was the target of Friday’s attack. That left only 5,750 infantrymen stretched out along the half-mile front that would receive Pickett’s 15,000 man assault.
At l p.m., Longstreet opened the greatest artillery bombardment of the war. The Union artillery responded and an artillery duel ensued which lasted for nearly two hours. Unfortunately most of the Confederate shells were falling behind Union lines and doing little damage, whereas the Union shells that overshot the Confederate artillery line fell among the assembled attack force, killing many before they ever got into the fight.
Pickett’s division consisted of three brigades commanded by Brig. Generals Armistead, Kemper, and Garnett. All would lead from the front. Only Kemper would survive, though he would be wounded and captured as a prisoner.
Around 2:30 p.m. the Union artillerists slowed their rate of fire, and then ceased fire, both to conserve ammunition and to fool the opposing artillerists into thinking their cannons were knocked out.
Pickett went to Longstreet and asked, "General, shall I advance?" Longstreet, now overwhelmed with emotion, did not respond, but simply bowed his head and raised his hand. Thus the order was given.
The assault line was one mile long from flank to flank. Riding along it Pickett exhorted, “Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" The ranks stepped out of the tree line in silence and pageantry and began their slow march toward the Union center. A mile away, Union soldiers crouched behind a stone wall and watched in amazement at the bravery of this spectacular sight.
Meanwhile, Stuart launched his attack from behind the center. It was confronted and then blunted by a counterattack from the Union Michigan cavalry led by a new Brig. General, just 23 years old – George Armstrong Custer. Without encouragement from their leader to go forward, Stuart’s men fell back and then retreated.
As Pickett’s men got within range, Union cannoneers fired grapeshot and cut them to pieces. Closing ranks, the march forward continued. Once within 100 yards, Union and Confederate infantry leveled volleys of musket fire into each other’s ranks. Then came the bayonet charge toward the Union line.
About 200 to 300 Virginians and Tennesseans made it over the wall and into the Union ranks. They engaged in hand-to-hand fighting for about half and hour. But no reinforcements followed them and many were captured or killed. Armistead managed to put his hand on a Union cannon before being mortally wounded.
The assault turned into the bloodbath that Longstreet had predicted. Survivors, some helping others walk, staggered back across the field that they had crossed about an hour earlier. But 7,500 were left on the field, dead, dying, and wounded.
Fearing a counterattack after so severe a beating, Lee rushed out to meet the remnants of the once proud Hill and Pickett divisions. “It’s all my fault,” Lee began repeating to the returning soldiers. “It is I that has lost this fight and you must help me out of it the best way you can."
Pickett and other senior officers stood with tears streaming down their faces aghast as the dazed men returned to the assembly area. When Lee told Pickett he must rally his division for the counterattack, Pickett replied, "General Lee, I have no division."
General Pickett was inconsolable for the rest of the day and some say he never forgave Lee for ordering the charge. His after-action report was so bitter that Lee ordered him to rewrite or destroy it. No copy has ever been found.
Pickett's military career was never the same afterward, although he was with Lee to the end and the surrender at Appomattox. But he was always displeased that his name was associated with the infamous Pickett’s Charge. Asked after the war why he thought his assault had failed he would say, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
Back in his headquarters after the rebuff, Lee muttered repeatedly to his staff, "Too bad. Too bad! Oh, too bad!" His big gamble to win the battle and the war had failed. Pickett’s charge, more particularly the hand of General Armistead, had been the high-water mark of the Confederacy and from then on the tide would run against it.
It rained on Saturday – July 4 – as the opposing sides stared at each other across the corpse-strewn battlefield separating them. Casualties in dead, wounded and missing were about 46,000, evenly divided among both armies. But that number represented almost a third of Lee’s army while a quarter of Meade’s. The Union army losses would be replaced by new recruits. Those of Lee’s were irreplaceable losses.
When it became apparent to Lee that no counterattack would come – much to the chagrin of President Lincoln – Lee collected what wounded he could onto wagons and started the long retreat back into Virginia.
My great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War with General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry. His theater of operations was Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Scarcely more than an infant, I was supposed to ride with him in the parade of the final reunion of Civil War veterans at Gettysburg in 1938. He got sick so neither of us attended. He died the next year so I have no recollection of him. But I knew his daughter – my great grandmother – very well. She lived for ten years after I graduated from college, and when I visited her as a child and adult, she regaled me with stories about the exploits of her father, my Grandpa Doggett, during the war.
My other great grandparents – I had five of them – also had roots in the war, and as a child I would sit at their knees listening and asking about a time I never knew personally, imagining myself caught up in that signal event which affected almost every southern family of the era in some way.
I am, therefore, an unapologetic son of the south. The war and southern heritage is in my veins as it is for all generations whose southern roots go back to the beginning of the 19th century. As a child and an adult, I’ve been to the Gettysburg battlefield many times. In 1988, when my wife and I last visited it, I stood where Pickett’s men had assembled. I looked as they did across that wide field toward the Union lines now dotted with monuments. My mind went back to what happened there 125 years earlier as I imagined myself a soldier among them, terrified, but admiring their bravery … ordinary farmers who never questioned what they were about to do or the reason they were doing it. I thought of the final words of General Armistead who pulled raw corn from his pocket and told the Union doctor treating his fatal wounds, "Men who can subsist on raw corn can never be whipped." And I recalled the words of William Faulkner:
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think: This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago …
Under Lee’s command, the Confederate army won the Shenandoah Campaign led by Stonewall Jackson, the Seven Days Campaign, and Second Battle of Bull Run – a terrible Union army loss. Lee then took the war into Maryland where, although winning at Harper’s Ferry, he lost a quarter of his army in the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The northern and southern armies each lost nine generals and 23,000 soldiers combined. Essentially a draw, Lincoln considered it enough of a Union victory after the string of Union losses to issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, albeit only those in the secession states.
With his army refitted and losses filled as much as possible, Lee’s army won two significant battles – Fredericksburg followed by Chancellorsville, although the latter cost the life of Stonewall Jackson, his most resourceful general. He won at Brandy Station – the largest cavalry battle of the war – under the command of his flamboyant cavalry commander, General J.E.B. Stuart. Stuart held the field at the end of the battle and therefore claimed victory, but some – especially the southern press – considered it a draw and severely criticized Stuart for “bad management” of the fight.
Then, for the second time Lee took his army north in late June 1863 into Pennsylvania primarily to shift his summer campaign away from war-ravaged northern Virginia which could no longer support his need for food and horses. For the campaign, Lee reorganized his army into three corps under Lt. Generals Ewell, A.P. Hill, and Longstreet. The old corps of the now-dead Stonewall Jackson was split up and assigned to Ewell and Hill.
Lee’s army was in high spirits as it once again invaded the north where Lee hoped a substantial defeat of the Union army would provide the growing northern peace party the fodder needed to pressure Lincoln to stop the war and to recognize the legitimacy of the seceded Confederate states.
As the Army of Northern Virginia turned north, Lee ordered Stuart to protect the right flank of his army. An army on the move is particularly vulnerable, not only because it is strung out and can be easily attacked by a massed enemy, but also because it is moving into unfamiliar territory. Poor communications required the cavalry to be the “eyes and ears” of the army. Twice previously Stuart had taken his cavalry in a complete circle around the Union army – a feat which humiliated their commanders. Still smarting from the criticism received from the press after Brandy Station, Stuart thought a dash around the Union army, which was paralleling Lee’s movements northward, would restore his prestige as well as let him confiscate Union supplies he believed Lee’s army needed.
But the movement of the enemy kept pushing Stuart’s circumnavigation of it farther north. With a significant clash of the opposing armies inevitable, Lee was deprived of his eyes and ears. Stuart, meanwhile, had captured Union wagons and supplies which slowed his advance even more. He would arrive on the Gettysburg battlefield on the afternoon of the second day of battle, July 2, whereupon he received a rare reprimand from Lee for his absence. “Well, General, you are here at last.”
After his disappointment with Generals McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, Lincoln was still looking for a general who would fight – at least as aggressively as Lee. He wouldn’t find him in his latest choice: General George G. Meade. The outcome of the impending battle would be determined by geography rather than the new Union leader. Meade had sent ahead General Hancock, one of his corps commanders, to determine whether Gettysburg was an appropriate place for a major battle. Hancock observed the terrain and said, "I think this the strongest position by nature upon which to fight a battle that I ever saw." Another Union general agreed, and Hancock said: "Very well, sir, I select this as the battlefield."
The most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought over a three day period that summer – July 1, 2, and 3 – in the outskirts of a small farming community, Gettysburg, PA. It would start out as a skirmish and end engaging 160,000 in the fighting.
The skirmish began when a unit of Lee’s army, out looking for food and a cache of shoes, collided with what they thought was local militia and began firing to push it back through Gettysburg. In fact, their opponents were units of Brig. General John Buford’s cavalry attached to Meade’s army who were scouting the outskirts of town.
Lee had given his generals strict orders not to start a fight until he could get all of his army on the battlefield. He wanted to select a defensive position that would force Meade to attack him. But the skirmish preempted that. Thinking that they were forcing Buford’s men to retreat, the Confederates were actually part of Buford’s “defense in depth” – a maneuver in which a defender selects the ideal position to defend and executes a retrograde, pulling back unit over unit to the ideal position while fighting a delaying action.
By late afternoon on July 1, the Union cavalry, fighting dismounted, had retrograded through Gettysburg to Buford’s position, which he had chosen to be the Union right flank as Meade filled in the line. Buford’s losses numbered slightly over 9,000, including some 3,000 captured, compared with Confederate losses of about 6,500.
In that sense, the day could be called a Confederate victory, but Union forces now held the high ground south of Gettysburg and Lee would have to fight on offense. Understanding this, Lee had earlier that day sent orders to Ewell to dislodge Buford’s position "if practicable." Ewell decided such an assault was not “practicable” and, thus, did not attempt it, even though, unknown to Ewell, his forces outnumbered Buford by 5,000 and reinforcements had not yet arrived. Ewell’s failure to test Buford’s strength before deciding not to attack was a significant missed opportunity and set the course of the later battle.
Throughout Wednesday evening, July 1, and Thursday morning most of the remaining infantry of both armies arrived on the field. When Confederate General Longstreet arrived, he declared the Union position nearly impregnable and told Lee it should be left alone. Instead, Longstreet recommended, Lee should move his army to the south and east of Meade’s west-facing battle line, putting the Confederates between Meade and Washington D.C. The threat to the Capitol would compel Meade to come out and attack them, putting Lee on defense.
Lee declined. His aggressiveness and belief that his army was invincible no doubt blurred his judgment. Throughout the centuries, however, military theorists believed the attacker should outnumber an entrenched defender by a three-to-one ratio. Lee brought 72,000 men to the field; Meade had 94,000. Moreover, Stuart had not yet shown up, so Lee was without the cavalry resources to reconnoiter the Union lines looking for weaknesses. However, it’s also known that during the three days of the battle Lee was suffering with diarrhea, a common malady among soldiers caused by the unsanitary habits and conditions of that time. Diarrhea causes dehydration, lethargy, and disorientation, especially among the elderly. Lee was 56 years old at the time – older then than it is today – and surely not at his best during the battle.
The success of his army in the fighting on July 1 encouraged Lee to continue trying to destroy the Union army. So, he ordered attacks on its flanks, attempting to roll them up. The Confederate assaults were not coordinated well, and the Union was effective in responding with counterattacks. Thus the outcome of July 2 was an inconclusive slugfest.
Still, Lee's confidence was unshaken. He decided to make his biggest gamble yet to win the battle and the war by attacking the center of the Union – a maneuver that would require Confederate infantry troops to march unprotected in close order formation for one mile across a field under the Union guns. Their pole star was a copse of trees located near the center of the Union line. When the survivors got within 100 yards of the copse, they were to fire their muskets in volleys and then run to the Union lines in a bayonet charge. It was a desperate, gutsy tactic.
Longstreet, who had been reinforced by Maj. General George Pickett's division Thursday afternoon, would be in command of the attack on the Union center. Simultaneous attacks were to be made against the Union right and left flanks to prevent reinforcement of the center where Pickett’s men would be at the forefront of the attack. Two exhausted divisions of A.P. Hill would be on Pickett’s left flank. In all, about 15,000 men would be engaged in the attack.
Prior to launching the attack, Longstreet’s artillery was to unleash a 170-cannon bombardment of the Union center for as long as ammunition held out, excluding the reserve ammunition.
Stuart’s cavalry was to circle around the Union northern flank, get behind the Union position, and upon hearing a signal cannon, initiate a cavalry charge on the rear of the center timed to coincide with Pickett’s frontal attack. In a day of primitive communications during a battle, the assault plan was too complex with not much hope of total success, if any success at all.
When Lee explained the assault plan to Longstreet, Longstreet asked how many men would attack the center, Lee guessed 15,000. Longstreet was stunned. He had earlier suggested that twice this number was the minimum necessary. "General, I have been a soldier all my life," Longstreet remonstrated, speaking as frankly as he could to his commanding officer, "I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions and armies, and should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." Longstreet continued to protest "the sacrifice of my men" when Lee lost his patience. After the war Longstreet would recollect the meeting and say Lee was tired "of listening, and tired of talking, and nothing was left but to proceed;" but Longstreet would continue to brood after the meeting, convinced that the plan would fail and cost the lives of irreplaceable men. He would be correct.
Throughout Friday morning and into the afternoon amid 90° July heat and stifling humidity the Confederate assault force moved into position in the woods opposite the Union center. Interestingly, Meade had ordered some of the troops in the center to move to his left flank, which he thought was the target of Friday’s attack. That left only 5,750 infantrymen stretched out along the half-mile front that would receive Pickett’s 15,000 man assault.
At l p.m., Longstreet opened the greatest artillery bombardment of the war. The Union artillery responded and an artillery duel ensued which lasted for nearly two hours. Unfortunately most of the Confederate shells were falling behind Union lines and doing little damage, whereas the Union shells that overshot the Confederate artillery line fell among the assembled attack force, killing many before they ever got into the fight.
Pickett’s division consisted of three brigades commanded by Brig. Generals Armistead, Kemper, and Garnett. All would lead from the front. Only Kemper would survive, though he would be wounded and captured as a prisoner.
Around 2:30 p.m. the Union artillerists slowed their rate of fire, and then ceased fire, both to conserve ammunition and to fool the opposing artillerists into thinking their cannons were knocked out.
Pickett went to Longstreet and asked, "General, shall I advance?" Longstreet, now overwhelmed with emotion, did not respond, but simply bowed his head and raised his hand. Thus the order was given.
The assault line was one mile long from flank to flank. Riding along it Pickett exhorted, “Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" The ranks stepped out of the tree line in silence and pageantry and began their slow march toward the Union center. A mile away, Union soldiers crouched behind a stone wall and watched in amazement at the bravery of this spectacular sight.
Meanwhile, Stuart launched his attack from behind the center. It was confronted and then blunted by a counterattack from the Union Michigan cavalry led by a new Brig. General, just 23 years old – George Armstrong Custer. Without encouragement from their leader to go forward, Stuart’s men fell back and then retreated.
As Pickett’s men got within range, Union cannoneers fired grapeshot and cut them to pieces. Closing ranks, the march forward continued. Once within 100 yards, Union and Confederate infantry leveled volleys of musket fire into each other’s ranks. Then came the bayonet charge toward the Union line.
About 200 to 300 Virginians and Tennesseans made it over the wall and into the Union ranks. They engaged in hand-to-hand fighting for about half and hour. But no reinforcements followed them and many were captured or killed. Armistead managed to put his hand on a Union cannon before being mortally wounded.
The assault turned into the bloodbath that Longstreet had predicted. Survivors, some helping others walk, staggered back across the field that they had crossed about an hour earlier. But 7,500 were left on the field, dead, dying, and wounded.
Fearing a counterattack after so severe a beating, Lee rushed out to meet the remnants of the once proud Hill and Pickett divisions. “It’s all my fault,” Lee began repeating to the returning soldiers. “It is I that has lost this fight and you must help me out of it the best way you can."
Pickett and other senior officers stood with tears streaming down their faces aghast as the dazed men returned to the assembly area. When Lee told Pickett he must rally his division for the counterattack, Pickett replied, "General Lee, I have no division."
General Pickett was inconsolable for the rest of the day and some say he never forgave Lee for ordering the charge. His after-action report was so bitter that Lee ordered him to rewrite or destroy it. No copy has ever been found.
Pickett's military career was never the same afterward, although he was with Lee to the end and the surrender at Appomattox. But he was always displeased that his name was associated with the infamous Pickett’s Charge. Asked after the war why he thought his assault had failed he would say, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
Back in his headquarters after the rebuff, Lee muttered repeatedly to his staff, "Too bad. Too bad! Oh, too bad!" His big gamble to win the battle and the war had failed. Pickett’s charge, more particularly the hand of General Armistead, had been the high-water mark of the Confederacy and from then on the tide would run against it.
It rained on Saturday – July 4 – as the opposing sides stared at each other across the corpse-strewn battlefield separating them. Casualties in dead, wounded and missing were about 46,000, evenly divided among both armies. But that number represented almost a third of Lee’s army while a quarter of Meade’s. The Union army losses would be replaced by new recruits. Those of Lee’s were irreplaceable losses.
When it became apparent to Lee that no counterattack would come – much to the chagrin of President Lincoln – Lee collected what wounded he could onto wagons and started the long retreat back into Virginia.
My great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War with General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry. His theater of operations was Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Scarcely more than an infant, I was supposed to ride with him in the parade of the final reunion of Civil War veterans at Gettysburg in 1938. He got sick so neither of us attended. He died the next year so I have no recollection of him. But I knew his daughter – my great grandmother – very well. She lived for ten years after I graduated from college, and when I visited her as a child and adult, she regaled me with stories about the exploits of her father, my Grandpa Doggett, during the war.
My other great grandparents – I had five of them – also had roots in the war, and as a child I would sit at their knees listening and asking about a time I never knew personally, imagining myself caught up in that signal event which affected almost every southern family of the era in some way.
I am, therefore, an unapologetic son of the south. The war and southern heritage is in my veins as it is for all generations whose southern roots go back to the beginning of the 19th century. As a child and an adult, I’ve been to the Gettysburg battlefield many times. In 1988, when my wife and I last visited it, I stood where Pickett’s men had assembled. I looked as they did across that wide field toward the Union lines now dotted with monuments. My mind went back to what happened there 125 years earlier as I imagined myself a soldier among them, terrified, but admiring their bravery … ordinary farmers who never questioned what they were about to do or the reason they were doing it. I thought of the final words of General Armistead who pulled raw corn from his pocket and told the Union doctor treating his fatal wounds, "Men who can subsist on raw corn can never be whipped." And I recalled the words of William Faulkner:
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think: This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago …
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