Pickett's Charge
Pickett's Charge was an attack ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The charge was made against Union positions on Cemetery Ridge. After Confederate attacks on both Union flanks had failed the day and night before, Lee had determined to strike the Union center the next day. On the night of July 2nd, 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 charge was made of three Confederate divisions, commanded by Generals Pickett, Pettigrew and Trimble, consisting of troops from Longstreet's and Hill's corps. From the beginning of the planning, things went awry for the Confederates. While Pickett's division had not been used at Gettysburg, A.P. Hill's health became an issue and he apparently was not active in determining which troops of his were to be used for the charge. Much of Hill's corps had done no fighting on Day 2 and light fighting on Day 1. However, troops that had done heavy fighting on Day 1 ended up making the charge.
Since the charge has come to be known as Pickett's Charge, the common individual knows little about the charge's actual command structure. Overall technical command of the charge was given to I Corps Commander James Longstreet, and Pickett was one of his divisional commanders. With Hill sidelined, Pettigrew and Trimble's commands were delegated to Longstreet's authority as well. Thus, General Pickett's name has been lent to a charge in which he commanded about 1/3 of the forces and had his corps commander over his head throughout. From the beginning, Longstreet opposed the charge and told Lee that he didn't think there were 15,000 men on Earth capable of success. Longstreet would look for ways to avoid making the charge while dealing with his artillery chief Edward Porter Alexander on the cannonade.
The infantry charge was to be preceded by what General Lee hoped would be a powerful and well concentrated cannonade of the Union center. But a combination of inept artillery leadership and defective equipment doomed the cannonade from the beginning. The Day 3 cannonading was likely the largest of the war, with hundreds of cannons from both sides being fired along the lines for over an hour. With that said, there was little bite behind the bark. Confederate cannons overshot the infantry lines, and the smoke concealed that fact from them.
The entire force that charged against the Union positions consisted of about 15,000 men. The Confederates never stood a chance, as they encountered heavy artillery and musket fire while advancing nearly a mile to reach the Union line. Pickett's Virginians on the right had been subjected to the least fire during the charge and wheeled to their left toward a salient in the Union center at a position of the lines known as "The Angle." The Confederates partially breached Union Gen. Meade's first line of defense but were forced back soonafter as Union troops gathered on their right flank and stabilized the center of the line. The charge lasted little more than an hour.
The attrition in the two armies for the entire Battle and Pickett's Charge was brutal. The Confederates suffered about 27,000 casualties while the Union suffered about 22,000 over the 3 days. The Confederate casualtry rate for Pickett's Charge was nearly 50%, and all 13 of Pickett's division heads were casualties. The most famous casualties were brigade generals Richard Garnett and Lewis Armistead. Garnett had a leg injury and rode a horse during the charge, knowing that riding a horse would equal certain death. Armistead is known for leading his brigade with his cap on the tip of his sword. Armistead was mortally wounded, falling near "The Angle" at what is now considered the Confederacy's High Tide Mark.
As stragglers marched back to the Confederate lines along Seminary Ridge, Lee feared a Union counteroffensive and tried to rally his center, allegedly telling his troops that the failure was "my fault." General Pickett never forgave Lee for the charge and was inconsolable for the rest of the day. When Lee told Pickett to rally his division, Pickett allegedly told his commander, "I have no division."
The Union counteroffensive never came; the Army of the Potomoc was as beat up as the Army of Northern Virginia and Meade was content to hold the field. On July 4, the armies held a truce and collected their dead and wounded. Meanwhile, General Ulysses S. Grant was finally forcing the surrender of the Vicksburg garrison along the Mississippi River near New Orleans. The two victories are considered the turning point of the Civil War.
On July 5, Robert E. Lee began to withdraw the Army of Northern Virginia back to Virginia. Meade was rebuked by the Administration for not following Lee's army closely enough to cut it off before they crossed the Potomoc, but inclement weather made the pursuit extremely difficult. While Meade is often still criticized for not getting to Lee, recent historians like Stephen Sears and past historians like Edwin Coddington have justified Meade's command decisions following the battle. Lee's army recrossed the Potomoc in mid July, never to invade the North again.
The origins of the naming of Pickett's Charge is almost as controversial as the charge itself. Virginian newspapers praised Pickett's Virginia division as making the most progress during the charge, and as it became more clear that Gettysburg had been the turning point in the East, the papers used Pickett's "success" as a means of criticizing the actions of the other states' troops during the charge. Of course, Pickett's career was never the same after the charge, and he was (unsurprisingly) unpleased about having his name attached to the repulsed charge.