Section #1 - Three Days At Gettysburg
Chapter 35: Day Three: 1:00–3:30 PM
(Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
The attack begins with a bombardment of the Union center by 63 cannon from the left and another 88 from Col. Porter Alexander on the right. Once completed the troops will step out from the woods along Seminary Ridge and begin a 1/2 mile advance to the Emmetsburg Pike where they will need to clear rail fences blocking their way. Then their final challenge will be another 1/4th mile climb up a modest incline to reach the enemy.
Their aiming point is a small “copse of trees” set in an “angle” between two stone fences manned by the Union forces.
Surprisingly the attack starts out with 11,000 Confederate troops up against only 5,700 defenders. This is because of a mid-morning shift by Meade of Slocum’s XII Corps toward Culp’s Hill after concluding that Lee may come at him from that direction.
General Hancock is thus stuck in the center with only 6 brigades spread across 1/2 mile under three men. Two of them are native Pennsylvanians: Alexander Hays, known as “Old Eleck,” who will later be killed at the Wilderness; and John Gibbon who will accompany Grant all the way to Appomattox. Then there is New York’s Abner Doubleday, at Ft. Sumter when the war broke out and already in pain from a neck wound received in his Day One defense of McPherson’s Ridge alongside Buford.
- Hancock — Union commander
- Hays (1,700) — Union troops
- Gibbon (2,000) — Union troops
- Doubleday (2,000) — Union troops
- Pickett (5,000) — Confederate troops
- Pettigrew (4,600) — Confederate troops
- Trimble (1,400) — Confederate troops
- Longstreet — Confederate commander
- Angle / Copse — locations on the Union line
The Union disadvantage in manpower is also matched when it comes to artillery support. Of its 360 cannon at Gettysburg, only 101 are positioned to cover the ground where the rebels will advance.
The stage is now set, and the battle begins at 1:07 PM with the roar of the Confederate batteries.
While the thunder lasts for roughly an hour, its impact is minimal — with only 200 Federal casualties as the bluecoats huddle behind their brick fences or on the downslope of Cemetery Ridge. The level of smoke generated hampers the ability to aim, and most of the shells go over the soldiers’ heads, landing in the rear on wagons, canteens and other supplies, in addition to Meade’s headquarters which he exits.
Meanwhile, the wily Union Artillery Commander, General Henry Hunt, decides to hold much of his firepower in reserve for the troop assault to come. He orders John Hazzard’s 29 guns on the Union right and Freeman McGilvery’s 37 on the left to remain silent. This lasts until Hancock – who rides up and down the lines during the inferno to instill courage – approaches Hunt insisting that troop morale requires a response. He agrees and orders volleys from T.W. Osborne’s 29 guns in the center and the six batteries on Little Round Top.
As the grey barrage slows, Hunt silences all his guns around 2:45 PM hoping the Confederates conclude that their opponents have been sufficiently softened to begin their troop assault.
But regardless, the urgency for Longstreet to strike has already reached a crisis point – with the burden to decide the timing on the shoulders of artilleryman Porter Alexander. He is 28 years old at the moment and has been delegated by a disgruntled Old Peter to signal Pickett when to advance.
By 3:00 PM, Alexander is frantic, as his supply of shells is running out. He finally tells Pickett, “If you are to come at all, you must come at once!”
For Pickett, last in his class at West Point and having missed prior victories since a wound at Gaines Mill, the call is music to his ears. At last, his chance for glory. He turns in the saddle and waves his brigade forward with the cry: “Up to your posts and don’t forget today that you are from old Virginia.”
What follows is reminiscent of Lord Tennyson’s 1855 poem on the British charge of the six hundred at Balaklava during the Crimean War:
Cannons to left of them, cannons to right of them,
Cannons in front of them volleyed and thundered.
Stormed at with shot and shell onward they rode and well
Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell.
The ranks step out from the trees around 3:00 PM in orderly fashion and begin their half mile march toward the Emmetsburg Pike.
In Pickett’s Division, Lewis Armistead places his hat on the tip of his sword as he goes to confront his dear friend Hancock. To his right, Richard Garnett, feverish and suffering from a wounded knee, sets out to redeem a tarnished reputation. Finally, comes a non-West Pointer, James Kemper, formerly Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.
James J. Pettigrew, like Kemper, lacks formal military training and has served in politics. His early reputation is as a scholar, with fluency in Latin and Greek and the top grades in his class at North Carolina College.
Once underway, Pettigrew’s men, along with Isaac Trimble’s small unit, have further to go to reach the Pike — which forces Pickett to execute an early “left oblique” prior to reaching the Pike to dress the lines and achieve proper alignment.
But before the men can even arrive at the rail fences they are already being shredded by canister fire, shells packed with metal pellets and nails which convert the Union cannons into deadly short-range shotguns.
The effects on Pettigrew’s left are immediately devastating, as four of his sixteen regiments break apart and flee for safety. Seeing this from afar, Longstreet senses that the rout he expected is on. He weighs the wisdom of sending reinforcements to Pettigrew before holding them in case of a counter attack by Meade.
As the Confederates approach the Ridge, additional bluecoats are filtering in to support Hancock’s center, while two units move to protect his flanks.
On the Union right, it is Alexander Hays who advances his 8th Ohio regiment with 450 men and 2 brass Napoleon cannons to provide the enfilading fire that essentially destroys Pettigrew’s remaining troops. General Trimble’s left leg is shattered and will require amputation.
On Hancock’s left it is George Stannard who advances two of his Vermont regiments to similarly punish Pickett’s brigades. As Hancock rides over to congratulate Stannard, a minie ball strikes his saddle driving a nail into his thigh, a wound that will plague him the rest of his life. Still he remains in place after dismissing the stretcher bearers.
Almost miraculously, parts of Pickett’s three brigades manage to reach the Union lines.
Garrett comes within 25 paces before being killed by a shot to the head. Kemper receives a wound in the left groin near the femoral artery, but survives after being carried back to safety. Armistead actually breeches the Union line where he is struck three times in the chest and once in the arm. When he falls he groans “is there no help for the son of a widow?” – a Masonic plea that brings temporary aid before he dies in a Union field hospital two days later. Hancock mourns his death.
The few soldiers who make it to the Copse of Trees engage in fierce hand to hand combat. Twice wounded Medal of Honor winner Alexander Webb and his four Pennsylvania regiments refuse to budge, alongside Colonel Norman Hall and William Harrow. Within minutes the interlopers are driven back for want of numbers. Their achievement, however, will become known as “the high water mark of the Confederacy” – the last feasible chance for the South to win the war.
Pickett survives the onslaught, physically untouched but emotionally broken. From then on he will refer to Lee as “that old man who destroyed my division.”
Pettigrew’s horse is shot out from under him and his right hand is crushed by grapeshot, but he escapes the field only to die eleven days later in a rearguard action.
The final charge has lasted roughly a half hour, with the Confederate retreating around 3:30PM. As they go, the jubilant Federal taunt them with cries of “Fredericksburg,” signaling payback for their own defeat there in 1862.
Of the 11,000 rebels who head up the hill, only 6,000 make it back down, while the Union counts only 1,500 casualties.
Lee is visibly shaken by the loss and rides his white horse Traveler onto the field under fire to praise his men, telling them “the blame is all mine,” and calling for them to rally back on Seminary Ridge in case the Union launches a counter attack.
The next day Lee will confess to Longstreet: “It’s all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.”
