The following is an excerpt from Rare Deputy Editor James S. Robbins’ book Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point.
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Pickett’s Charge
The early morning of July 3 was overcast, threatening rain. George Pickett sat with his brigade commanders, Armistead, Kemper, and Garnett, in what he called “a heart to heart powwow.” They knew they were going to lead the Confederate assault that day. The plan was not yet set, orders had not been given, but they were certain that their time had arrived. Armistead was particularly emotional, and gave a ring to Pickett to give to LaSalle, with his compliments. As they were talking a message arrived from Longstreet summoning Pickett to the front. Pickett and his commanders shook hands.
“Good luck, old man,” they said. They left to ready their men for the march while Pickett mounted his horse and headed east. A few miles down the road Pickett happened to pass by Fitz Lee, who had arrived the previous day with Stuart’s cavalry.
“Come on Fitz, and go with us,” Pickett said, as he trotted past. “We shall have lots of fun there presently.”
The plan had been set around 8:00 am. Longstreet explained the concept of operations to Pickett with a heavy heart; but Pickett was in high spirits. He was confident of success, and in fact, the possibility of failure never occurred to him. The Army of Northern Virginia had faced great challenges in the past two years and had consistently emerged triumphant. Like many, he had unwavering faith in the generalship of Robert E. Lee. And Pickett had been in this position before. In Mexico the Americans had marched hundreds of miles into enemy territory, and prevailed against superior numbers in entrenched positions – it was all a matter of the will to see it through, to overawe the adversary, to advance fearlessly and fight bravely. Above all, Pickett was delighted that Lee had placed such confidence in him, and that he was to lead the decisive assault. Pickett had felt neglected; he had not been placed in a position to fight, to earn glory, to prove himself yet again. Now the entire battle hinged on him.
Pickett and his staff then set about developing the operational details. His division would be on the right, with Heth’s division, commanded by Pettigrew, on the left. The two wings of the advancing line would converge on an area around one fifth the length of the formation, to concentrate their mass and punch through the Union line.
Five brigades of Anderson’s Division were placed under Longstreet’s operational control, including Wilcox’s brigade, supporting the right flank. Major General Isaac Trimble was placed in command of two brigades of Major General Dorsey Pender’s division, supporting the left. Trimble was sixty-one years old, a graduate of the Class of 1822. He was one of the oldest graduates to join the Confederacy. Trimble was known for his aggressiveness in battle, and two days earlier had begged the hesitant General Ewell to allow him to attack Culp’s Hill, which became the anchor of the Union right flank.
As Pickett was working with his staff Colonel Birkett D. Fry rode up. He had been on point in Heth’s advance on the first day of battle, and was now acting commander of Archer’s Brigade. His brigade was in the center of the attack formation and Pettigrew had sent him to discuss how the lines would be dressed. Pickett greeted his old classmate warmly, and Fry noted his enthusiasm and optimism. Pickett observed that they had “been together in work of that kind at Chapultepec,” and they would see this one through as well. Pickett also met with Lieutenant Colonel George T. Gordon of the 34th North Carolina Regiment, Scales’ Brigade, Pender’s Division. Pickett introduced Gordon to staff officer Captain Robert A. Bright: “This is Colonel Gordon, once opposed to me in the San Juan affair, but now on our side.” “English Gordon” was skeptical of the attempt, and told Pickett so.
“Pickett, my men are not going up today,” he said.
“But Gordon,” Pickett said, “they must go up; you must make them go up.”
“You know, Pickett, I will go as far with you as any other man, if only for old acquaintance sake,” Gordon said. “But for the last day or two [my men] have lost heavily under infantry fire and are very sore, and they will not go up today.” Gordon spoke for many on the left flank; Heth’s Division had seen hard fighting, particularly on the first day. However, Pickett’s men were arriving unbloodied and with something to prove. Longstreet observed that Pickett’s boys showed a “zest for fighting,” since they were “coming up fresh and feeling disparaged that the army had won new laurels in their absence.”
Longstreet was still troubled. He knew the risks of the attack, and did not want to be the one who gave the order that started the advance. Around noon, he sent a message to his artillery commander, Colonel Edward Porter Alexander:
Colonel: If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or greatly demoralize him so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would prefer that your should not advise General Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your good judgment to determine the matter, and shall expect you to let General Pickett know when the moment offers.
Alexander had graduated third in the Class of 1857, and spent most of his career as an Assistant Instructor of Military Engineering. He had been given tactical control of First Corps’ batteries by Longstreet on July 2. Though Alexander was only 28 years old, Longstreet had great faith in him. Alexander had performed heroic duty at Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville, and Lee’s artillery chief Brigadier General William N. Pendleton, who had graduated fifth in the Class of 1830, said, “we have no more accomplished officer.” But Alexander was also skeptical of the plan. He said the spot chosen for the attack was “almost as badly chosen as it was possible to be.” He thought Cemetery Hill a preferable point of attack, where all the Confederate artillery could be brought to bear. He wrote back to Longstreet,
General: I will only be able to judge of the effect of our fire on the enemy by his return fire, for his infantry it but little exposed to view and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and, if the result is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort. And even if this is entirely successful it can only be so at a very bloody cost.
But Longstreet was adamant; he wanted Alexander to give the order. He replied,
Colonel: The intention is to advance the infantry if the artillery has the desired effect of driving the enemy’s off, or having other effect such as to warrant us in making the attack. When that moment arrives advise General P[ickett], and of course advance such artillery as you can use in aiding the attack.
Still hesitant to bear the burden, Alexander went to Pickett to gauge his mood. He found Pickett “very sanguine, and thought himself in luck to have the chance” to lead the attack. Time was passing, and Alexander knew that further delay would reduce the chance for success. He wrote Longstreet, “General: When our artillery fire is at its best, I shall order Pickett to charge.”
“Let the batteries open,” Longstreet ordered, and then lay down in the shade to think. The cannonade began at 1:00 pm with two signal shots. Lee had dedicated 164 of the 248 cannon he had on the field to the attack. It was probably the largest sustained artillery barrage to that point in history, surely the largest in support of an infantry assault. Gibbon, commanding the Union Second Division, called it “the most infernal pandemonium it has ever been my fortune to look upon. Very few troops were in sight and those that were, were hugging the ground closely, some behind the stone wall, some not, but the artillerymen were all busily at work at their guns, thundering out defiance to the enemy whose shells were bursting in and around them at a fearful rate, striking now a horse, now a limber and now a man.” But the rebel fire was not as devastating as Lee had hoped. Faulty fused rounds failed to detonate on target, or at all; and because the Confederate fire was directed at a ridge, shells frequently passed over the front to wreak havoc in the reserve and headquarters areas behind the lines.
Soon the rebel guns were answered by eighty or so Union artillery pieces. J.H. Moore of the Seventh Tennessee Infantry wrote that “no imagination can adequately conceive of the magnitude of this artillery duel. It surpassed the ordinary battery fire as the earthquake or some convulsion of nature surpasses the muttering of an ordinary thunderstorm.” John T. James of the 11th Virginia observed, “I have heard and witnessed heavy cannonading, but never in my life had I seen or heard anything equal to this. Some enthusiasts back in the Commissary Department may speak of it as grand and sublime, but unless grandeur and sublimity consist in whatever is terrible and horrible, it was wanting in both of these qualities.”
Another soldier recalled, “turn where you would, there was to be seen at almost every moment of time guns, swords, haversacks, human flesh and bones flying and dangling in the air or bouncing above the earth, which now trembled beneath us as shaken by an earthquake.” But Captain John Holmes Smith of the 11th Virginia regiment saw Longstreet ride by during the bombardment, “quiet as an old farmer riding over his plantation on a Sunday morning.” Kemper, who saw Longstreet ride the line, said that “his bearing was to me the grandest moral spectacle of the war.” Pickett too trotted down the rear of his division, entreating the men to make ready for the advance and to “Remember Old Virginia!”
Around 1:30 pm Pickett was with his staff when a note arrived from Alexander. “If you are coming at all you must come at once, or I cannot give you proper support; but the enemy’s fire has not slackened at all; at least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself.” Alexander’s lack of ammunition was acute, and unexpected. When the Union counter-fire began, General Pendleton had ordered the ordnance train out of range of Federal shells, slowing the resupply effort. “Granny” Pendleton was not held in high regard as a warfighter, being considered too cautious. This limited Alexander’s options; if he paused for resupply, the enemy could reconstitute; if he kept up his rate of fire, the attack would have to launch directly.
Pickett looked at his men. “Boys, let us give them a trial,” he said, and ordered his brigade commanders to form their regiments. He then rode off in search of Longstreet. He found him sitting on a fence, watching the effects of the bombardment. He was “like a great lion at bay,” Pickett later wrote. “I have never seen him so grave and troubled.”
As Pickett approached he was handed another terse message from Alexander:
The 18 guns have been driven off. For God’s sake come on quick or we cannot support you, ammunition nearly out.
Pickett read the note, then handed the paper to his friend.
“Sir, shall I advance?” he said. Longstreet looked silently at Pickett. It was bad luck that Pickett had sought him out, and that the second note arrived when it did. He had hoped Pickett would step off on Alexander’s order. Now Pickett had inadvertently placed Longstreet in the very position he sought to avoid. Longstreet had to give the order. He tried to say it; but he could not. Instead, he held out his hand. The two men shook, and Longstreet nodded wearily.
“Then, General,” Pickett said, “I shall lead my division on.” He turned his mount and rode quickly away. It was, Longstreet wrote, “one of the saddest days of my life.”
Pickett rode south down the line to his division. His brigades had loosely formed and the soldiers were waiting for the order to advance. He rode before them, proud and excited, ready to meet his destiny.
“Up men, to your posts!” Pickett said. “Don’t forget that you are from old Virginia! Forward! Guide center! March!” A band struck up a tune. Pickett felt the thrill of the moment, of hearing the voices of his men calling out to him, “We’ll follow you, Marse George! We’ll follow you!” as they set off. Across the field, Union General Alexander Hays, commander of the Union Third Division, called to his men, “Now boys, look out; you will see some fun!”
Meanwhile Longstreet had ridden out to Alexander’s forward position. Alexander told him that the guns were nearly out of ammunition and that, while he was hopeful, he might not be able to give the attack all the support he would like.
“Stop Pickett immediately and replenish your ammunition!” Longstreet said. But Alexander said he could not. The supply wagons were too distant, and if the tempo of battle slowed, Meade would be able to reconstitute his position. Longstreet was fatalistic.
“I don’t want to make this attack,” he said. “I would stop it now but that General Lee ordered it and expects it to go on. I don’t see how it can succeed.” As Longstreet spoke these words, the Confederate line emerged from concealment.
“Pickett’s Division swept out of the wood and showed the full length of its gray ranks and shining bayonets,” Alexander recalled, “as grand a sight as a man ever looked on.” Around 14,000 men emerged from the woods in a line a mile and a half long. Regiments from Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida. The extreme right flank of the line stretched down to the Peach Orchard. Pickett was somewhere around Spangler Farm on the right flank of the line. Longstreet watched as his old friend set off down the slope of Seminary Ridge and into the fields.
“As he passed me he rode gracefully,” Longstreet recalled, “with his jaunty cap raked well over his right ear and his long auburn locks, nicely dressed, hanging almost to his shoulders. He seemed rather a holiday soldier than a general at the head of a column which was about to make one of the grandest, most desperate assaults recorded in the annals of wars.”
Captain Scott of the 126th New York Infantry, watched the advance from the Union lines. “The guns and bayonets in the sunlight shone like silver,” he wrote. “The whole line of battle looked like a stream or river of silver moving towards us…. The movement of such a force over such a field, in such perfect order, to such a destiny, was grand beyond expression.” Many on both sides of the assault noted this, the fantastic sight of the assault force moving en masse across the field.
At Longstreet’s order Alexander’s artillery opened up with a few final supporting rounds after the lines passed, attempting to suppress what remained of the Union artillery. But it was a vain effort. Soon the perfect lines of infantry were rent by gunfire from all along the Union line. Enfilading fire from Little Round Top was particularly effective. But the guns did not slow the assault. The rebel lines closed up smoothly as men were struck down, and the advance continued.
Pickett rode between the first and second lines, encouraging his men and keeping an eye on the disposition of the brigades as they advanced. About halfway across the field they executed a left oblique, a forty-five degree left turn to take advantage of protection afforded by the rolling terrain, to keep the enemy guessing at where they intended to hit the line, and most importantly to consolidate the mass of the assault on the objective at the copse of trees.
Shortly thereafter, about 750 yards into the charge, Pickett noticed his left flank was wavering. Brockenbrough’s and Davis’ Brigades of Heth’s Division had run into trouble. They had suffered greatly on the first day of the battle and were not in high spirits. As they advanced over a fold in the ground, troops from the 8th Ohio regiment who had been on picket duty sprang up and surprised the Confederates with a close-range volley, which shook their confidence and caused panic. Many began to flee the field. Pickett sent his brother, Major Charles Pickett, to rally the column. “Unless they support us on the left,” Pickett said, “my division will be cut to pieces.”
The rest of the advance continued, Pickett’s right flank angling to meet the center near the copse of trees. Pickett paused maybe 400 yards from the objective, in low ground, sheltered from the worst of the enemy fire, to dress his lines and consolidate for the final push, trying to maintain the cohesion of the attack. His four staff officers relayed instructions to the brigade commanders as they advanced, and Pickett watched his flanks warily, hoping the expected reinforcements would arrive soon. He crossed the Emmitsburg Road south of the Codori Farm, about 300 yards from the Angle. Kemper and Garnett’s Brigades had swept ahead on either side of the farm buildings, and were about to hit the Union line.
As his main force was about to cross the Emmitsburg road, Pickett sent his aide Captain Bright to Longstreet asking him to commit the reserves, else the position could not be held. Longstreet had already ordered three support brigades to shore up the left flank when he saw Brockenbrough’s men retreating. However, he halted their movement before they moved beyond the artillery line, sensing the battle was already decided. Bright found Longstreet sitting on a fence alone. He relayed Pickett’s message, and Longstreet asked where the flank support was. “Look over your shoulder and you will see them,” Bright replied, referring to the small groups of stragglers already making their way back. That moment Colonel Fremantle, the British observer, rode up, saying he wanted to witness the “magnificent” charge. “I would not have missed it for the world,” he gushed.
“Colonel Fremantle, the charge is over,” Longstreet said. “Captain Bright, ride to General Pickett and tell him what you have heard me say to Colonel Fremantle.” As the astonished Bright rode off Longstreet called after him that they could use Wilcox’s Brigade if they needed to.
From Longstreet’s point of view the battle may have been decided, but for the men at the forward edge of the attack it had hardly been joined. The center of the assault force had reached the double line of fences running across their advance at the Emmitsburg Road. Many were cut down trying to cross this deceptively difficult barrier. J.H. Moore wrote that “the time it took to climb to the top of the fence seemed to me an age of suspense. It was not a leaping over; it was rather an insensible tumbling to the ground in the nervous hope of escaping the thickening missiles that buried themselves in falling victims, in the ground and in the fence, against which they rattled with the distinctness of large rain drops pattering on a roof.” One section of fence, sixteen feet long and fourteen inches wide, took 836 hits from musket fire and canister.
Brevet Lieutenant Tully McCrea, Light Company I, First U.S. Artillery, had been viewing the advance from his artillery battery in Ziegler’s Grove, on the northern edge of the attack. He watched the advancing lines of Pettigrew’s men as they came to the road. “Could a finer target for artillery practice be imagined? Three lines of infantry, two deep, advancing over such ground in the very face of our artillery.”
The guns had not been driven off, as Alexander had concluded. They had fallen silent to conserve ammunition. When the Confederate lines neared, the Union guns commenced a murderous fire. “When we opened on them one could see great gaps swept down,” McCrea wrote, “it was impossible to miss.” The survivors reformed and crossed the clover-covered slop leading up to the Union emplacements. While forming up, Colonel Joseph C. Mayo of the 3rd Virginia regiment noted Captain Lewis of Company C forming up his command, “looking as lazy and lackadasical, and, if possible, more tired and bored than usual.”
“Pretty hot, Captain,” Mayo said as he passed.
“It’s redicklous, Colonel,” Lewis replied, “perfectly redicklous.”
George Stannard’s 13th and 16th Vermont regiments moved out to harass Pickett’s right flank. It broke the remnants of Kemper’s and Garnett’s commands. Around the same time a similar move was made on the left against Pettigrew by the 108th and 126th New York regiments, and the 1st Massachusetts sharpshooters, moving south from Ziegler’s Grove. Pickett sent Bright to ask for artillery support from Dearing’s Battery, but he was told they only had three round shot left. Pickett sent his brother Charles to entreat Longstreet for more help, but Charles could not find him.
The fight was thick now as the Confederates neared the objective. Pettigrew’s men surged towards the Angle but were stopped at the wall. Trimble’s two brigades advanced through the remnants of Pettigrew’s Division, reached the wall on the left flank, and were forced back. Trimble, who had advanced mounted on his horse Jinny, took a round to the ankle and turned command over to John Lane before leaving the field. Later part of his lower leg would be amputated and, it being too dangerous to move, Trimble would be captured and spend most of the rest of the war a POW.
Garnett, riding just to the rear of his men and coolly managing his part of the assault, was shot in the head and fell from his mount less than 25 yards from the stone wall. He died on that spot. The Union line was buckling, and his men reached the wall and planted their flags. Armistead, moving quickly to assist Garnett, led his men forward with his hat on his sword. As they crossed the stone wall he entreated his men to “Give them the cold steel, boys!”
About two to three hundred of his troops made it over the wall at the Angle. The fighting was brutal, point blank firing and hand to hand struggle. Armistead was hit by a round and sank down next to a gun carriage. About an equal number of Kemper’s men had penetrated just to the south of the Angle. They drove off the defenders they faced, and Kemper, raising himself in his stirrups, cried out, “There are the guns boy, go for them!” At that moment, Kemper was knocked from his horse by a round that penetrated his thigh and lodged at the base of his spine. Moments later his troops were devastated by a double-canister volley from Battery B, 1st New York artillery, at a few yards range.
Around this time Wilcox’s and Perry’s Brigades (the latter under the command of Colonel David Lang) finally moved forward to support Pickett’s right, fully knowing they attack had failed. They moved too late to be effective, and they could not see the troops they were being sent to support. They advanced on a line that took them so far south that they were not in contact with the main body. They moved through the field under hot artillery fire, crossed Emmitsburg road and advanced into the depression of Plum Run, where they took punishing cannon and musket fire. The 16th Vermont, still extended on Pickett’s right and between the reinforcements and the main body, turned about and delivered withering fire into their flanks. Wilcox took 204 casualties, Lang around 150. This was a hopeless move so late in the action.
Robert E. Lee said he “never saw troops behave more magnificently than Pickett’s division of Virginians today, in their grand charge upon the enemy.” Henry Heth, who had watched the attack from the start line, said that it was, “as was said of the famous charge of the six hundred at Balaklava, ties grande, mais c’est ne pas la guerre.“ Alexander said that “no-one could have looked at that advance without feeling proud of it.” Colonel Emory Upton, the commanding the 121st New York infantry, who had viewed the charge from Little Round Top, called the attack “imposing and sublime.”
But as the assault collapsed, the retreat became something less than sublime. J.H. Moore, who had reached the wall, said that “it was death or surrender to remain. It seemed almost death to retreat.” Men feared if they retreated slowly they would be shot in the back, so some began running to get out of the range of fire as fast as they could. But many were left on the field. “There were literally acres of dead lying in front of our line,” Captain Scott recalled. “The dead in every direction lay upon the field piled in heaps and scattered as far as they eye could reach.”
Pickett watched as his command crumbled, and rode out along the disintegrating line, imploring his men to reform, but it was a hopeless task. As one observer noted, “they were panic stricken, and no effort could induce them to form anew while under that terrific storm of fire.” He finally withdrew, muttering, “My brave men! My brave men!”
Back along the artillery line a group from the 24th Virginia had rallied around their standard, one of two regimental colors that had not been lost. As Pickett rode up the standard-bearer, Charles Belcher, shouted, “General, let us go at them again!” (A year later Belcher would desert the south and join the Union cause.) Their enthusiasm was cut short when litter bearers brought up the desperately wounded Kemper. Just then General Lee approached, and the men clustered around him. Lee went to Pickett and clasped his hand. Pickett began to weep.
“General Pickett,” Lee said, “place your division in rear of this hill, and be ready to repel the advance of the enemy should they follow up their advantage.”
“General Lee,” Pickett said, his head hanging, “I have no division now.”
James S. Robbins is Deputy Editor of Rare and author of Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point. Follow him on Twitter @James_Robbins