Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg

Early in the afternoon the artillery from Seminary Ridge and Longstreet’s center opened with all the power of its metal.

Continuing Battle of Gettysburg,
with a selection from History of the Southern Rebellion by Orville J. Victor published in 1898. This selection is presented in 7.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Battle of Gettysburg.

Time: July 1-3, 1863
Place: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Losing this ground on his left, Lee had to change his program of attack. A lull in operations therefore occurred, during which he rearranged his battle lines and concentrated his artillery with reference to a heavy assault upon the Federal Center and left. The strength of the National line, stretching along Cemetery Ridge, and out up to the Round Top fastness, Lee so well appreciated that he brought into requisition his every available gun. Before noon he had in place, beyond the Emmetsburg road on the extension of Seminary Ridge and to the south of it, about one hundred twenty-five guns, with which to demoralize the Union line preparatory to his final and most desperate effort to obtain a foothold on Cemetery Ridge. Pickett’s division (Longstreet’s corps) having reached the field too late for the previous day’s battle, was assigned the post of honor, the van of the column of assault. It was strengthened by Wilcox’s brigade of Anderson’s division on its right, and Heth’s division, commanded by Pettigrew, on the left.

Early in the afternoon the artillery from Seminary Ridge and Longstreet’s center opened with all the power of its metal. The outburst was so sudden and startling, and the shower of hurtled missiles so concentrated in range, that for a few minutes the Federal line was stunned, and the troops shrank away as from a sirocco, everywhere seeking the cover of rocks and the temporary fortifications. Eighty Federal guns answered, and the con test assumed sublime proportions. The hills seemed to tremble and rock. Shot and shell shrieked through the dun pall of sulphurous smoke which filled all the air; the ground was torn and seamed in the thousand places where the thunderbolts struck.” * The Federal gunners, reeking with sweat as they worked beneath the half-suppressed blaze of a midsummer sun, grew more frenzied with every loss; and when ordered to the rear to make way for a fresh gun and men, left the charmed circle of fire and death with the reluctance of unsated vengeance.

[* Said Doubleday: “They had our exact range, and the destruction was fearful. Horses were killed in every direction. I lost two horses myself, while almost every officer lost one or more, and quite a large number of caissons were blown up.” The ruin wrought in the cemetery was complete. That sacred resting-place became truly a city of the dead before nightfall of that momentous day. Said Hancock: “It was a most terrific and appalling cannonade, one possibly hardly ever paralleled. I doubt whether there have ever been more guns concentrated upon an equal space and opening at one time.”}

This combat continued two hours, when, finding his ammunition running low, and it being too dangerous to bring forward more, Hunt ordered a gradual cessation of the fire along the line. This was regarded by the enemy as indicative of silenced power, and their own guns ceased, as if satisfied that their preliminary work was done. The assaulting column advanced to the edge of the woods covering the side of Seminary Ridge. The formation was in two battle lines, Kemper’s and Garnett’s brigades in front, sustained by Armistead’s regiments. This column was flanked by wings, composed, as already stated, of Wilcox’s brigade on the right, and Heth’s division, commanded by Pettigrew, on the left. As soon as it passed the Emmetsburg road the Federal artillery opened, and continued to play on the ranks, from Round Top to the cemetery, wherever the intervening woods permitted an aim. This fire told severely on the advance. When at length the column began to ascend the ridge’s western slope, the musketry opened from sections of the Federal line, though the artillery never for a moment ceased to hurl destruction through and through the oncoming brigades. Only men used to death and to perfect submission to command could preserve ranks under such a fire. Great gaps, literal windrows, would follow a well directed shot, only to be closed up again by the unflinching mass.

But, if the main column was schooled to fire, the supports were not; for, when about half way up the hill, the division of Petti grew wavered, broke, and fell away before the fire on its front and flank, coming from Hays’s division (Second Corps). The demoralization of the Confederate wing was complete, and two thousand prisoners with their colors fell into the National hands. The main lines dared not halt to steady the distempered mass, and thus the brigades of Heth, which had fought gallantly at Willoughby Run, were scattered, marking their advance and retreat by lines of killed and wounded. Pickett’s brigades pushed on, until the first formation overleaped the barrier of stones and rails that constituted the outwork or advanced line of the Second Corps’s central division. The line when struck was held by Webb’s brigade of Pennsylvanians, two regiments at the barrier and one in reserve, lying behind a second barrier, sixty paces to the rear and fully on the crest. The two regiments gave way, but in no disorder, and, rallying at the second line, there held their own, while Hancock, with quick energy, threw into the fray regiment after regiment from his left and from Double day’s command. Of the latter, Stannard’s Vermont Brigade had been advanced to a grove on the slope. These, now covering the Confederate flank, poured in a scathing fire, before which the enemy shrank. Confronted thus by an impassable host on his front, with musketry and artillery cutting his ranks into shreds while Stannard scarred his flank, Pickett’s veterans were only human to falter and fall away. To have stood there, gazing upon the crest which no sacrifice of theirs could win, was mere madness; and, without a brigade commander to direct, the remnant of that proud forlorn hope sought safety in flight, preserving no order in its retreat. Twenty-five hundred of them, with twelve battle-flags, were swooped up by the flanking Federal advance.

Orville J. Victor begins here. Edward A. Pollard begins here. Abraham Lincoln begins here.

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