Pickett's Charge was a disastrous infantry assault ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge, on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been nicknamed the high-water mark of the Confederacy.

After Confederate attacks on both Union flanks had failed the day and night before, Lee determined to strike the Union center on the third day. 

On the night of July 2, General Meade correctly predicted at a council of war that Lee would try an attack on his lines in the center the following morning.

The infantry assault was preceded by a massive artillery bombardment that was meant to soften up the Union defense and silence its artillery, but it was largely ineffective. Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. 

Although some Confederates were able to breach the stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties, ending the battle and Lee's campaign into Pennsylvania. [1]

Plans and command structures

The charge was planned for three Confederate divisions, commanded by Maj. Gen. George Pickett, Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, and Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble, consisting of troops from Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps and Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's Third Corps. Pettigrew commanded brigades from Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's old division, under Col. Birkett D. Fry (Archer's Brigade), Col. James K. Marshall (Pettigrew's Brigade), Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Davis, and Col. John M. Brockenbrough. Trimble, commanding Maj. Gen. Dorsey Pender's division, had the brigades of Brig. Gens. Alfred M. Scales and James H. Lane. Two brigades from Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson's division (Hill's Corps) were to support the attack on the right flank: Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox and Col. David Lang (Perry's brigade).[2]

The target of the Confederate assault was the center of the Union Army of the Potomac's II Corps under Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock. Directly in the center was the division of Maj. Gen. John Gibbon with the brigades of Brig. Gen. William Harrow, Col. Norman J. Hall, and Brig. Gen. Alexander S. Webb. To the north of this position were brigades from the division of Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays and to the south was Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday's division of the I Corps, including the 2nd Vermont Brigade of Brig. Gen. George J. Stannard. General Meade's headquarters were just behind the II Corps line, in the small house owned by the widow Lydia Leister. [2]

From the beginning of the planning, things went awry for the Confederates. While Pickett's division had not been used yet at Gettysburg, A.P. Hill's health became an issue and he did not participate in selecting which troops of his were to be used for the charge. Some of Hill's corps had fought lightly on July 1 and not at all on July 2. However, troops that had done heavy fighting on July 1 ended up making the charge. [3]

Although the assault is known to popular history as Pickett's Charge, overall command was given to James Longstreet, and Pickett was one of his divisional commanders. Lee did tell Longstreet that Pickett's fresh division should lead the assault, so the name is appropriate, although some recent historians have used the name Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Assault (or, less frequently, Longstreet's Assault) to more fairly distribute the credit (or blame). With Hill sidelined, Pettigrew's and Trimble's divisions were delegated to Longstreet's authority as well. Thus, General Pickett's name has been lent to a charge in which he commanded about one third of the men and was under the supervision of his corps commander throughout. Pickett's men were almost exclusively from Virginia, with the other divisions consisting of troops from North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. The supporting troops under Wilcox and Lang were from Alabama and Florida. [4]

In conjunction with the infantry assault, Lee planned a cavalry action in the Union rear. J.E.B. Stuart led his cavalry division to the east, prepared to exploit Lee's hoped-for breakthrough by attacking the Union rear and disrupting its line of communications (and retreat) along the Baltimore Pike. [5]

Despite Lee's hope for an early start, it took all morning to arrange the infantry assault force. Meanwhile, on the far right end of the Union line, a seven-hour battle raged for the control of Culp's Hill. Lee's intent was to synchronize his offensives across the battlefield, keeping Meade from concentrating his numerically superior force, but the assaults were poorly coordinated and Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's attacks against Culp's Hill petered out just as Longstreet's cannonade began. [6]

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Artillery barrage

The infantry charge was preceded by what General Lee hoped would be a powerful and well-concentrated cannonade of the Union center, destroying the Union artillery batteries that could defeat the assault and demoralizing the Union infantry. But a combination of inept artillery leadership and defective equipment doomed the cannonade from the beginning. Longstreet's corps artillery chief, Colonel Edward Porter Alexander, was in effective command of the field; Lee's artillery chief, Maj. Gen. William N. Pendleton, played little role other than to obstruct the effective placement of artillery from the other two corps. Despite Alexander's efforts, then, there was insufficient concentration of Confederate fire on the objective.[7]

The July 3 bombardment was likely the largest of the war,[8] with hundreds of cannons from both sides firing along the lines for almost two hours,[9] starting around 1 p.m. Confederate guns numbered between 150 and 170[10] and fired from a line over two miles long, starting in the south at the Peach Orchard and running roughly parallel to the Emmitsburg Road. Confederate Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law wrote, "The cannonade in the center ... presented one of the most magnificent battle-scenes witnessed during the war. Looking up the valley towards Gettysburg, the hills on either side were capped with crowns of flame and smoke, as 300 guns, about equally divided between the two ridges, vomited their iron hail upon each other."[11]

Despite its ferocity, the fire was mostly ineffectual. Confederate shells often overshot the infantry front lines, and the smoke covering the battlefield concealed that fact from them. Union artillery chief Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt had only about 80 guns available to conduct counter-battery fire; the geographic features of the Union line had limited areas for effective gun emplacement. He also ordered that firing cease to conserve ammunition and Alexander interpreted this to mean that many of the batteries had been destroyed. (Hunt had to resist the strong arguments of General Hancock, who demanded Union fire to lift the spirits of the infantrymen pinned down under Alexander's bombardment. Even Meade was affected by the artillery—the Leister house was a victim of frequent overshots and he had to evacuate with his staff to Powers Hill.)[12]

The day was hot, 87 °F (31 °C) by one account[13] and humid, and the Confederates suffered under the hot sun awaiting the order to advance. But they suffered from the Union counter-battery fire as well. When Union cannoneers overshot their targets, they often hit the massed infantry waiting in the woods of Seminary Ridge or in the shallow depressions just behind Alexander's guns, causing significant casualties before the charge began.[14]

From the beginning, Longstreet opposed the charge, preferring his own plan for a strategic movement around the Union left flank. He told Lee that he didn't think there were "15,000 men on earth capable of taking that [the Union] position."[15] Longstreet looked for ways to avoid ordering the charge by attempting to pass responsibility to young Col. Alexander, but he eventually did pass the order himself non-verbally; when Alexander notified Pickett that he was running dangerously short of ammunition, Longstreet nodded reluctantly to Pickett's request to step off. Unfortunately for Pickett, there would be virtually no Confederate artillery with ammunition available to support his assault directly.[16]

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Infantry assault

The entire force that charged against the Union positions consisted of about 12,500 men,[17] marching deliberately in line with Pettigrew and Trimble on the left, and Pickett to the right. The nine brigades of men stretched over a mile-long front. The Confederates encountered heavy artillery fire while advancing across open fields nearly a mile to reach the Union line. The ground between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge is slightly undulating and the advancing troops periodically disappeared from the view of the Union cannoneers, but were visible all too often. As the three Confederate divisions advanced, awaiting Union soldiers began shouting "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!" in reference to the disastrous Union advance on the Confederate line during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. Murderous fire from Lt. Col. Freeman McGilvery's concealed artillery positions north of Little Round Top raked the Confederate right flank; fire from Cemetery Hill hit the left. Shell and solid shot in the beginning turned to canister and musket fire as the Confederates came within 400 yards of the Union line. The mile-long front shrank to less than half a mile as the men filled in gaps that appeared throughout the line and they followed their natural tendency to move away from the flanking fire.[18]

On the left flank of the attack, Brockenbrough's brigade virtually evaporated, decimated by artillery fire from Cemetery Hill. Davis's brigade, now on the left flank of the charge, was then subjected to the direct attention of the artillery and to a surprise musket fusillade from the 8th Ohio Infantry regiment, which had moved out from its position on the Emmitsburg Road to envelop Davis's left.[19]

Pickett's Virginians had been subjected to the least fire in the beginning of the charge and wheeled to their left toward a minor salient in the Union center. This position of the lines was marked by a low stone wall taking a short right-angle turn known afterwards as "The Angle." They marched in two lines, led by the brigades of James L. Kemper on the right and Richard B. Garnett on the left; Lewis A. Armistead's brigade followed closely behind. As the division wheeled to the left, its right flank was exposed to the front of Doubleday's Union division on Cemetery Ridge. Stannard's Vermont Brigade marched forward, faced north, and delivered withering fire into the rear of Kemper's brigade.[20]

The Confederates partially breached the Union's first line of defense, but were forced back soon after as Union troops gathered on their right flank and stabilized the center of the line. The charge lasted less than an hour. The supporting attack by Wilcox and Lang on Pickett's right was never a factor; they did not approach the Union line until after Pickett was defeated, and their advance was quickly broken up by McGilvery's guns and by the Vermont Brigade.[21]

Aftermath

Pickett's Charge was a bloodbath. While the Union lost about 1,500 killed and wounded, the Confederate casualty rate was over 50%. Pickett's division suffered 2,655 casualties (498 killed, 643 wounded, 833 wounded and captured, and 681 captured, unwounded). Pettigrew's losses are estimated to be about 2,700 (470 killed, 1,893 wounded, 337 captured). Trimble's two brigades lost 885 (155 killed, 650 wounded, and 80 captured). Wilcox's brigade reported losses of 200, Lang's about 400. Thus, total losses during the attack were 6,555, of which at least 1,123 Confederates were killed on the battlefield, 4,019 were wounded, and a good number of the injured were also captured. Confederate prisoner totals are difficult to estimate from their reports; Union reports indicated that 3,750 men were captured.[22]

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Command losses were also horrendous. Pickett's three brigade commanders and all thirteen of his regimental commanders were casualties. Kemper was wounded and Garnett and Armistead did not survive. Garnett had a previous leg injury and rode his horse during the charge, despite knowing that conspicuously riding a horse into heavy enemy fire would mean certain death. Armistead is known for leading his brigade with his cap on the tip of his sword. His brigade made the farthest progress through the Union lines. He was mortally wounded, falling near "The Angle" at what is now considered the High Water Mark of the Confederacy. Of the 15 regimental commanders in Pickett's division, the Virginia Military Institute produced eleven and all eleven were lost—six killed, five wounded. Trimble and Pettigrew were the most senior casualties of the day, the former losing a leg and the latter wounded in the hand and dying on the retreat to Virginia. Pickett himself has received some historical criticism for surviving the battle personally unscathed, but his position well to the rear of his troops was command doctrine at the time for division commanders.[23]

Stuart's cavalry action in indirect support of the infantry assault was unsuccessful. He was met and stopped by Union cavalry about three miles to the east, in East Cavalry Field.[24]

As soldiers straggled back to the Confederate lines along Seminary Ridge, Lee feared a Union counteroffensive and tried to rally his center, telling returning soldiers and Gen. Wilcox that the failure was "all my fault." General Pickett was inconsolable for the rest of the day and never forgave Lee for ordering the charge. When Lee told Pickett to rally his division for the defense, Pickett allegedly replied, "General Lee, I have no division."[25]

The Union counteroffensive never came; the Army of the Potomac was exhausted and nearly as damaged as the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade was content to hold the field. On July 4, the armies observed an informal truce and collected their dead and wounded. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant accepted the surrender of the Vicksburg garrison along the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in two. These two Union victories are generally considered the turning point of the Civil War.[26]

When asked, years afterward, why his charge at Gettysburg failed, General Pickett said: "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."[27]

Pickett's Charge became one of the iconic symbols of the literary and cultural movement known as the Lost Cause. William Faulkner, the quintessential Southern novelist, summed up the picture in Southern memory of this gallant but futile episode:[28]

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 than 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.

— William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

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Controversies

A number of controversies color the study of Pickett's Charge:

* The origins of the name for the charge itself. Virginian newspapers praised Pickett's Virginia division as making the most progress during the charge and the papers used Pickett's comparative success as a means of criticizing the actions of the other states' troops during the charge. Pickett's military career was never the same after the charge, and he was displeased about having his name attached to the repulsed charge. In particular North Carolinians have long taken exception to the characterizations and point to the poor performance of Brockenbrough's Virginians in the advance as a major causative factor of failure.[29]

* The true objective of the assault. Traditionally, the copse of trees has been cited as the visual landmark for the attacking force. This view originated in the work of Gettysburg Battlefield historian John B. Bachelder in the 1880s. However, recent scholarship, including published works by some Gettysburg National Military Park rangers, has suggested that Lee's goal was actually Ziegler's Grove on Cemetery Hill, a more prominent and highly visible grouping of trees. The much debated theory suggests that Lee's general plan for the second-day attacks (the seizure of Cemetery Hill) had not changed on the third day, and the attacks on July 3 were also aimed at securing the hill and the network of roads it commanded. The copse of trees was under ten feet high in 1863, a minor landmark, only visible to a portion of the attacking columns from certain parts of the battlefield. History may never know the true story of Lee's intentions at Gettysburg. He never published memoirs and his after-action report from the battle was cursory. Most of the senior commanders of the charge itself were casualties and did not write reports. Pickett's report was apparently so bitter that Lee ordered him to destroy it and no copy has been found.[30]

* The location of General Pickett during the charge. The fact that fifteen of his officers and all three of his brigadier generals were casualties while Pickett managed to escape unharmed led many to question his proximity to the fighting and, by implication, his personal courage. The 1993 movie Gettysburg depicts him observing on horseback from the Codori Farm at the Emmitsburg Road, but there is no historical evidence to confirm this. It was established doctrine in the Civil War that division commanders and above would "lead from the rear", while brigade and more junior officers were expected to lead from the front, and while this was often violated, there was nothing for Pickett to be ashamed about if he coordinated his forces from behind. [31]

Battlefield today

The site of Pickett's Charge is one of the best-maintained portions of the Gettysburg Battlefield. Ironically, despite millions of annual visitors to Gettysburg National Military Park, very few have walked in the footsteps of Pickett's division. The National Park Service maintains a neat, mowed path alongside a fence that leads from the Virginia Monument on Confederate Boulevard (Seminary Ridge) due east to the Emmitsburg Road in the direction of the Copse of Trees. 

Pickett's division, however, started considerably south of that point, near the Spangler farm, and wheeled to the north after crossing the road. In fact, the Park Service pathway stands between the two main thrusts of Longstreet's assault—Trimble's division advanced north of the current path, while Pickett's division moved from further south.

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References

• Boritt, Gabor S., ed., Why the Confederacy Lost (Gettysburg Civil War Institute Books), Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-507405-X.
• Clark, Champ, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide, Time-Life Books, 1985, ISBN 0-8094-4758-4.
• Coddington, Edwin B., The Gettysburg Campaign; a study in command, Scribner's, 1968, ISBN 0-684-84569-5.
• Desjardins, Thomas A., These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory, Da Capo Press, 2003, ISBN 0-306-81267-3.
• Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84944-5.
• Harman, Troy D., Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg, Stackpole Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8117-0054-2.
• Hess, Earl J., Pickett's Charge—The Last Attack at Gettysburg, University of North Carolina Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8078-2648-0.
• Pfanz, Harry W., The Battle of Gettysburg, National Park Service Civil War Series, Eastern National, 1994, ISBN 0-915992-63-9.
• Sears, Stephen W., Gettysburg, Houghton Mifflin, 2003, ISBN 0-395-86761-4.
• Symonds, Craig L., American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg, HarperCollins, 2001, ISBN 0-06-019474-X.
• Trudeau, Noah Andre, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, HarperCollins, 2002, ISBN 0-06-019363-8.
• Wert, Jeffry D., Gettysburg: Day Three, Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-85914-9.

Notes

1 Pfanz, pp. 44-52.
2 Eicher, pp. 544-46.
3 Coddington, pp. 461, 489.
4 Eicher, p. 544.
5 Sears, p. 391.
6 Coddington, pp. 454-55.
7 Sears, pp. 377-80; Wert, p. 127; Coddington, p. 485.
8 Symonds, p. 214: "It may well have been the loudest man-made sound on the North American continent until the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
9 Hess, p. 162, disputes the two hour duration, writing that the bombardment was essentially over by 2 p.m.
10 Estimates of the guns deployed vary. Coddington, p. 493: "over 150"; Eicher, p. 543: 159; Trudeau, p. 452: 164; Symonds, p. 215: "more than 160"; Clark, p. 128, "about 170"; Pfanz, p. 45: "170 (we cannot know the exact number)." All agree that approximately 80 guns available in the Army of Northern Virginia were not used during the bombardment.
11 Eicher, p. 543.
12 Sears, pp. 397-400; Coddington, p. 497; Hess, pp. 180-81; Clark, p. 135.
13 Sears, p. 383. The temperature was recorded at 2 p.m. by Professor Michael Jacobs of Gettysburg College.
14 Hess, p. 151.
15 Coddington, p. 460.
16 Coddington, pp. 500-02.
17 Estimates vary substantially. Clark, p. 131: 12,000; Sauers, p. 835: 10,500 to 15,000; Eicher, p. 544: 10,500 to 13,000; Sears, p. 392: "13,000 or so"; Pfanz, p. 44: "about 12,000"; Coddington, p. 462: 13,500; Hess, p. 335: 11,830.
18 Hess, p. 171; Clark, p. 137; Sears, pp. 424-26.
19 Sears, pp. 422-24; Hess, pp. 188-90.
20 Clark, pp. 139-43; Pfanz, p. 51; Sears, p. 436.
21 Eicher, pp. 547-48; Sears, pp. 451-54.
22 Hess, pp. 333-35. Sears, p. 467.
23 Sears, p. 467; Eicher, pp. 548-49.
24 Pfanz, pp. 52-53.
25 Hess, p. 326; Sears, p. 458; Wert, pp. 251-2, disputes prevalent accounts that Lee and Pickett met personally after the battle.
26 Pfanz, p. 53.
27 Boritt, p. 5.
28 Quoted in Desjardins, pp. 124-25.
29 Desjardins, p. 47; Sears, p. 359.
30 Harman, pp. 63-83.
31 Sears, pp. 426, 455; Coddington, pp. 504-05.