* On the third day of fighting at Gettysburg, Lee decided to strike at the northern and southern ends of the Union position at Gettysburg, and then conduct a direct charge into the center, at Cemetery Ridge, to break the Federal defense. General George Pickett was selected to lead the assault. It didn't work; Meade had correctly guessed what Lee would do, and the Yankees were prepared. The attack in the north accomplished little, the attack in the south didn't come off, while Pickett's troops were dreadfully exposed in their advance up Cemetery Ridge, the result being a terrible slaughter of his men. Lee had failed, and then had to organize a withdrawal.
* Soldiers learn to sleep wherever they can, but it was difficult that night. It was hot; there was little water; Union troops were being shuffled around in the dark to brace up the lines for the next day's fighting; and blind firefights erupted on and off again all night long. Somebody would shoot nervously at something in the dark, there would be a volley in response, and the shooting would go on until everyone realized that they might just as easily be shooting at friends as foes, and the squabble would die down again.
Robert E. Lee considered the day's effort, and felt he could do better when the sun came up again. He decided he would send Early to push once more on the northern end of the Yankee line, Longstreet to press against the southern end, and then send in a large force into the center to deliver a knockout blow. This blow would be administered by Pickett's division, which had arrived before sundown and gone into bivouac, to rest up for fighting the next day. Pickett's assault would also be properly supported by artillery.
Lee sent orders to Ewell to renew the assault at daybreak; to A.P. Hill to tell him to detach two brigades and send them to assist in a renewed attack on Culp's Hill; and to Colonel Edward Porter Alexander, his chief of artillery, to set up his guns to support the advances. However, Lee went to bed around midnight without bothering to send orders to Longstreet or to Pickett, either assuming that he would take care of that matter in the morning or simply forgetting it in exhaustion.
Meade was holding a council of war at about the same time. He had reason to be pleased with the day's battle, since his troops had driven back all attempts to break Union lines, though they paid for it in blood. However, the rebels were still present in the Devil's Den, where they remained a threat to the southern end of his line, and on parts of Culp's Hill, where they presented a more serious threat to the northern end. Meade send Slocum back to Culp's Hill with his men in order to deal with the Confederates when the fighting flared up again with the sunrise. The Federal position in the north of the battlefield was very strong and the rebels would almost certainly be driven out, but Meade worried that the rebels might yet break his defense. He asked his generals if they felt the Army of the Potomac should stand its ground, or pull out. There were a few reservations, but they agreed to stay and fight. Meade said: "Well, gentlemen, it is settled. We will remain here."
Meade buttonholed Gibbon as the meeting broke up, and told him: "If Lee attacks tomorrow, it will be on your front." Gibbon, whose troops lined the shallow spine of Cemetery Ridge, asked why, and Meade explaining: "Because he has made attacks on both our flanks and failed, and if he concludes to try it again, it will be on our center." Gibbon found this reasoning curious and simplistic, failing to see any real military logic in it, but it wasn't unwelcome. He replied: "I hope he will, and if he does, we will defeat him."
* Robert E. Lee woke before sunrise, as he had the day before. He had intended to launch an all-out assault on the Union lines at daybreak, but Pickett's division, which was the key to the attack, was still in bivouac and wouldn't be in position for hours. Lee had sent them no orders. Likely realizing that his arrangements were haphazard, Lee decided to wait for sunup to study the Union positions and make sure his plans were adequate. He sent a messenger to Ewell to hold off his attack and await further orders.
However, even before the courier reached Ewell's headquarters, fighting was raging on Culp's Hill in the north, with Slocum trying to drive the Confederates out of their lodgements. Just before dawn, Federal guns began to pound the rebels, and continued their bombardment until sunrise. Slocum intended to follow up the shelling with an infantry attack, but the rebels, aggressive as ever, attacked first, renewing their attempt to crack the Union defensive line in the north. They had little chance of success, since the good Yankee positions had been heavily reinforced during the night -- but the Confederates gave it all they had, leading to a mad series of attacks and counterattacks that lasted until mid-morning.
During the seesaw fighting, a Union division commander ordered skirmishers to go out and probe Confederate lines to see how strong they were. As often happens in the military, particularly in combat, the order got garbled by the time it reached a Massachusetts regiment and an Indiana regiment at the front line, indicating an all-out assault instead of a probing reconnaissance. Colonel Charles R. Mudge, of the 2nd Massachusetts, did a double-take when he got the order and asked the aide if he was sure that was correct. The aide assured him it was. Mudge replied: "Well, it is murder, but that's the order." The two regiments threw themselves at three rebels brigades with a cheer, were immediately cut to pieces, and fell back; Mudge was among the dead. The rebels countercharged again, to be driven back themselves.
Finally, the Federal advantage in artillery proved too great for the Confederates. The rebels returned to the lines they had occupied before they began their assault the evening before. Slocum was content to let them go and did not follow up their withdrawal.
The fighting to the north wasn't what Lee wanted, but it was not critical in the scheme of things. Ewell's role in the day's battle was just to keep Meade's troops pinned down in the north, and the fighting would serve that purpose. Lee had no fear of a Federal counterstroke along that section of the line, feeling confident that Ewell's men would stand their ground if it came to that.
In any case, Lee rode south to find Longstreet. The two men met in a field west of the Round Tops. Longstreet, apparently thinking that the previous day's inconclusive bloodbath had persuaded Lee to adjust his plans, was in an upbeat mood, and greeted Lee with: "General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to the right of Meade's army and maneuver him into attacking us."
Lee was obstinate: "The enemy is there, and I am going to strike him." Longstreet's good mood immediately evaporated as he realized that Lee was just as committed to attacking the Federals in their positions today as he had been the day before. Meade's simplistic logic in predicting Lee's actions that day turned out to be perfectly correct. Lee wanted to pull two of Longstreet's divisions to support the attack by Pickett's men, but Longstreet argued that these two divisions were badly cut up, and pulling them from position would invite a Yankee flanking maneuver.
Lee agreed with this, and said he would use A.P. Hill's forces to support Pickett instead. Lee proposed to use the division under Brigadier General J. Johnson Pettigrew, consisting of four brigades that Pettigrew had inherited from Henry Heth, who was still out of action; and two brigades under Major General Isaac Trimble, similarly inherited from Dorsey Pender's division, out with a shell fragment in the leg that he had taken the day before while inspecting his troops. The wound did not appear serious, but it would become infected, leading to the amputation of Pender's leg; Pender would not survive the operation.
In principle, Lee had a total of 15,000 men for the attack. Longstreet didn't like the odds and finally protested, or so he later claimed: "General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men arrayed for battle can take that position." Lee ignored the protest. He ordered Pickett to move his men up to await the order to advance. Longstreet was in overall charge of the attack, though he was far from enthusiastic about it. He wrote much later: "Never was I so depressed as upon that day."
BACK_TO_TOP* The 38-year-old George Pickett was something of a dandy, with long hair and fancy clothes. He had graduated last in his class at West Point in 1846, and there were those who regarded him as a "brown-noser" because of his close relationship with Longstreet. Longstreet was in fact obviously fond and protective of the boyish and charismatic Pickett. Most thought he was a "good fellow" despite his affectations, but Pickett still felt he had something to prove, all the more so because his division had seen little action in the fight so far.
Lee was perfectly aware that Ewell's attack on the Federals on Culp's Hill had been driven back decisively, and so the assault on Cemetery Ridge would receive the full attention of the Army of the Potomac. However, his plans were now fixed, and rearranging them at this late hour would likely cause more harm than good.
A skirmish broke out about 11:00 AM, when two Federal regiments advanced on a farmhouse and a barn that rebel sharpshooters had been using for cover. The sharpshooters skedaddled, Confederate artillery opened up on the Yankees, and there was a fight that lasted for a half hour or so -- finally ending when the Federals torched the house and the barn, to then return to where they had come from. The squabble revealed the positions of rebel artillery to their Union counterparts, but it was too late to shift the guns.
The rebels had lined up a total of about 170 guns to support the attack. Confederate artillery began their real work just after 01:00 PM, opening up with a barrage that swept up the line of guns in a relatively neat succession, though after that the firing became general. It was one of the heaviest bombardments anyone had ever seen. Henry Hunt, observing the action from the relatively safe distance of Little Round Top, described it as "indescribably grand".
Gibbon, who was on the receiving end and lacked the artilleryman's same level of appreciation of good gunnery, called it "the most infernal pandemonium it has ever been my fortune to look upon." It was frightening and dangerous, but not as effective as it looked. The Federals on Cemetery Ridge had good cover, including solid stone walls, and were making every use of it. As black-powder smoke began to obscure the battlefield and rebel gun carriages began to dig in from recoil, the bombardment began to creep up, landing mostly on top of the hill among Union artillery, or grazing over it to land in the Union rear.
Cannonballs and shells pounded Meade's headquarters on top of the hill. The officers got out of the little house, and Meade, who was always entirely calm under fire, noticed some of his people hiding behind the house, which gave them no protection at all. He laughed and told them of the story of how during the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor had seen a soldier hiding behind a little cart during a bombardment. Taylor said to the soldier: "You damn fool, don't you know that you are no safer there than anywhere else?" The man replied: "I don't suppose I am, general, but it kinda feels so." The story went over a little flat, since almost nobody but Meade was feeling particularly humorous at the time. Meade basically shrugged and considerately decided to relocate his headquarters to a safer position.
The bombardment caused mad chaos in the rear, with clerks and skulkers sent running, and the artillery reserve behind Cemetery Ridge had to be relocated away from what would prove to be the threatened sector.
Oddly, despite the prediction that Gibbon would bear the brunt of the attack that day, Meade had changed his mind, coming to the conclusion that the rebels would attack the south of his line again. He had not sent reinforcements to Gibbon; there were only about 5,700 troops in the center of the Union defense to meet Pickett's attack, consisting of Gibbon and his men in the center of the line, bordered by the division of Alexander Hays and such forces of Abner Doubleday's division as had escaped destruction in the fighting two days earlier.
To be sure, Longstreet's estimate of 15,000 men making the charge was exaggerated, since neither he nor Lee had taken into account how badly chewed up Heth's division was from the fighting on 1 July, and there were really only about 12,500 rebels available for the attack. That was less than 2:1 odds -- not a good bet for such a long charge up an exposed slope into a well-defended position.
Winfield Scott Hancock was up and about during the bombardment, riding among the troops with much of his staff with a certain forced casualness. A brigadier protested: "General, the corps commander ought not to risk his life that way." Hancock replied: "There are times when a corps commander's life does not count."
Henry Hunt was also riding around the field, but he was not doing so out of any sense of bravado. He went from battery to battery, ordering them to not waste too much ammunition in counter-battery fire. There would be better targets to shoot at soon enough, and he wanted his gunners to be ready for them. Hunt ordered about a third of the hundred-plus guns, at the extreme ends of the Federal line facing the rebel assault, to engage the Confederate guns, and ordered the rest to remain silent. However, Hancock ordered some of the gunners to fire anyway, on the principle that if they remained silent the troops on the line might become discouraged. Hancock ranked Hunt and the guns returned fire.
Like the rebel bombardment, the Union fire also went high, but that placed it in the ranks of Pickett's troops, who were behind their guns and waiting for the order to move out. They took hundreds of casualties. Pickett moved among them casually, much as Hancock was doing on the other side of the line, though not all his men were impressed by Pickett's theatrics; one called out: "You'll get your old fool head knocked off!"
Back up in the Union lines, Hunt, on talking to one of his battery commanders, came to the conclusion that if the Federal guns began to gradually fall silent, the Confederates would conclude their barrage more effective than it really was, and send their infantry forward to be slaughtered. He rode from battery to battery, telling them to cease fire. Many Union batteries in the line of Confederate fire had been terribly bloodied by the bombardment, and Hunt knew that they were no longer in any condition to participate usefully in the fight that was to follow. He ordered the survivors to use up their long-range ammunition and then pull out. One way or another, the Union guns fell silent about 02:45 PM, and the Confederate fire died out about five or ten minutes later.
* Confederate Colonel Alexander, in charge of the bombardment, fell for Hunt's ruse. Honestly believing that he had suppressed the Union guns, Alexander sent a note to Pickett, suggesting that the time was right to advance. Pickett, excited, went to Longstreet and asked: "General, shall I advance?" Longstreet, sick with apprehension, could do nothing more than nod his head. Pickett was off like a shot and called out to his men: "Up, men, and to your posts! Don't forget today that you are from Old Virginia!"
At 03:00 PM, the Confederate infantry moved out, with Pettigrew's four brigades at the north end of the line, followed up by Trimble's two brigades well to the rear for support, and Pickett's division of three brigades at the south end of the line. Two brigades of Anderson's division moved forward to protect the flank of Pickett's advance, though these two brigades did not follow Pickett's men all the way. The objective of the entire assault was a clump of trees in the middle of Cemetery Ridge, a half-mile away.
"Here they come!" the Union soldiers said among themselves. It was an awesome and unforgettable sight, the rebel troops moving forward with great discipline into the imposing Federal line.
Longstreet was concerned that Confederate artillery had slackened their fire, and went and found Colonel Alexander. Although Longstreet had been told earlier that ammunition supplies were limited, he was still shocked when Alexander told him that there was likely not enough ammunition left to support the charge. Longstreet, uncharacteristically rattled, told Alexander: "Go and stop Pickett right now and replenish your ammunition!"
Alexander replied: "We can't do that, sir. The train has but little. It would take an hour to distribute it, and in the meantime the enemy would improve with time." Longstreet remained silent for a moment, absorbing the answer. He knew that Alexander's reasoning was unarguable, and finally said: "I do not want to make this charge. I do not see how it can succeed. I would not make it now, but that General Lee has ordered it and expects it."
The Confederate line moved forward, seemingly irresistible, but soon Union batteries had the range and began to tear gaps in the ranks with shells and solid shot. The rebels continued their advance with a parade-ground discipline, not the ragged and screaming charge that had done so much for them in the past. Pickett even stopped and dressed ranks as Federal cannonballs picked off his men, much to the fury of the Union soldiers watching them. It seemed like the rebels were taunting them.
The rebels were still well out of rifle range, though a few anxious Federals stood up to take pot-shots; they were told by their officers to get back down and stop wasting ammunition, they'd have better use for it soon enough. Some of the soldiers looked forward to the killing they would soon be doing, chanting: "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!" Now they had the chance to deal with the rebels in the same one-sided fashion as the rebels had dealt with them the December before.
The artillery pounding the Confederates was bad enough. One Virginia brigade under Colonel Joseph Mayo, part of Heth's division and still badly shaken by the fighting on 1 July, was advancing at the far north of the rebel line, taking a terrible pounding from dozens of Yankee guns on Cemetery Hill.
Union Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Sawyer was in charge of an Ohio regiment positioned in front of the Union line, acting as skirmishers. Normally, skirmishers were supposed to pull out in the face of an advance, but Sawyer had other ideas. His regiment was part of Colonel Carroll's brigade, which had run to Culp's Hill to sweep Early's men back down the slopes the night before. Sawyer and his men had been left behind with orders from Carroll to hold their ground, and Sawyer intended to do so.
On finding that the Virginia brigade had incautiously shown its flank to his men, Sawyer faced his men in line of battle and told them to fire volleys into the rebels. The Ohio regiment was overwhelmingly outnumbered by the Confederate brigade; some onlookers in the Union lines thought Sawyer had to be drunk or crazy, but the Virginians, having taken more than they could bear, broke and ran. It was unprecedented in the Army of Northern Virginia. With their flank exposed in turn, the neighboring brigade, Mississippians under Joseph Davis, began to falter. However, the rebel march continued, even though they were now in canister range of Yankee guns and were suffering for it. Rifle volleys would not be far behind.
There was also confusion in the Confederate ranks, with a Tennessee and another Virginia brigade crossing each other's paths and ending up in a bit of a jam. This made them an even better target for Federal gunners, but the matter was resolved without more chaos than necessary. One Confederate called out: "Move on, cousins! You are drawing the fire our way!"
Pickett felt that he and his troops would be able to reach and even penetrate Federal defenses, but he knew they would not be able to hold what they took without support and follow-up. He sent a captain named Bright from his staff to find Longstreet and tell him what the circumstances were. Bright galloped to the rear, and found some of the fainthearted moving towards the rear as well. "What are you running for?!" he shouted at them. One of the men replied: "Why, good gracious, Captain, ain't you running yourself?" Bright, realizing he wasn't in any position to press the matter and having other urgent things to do, spurred his horse and rode off without another word.
Bright found Longstreet and relayed the situation to the general. Before Longstreet could answer, however, they were joined by Colonel Arthur Fremantle, of Her Majesty's Coldstream Guards, a British observer in the Army of Northern Virginia. Fremantle was an adventurous sort, having entered the Confederacy by way of Mexico, crossing the South from Texas. He had nearly been lynched by an over-excited crowd at Jackson who judged him a spy, being rescued by an Irish doctor who said he hated England, but could speak no ill of the Coldstream Guards. Making his way to Richmond, he had a personal interview with Jefferson Davis, and then joined up with the Army of Northern Virginia.
Fremantle found Lee's soldiers ragged but inspiring, confident in their ability to beat the Yankees again and again. Now the Army of Northern Virginia had staked all on a risky throw of the dice; the notion appealed to Fremantle, and he told Longstreet: "General Longstreet, General Lee sent me here, and said you would place me in a position to see this magnificent charge. I wouldn't have missed this for anything!"
Longstreet had no great romantic illusions about warfare, was in a bad mood, and replied sharply: "The devil you wouldn't! I would have liked to have missed it very much! We've attacked and been repulsed! Look there!" The battlefield was covered with smoke and chaos and nothing much could be made out except that there was a hell of a battle in progress, but Longstreet knew who was getting the worst of it.
Longstreet concluded: "The charge is over." He turned to the captain: "Captain Bright, ride to General Pickett and tell him what you have heard me say to Colonel Fremantle."
BACK_TO_TOP* It wasn't quite over, but it should have been. By that time, the rebels were in range of everything the Yankees could throw at them, and were being torn to shreds. Union General Hays pivoted his troops to bear on the flank of the Confederate assault. Hays liked the excitement of battle and told his men: "Now, boys, look out! You'll see some fun!" He waited until the Confederates were within easy range and shouted: "FIRE!" One Union witness later wrote that the rebel advance "underwent an instantaneous transformation. They were at once enveloped in a dense cloud of dust. Arms, heads, blankets, guns and knapsacks were tossed up into the clear air. A moan went up from the field distinctly to be heard amid the storm of battle."
Two of Pickett's brigade commanders, Brigadier Generals James L. Kemper and Richard P. Garnett, went down. Kemper was struck in the spine by a bullet. Too badly hurt to be evacuated, he would be left for the Yankees to pick up and would be partly paralyzed for life. Garnett had actually been badly injured by a kick from a horse before the battle and could have legitimately remained behind, but he was carrying a stigma from having been arrested by Stonewall Jackson for withdrawing without orders at Kernstown. He likely felt he had something to prove; if so, he proved it. Nobody really knows what happened to Garnett. He dashed into the smoke and fury on his horse, and his horse came back riderless and horribly wounded. Garnett's body was never found; he was probably hit by a shell or otherwise obliterated beyond recognition.
Only one of Pickett's brigadiers, Lewis A. "Lothario" or "Lo" Armistead, was still in action, leading his men forward on foot with his black slouch hat on the tip of his sword as a banner. Pettigrew's division had taken a similar beating, Miraculously, Lo Armistead and his brigade not only reached the Federal line, at a location in the middle of the defense where there was a discontinuity in the stone walls, but had even penetrated it. This place would forever be known as "the Angle". There the rebels tangled with several Pennsylvania regiments and got among a battery of guns commanded by a Lieutenant Alonso Cushing. Cushing, who had been wounded twice earlier in the battle, was ordering his men to blast canister into the ranks of the Confederates when a bullet hit him in the mouth, killing him. Henry Hunt's horse was shot and fell, pinning Hunt to the ground.
Hancock ordered reinforcements to deal with the penetration, and went off south to order Doubleday to make a flanking maneuver similar to that performed by Hays on the north. Doubleday's men were a step ahead of Hancock, since several regiments of Brigadier General George J. Stannart's Vermont brigade had decided that a low knoll alongside the rebel line of march offered advantages over their original position in the Union line, and had moved there and dug in. As the rebels passed their position, the Vermonters hit them in the flank with solid volleys.
Hancock's satisfaction in this effort was cut short when a bullet smashed through his saddle and tore into in his inner thigh, embedding wood splinters and a nail from the saddle along with it. He fell, but two officers managed to catch him, and applied a tourniquet made with a handkerchief and a pistol to stop the bleeding. Hancock remained conscious and pulled the nail out of his wound. He mistakenly assumed the rebels had shot it at him: "They must be hard up for ammunition when they throw such shot as that."
In the meantime, the fight at the Angle was furious but short-lived. Gibbon was hit in the shoulder and dragged out of the fight, Armistead was mortally wounded, and the Yankees counterattacked, coming to grips hand-to-hand with the Confederates. The rebels who had broken through the line were all shot, captured, or sent running.
Elsewhere, the Confederate advance was stalled and could make no progress. A sergeant and a color-bearer from a North Carolina regiment threw themselves suicidally at the stone wall in front of them and actually made it there, though only because the Federals refused to kill men so brave or crazed. A Yankee told them: "Come on over to this side of the Lord!" The two men, their battle trance broken and their position hopeless, surrendered.
Pettigrew, who was nursing a painful hand wound, ordered Isaac Trimble to bring his two brigades up from their supporting position and add their weight to the attack. They seemed to make progress at first, but as they approached the wall, their momentum faltered. Trimble was struck in with a bullet that would cost him his leg, and his men fell back.
The whole attack was crumbling by this time, with rebel troops trying to escape the deathtrap. There was no great shame in running, since the assault had clearly and disastrously failed. Of the 12,500 men who had gone into the attack, some 3,500 were killed or wounded, and 4,000 captured.
The Yankees on Cemetery Ridge were exultant, even though they had lost about 1,500 men themselves. The victors went out to pick up regimental colors and trophies and to assemble the masses of Confederate prisoners. Many of the rebels were unhurt; in fact, there were so many prisoners that some Union officers feared they would pick up weapons lying about on the battlefield and start the battle all over again, but they had no more fight in them.
The masses of Confederate prisoners did startle Union troops who were moving up for a fight they didn't quite realize was over, since the columns of gray soldiers moving back of the Union defense suggested a breakthrough until it became apparent they were dazed, unarmed, and under guard. Even Meade was startled in this way, though he quickly found out he had won a victory. He asked a lieutenant: "What?! Is the enemy already repulsed?" The lieutenant replied: "It is, sir."
"Thank God!" Meade made arrangements to shore up his lines in case the rebels decided to attack again, but he did not take measures for going over to the offensive himself.
There was one last story in the mythology of Pickett's charge. Lo Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock were old and close friends from pre-war Army days, and when Armistead had "gone south" at the beginning of the conflict, there had been a sorrowful farewell party at their post in California. According to the story, Armistead, dying in front of the Union guns his men had almost reached, asked a Union soldier to give his watch and a few other mementos to his old friend Hancock for "safekeeping".
* As rebel troops fell back to their own lines, Longstreet seemed to snap out of his depression. He had been forced to make an assault he felt sure was doomed, but now that assault and his dread were over. He expected that Meade would counterattack. As an instinctive defensive fighter, Longstreet felt that the Yankees would be severely bloodied if they did so.
Longstreet went around to his men to encourage them and arranged them to receive an attack. British Colonel Fremantle was impressed by his coolness, and when Longstreet asked him if he had anything to drink, Fremantle gave him a silver flask of rum and told him to keep it.
Lee was up and about his command post, providing his own reassurances to the shaken soldiers, saying: "All this will come right in the end. We'll talk it over afterwards. But in the meantime all good men must rally. We want all good and true men right now." When Fremantle rode up, Lee told him: "This has been a sad day for us, Colonel. A sad day. But we can't always expect to win victories." Lee continued on to encourage his men. Fremantle observed that even badly wounded men took off their hats and cheered him.
Lee's meeting with Pickett was difficult. Lee told him: "General Pickett, place your division in rear of this hill, and be ready to repel the advance of the enemy should they follow up their advantage." Pickett answered, very distraught: "General Lee, I have no division now. Armistead is down, Garnett is down, and Kemper is mortally wounded -- "
Lee cut him short. "Come, General Pickett. This has been my fight, and upon my shoulders rests the blame. The men and officers of your command have written the name of Virginia as high as it has ever been written before. Your men have done all that men can do." Lee paused, then added: "The fault is entirely my own." He repeated this over and over as he walked among the ranks, trying to rally his men. Some were beyond rallying for the moment. When some of the survivors of the charge were lined up in expectation of receiving a counterattack, they drew the attention of Union gunners, who hit them with long-range artillery fire, sending them running away in panic.
In fact, Meade showed little aggressiveness, even though some of his generals encouraged him to attack. Major General Pleasonton, the Army of the Potomac's chief of cavalry, told Meade: "I will give you half an hour to show yourself a great general. Order the army to advance, while I take the cavalry and get in Lee's rear, and we will finish the campaign in a week." Such an insolent ultimatum would have infuriated more patient commanders than Meade, but he kept his temper, simply replying: "We have done well enough." The rebels always fought hard on the defensive; the Army of the Potomac had been badly bloodied in three days' fighting; and Meade was still insecure in a command he hadn't even held for a full week.
Hancock, being taken off the field in an ambulance, had dictated a message to Meade that similarly encouraged an attack, citing the fact that he had been wounded with a nail as evidence that the enemy was low on ammunition. Meade ignored the advice.
Indeed, Meade wasn't the only cautious Union general on the field that day. Henry Hunt commented later: "A prompt counter-charge after combat between two small bodies of men is one thing. The change from the defensive to the offensive of an army, after an engagement at a single point, is quite another. To have made such a change to the offensive, on the assumption that Lee had made no provision against a reverse, would have been rash in the extreme."
Governeur Warren also believed that they had "done enough". The matter could be debated, and has been ever since to little purpose but to generate heat and noise. Nobody ever will know if Meade made the right decision or not.
BACK_TO_TOP* As silence fell over the battlefield at Gettysburg, cavalry clashes took place south of the town. Stuart had been sent there, with a total of about 6,300 troopers, to harass the hoped-for Federal retreat. When a few Union cavalrymen appeared, Stuart engaged them in hopes of luring the Federals into a fight.
It worked only too well. There were far more Yankee cavalrymen about than Stuart had expected, and he found himself confronted by two brigades from a Union cavalry division under David Gregg, plus a brigade from Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry division under Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. The Federals numbered about 4,500.
Custer was energetic and aggressive; a furious cavalry clash followed, with energetic charges and countercharges. Custer, leading the 1st Michigan in a charge, shouted: "COME ON, YOU WOLVERINES!" -- and the troopers hit the rebels so hard that some horses were knocked end-over-end, crushing their riders. The Yankee charges cut up Stuart's columns. He quickly realized that standing and fighting was unwise and withdrew, leaving Confederate and Union horse artillery to take pot-shots at each other until the sun went down and put a stop to the exchange.
The cavalry fight was pretty much a draw, with a few hundred casualties on either side, but both sides later declared victory. However, given the past traditions of the cavalry of the two sides, with the rebels having a tradition of easy victories over their Union counterparts, the fact that a Yankee force of horsemen that was actually inferior in numbers to their rebel opponents had fought them to a standstill was indeed a Federal victory of sorts.
While this fight was dragging gone on, a short and nasty confrontation had taken place a few miles to the southwest. Kilpatrick's other brigade, under Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth, had been probing the southern end of the rebel line, protected by Hood's Texans and backed up by a brigade of Alabamans.
Kilpatrick was a wiry, intense little man who took himself far too seriously. He was generally regarded as having a surplus of bluster and a deficit of good sense. Those who didn't have to follow his orders found him silly, one officer commenting in his diary that it was hard to even look at him and keep a straight face. Those who did have to obey his orders didn't find him so funny: they called him "Kill Cavalry", and that day he lived up to his nickname.
At about 5:00 PM, on hearing about the success of the Army of the Potomac on Cemetery Ridge, Kilpatrick decided to send his troopers in to attack the Texans. The terrain was broken, useless for a cavalry charge, and the Texans were well prepared; repeated Federal probes were driven back with losses. The effort was obviously futile, but Kilpatrick ordered Farnsworth to make another attack. Farnsworth was shocked. He replied: "General, do you mean it?! Shall I throw my handful of men over rough ground, through timber, against a brigade of infantry? The First Vermont has already been fought half to pieces! These are too good men to kill!"
Kilpatrick replied angrily: "Do you refuse to obey my orders?! If you are afraid to lead this charge, I will lead it!"
Farnsworth, whose combat record was spotless, was red-faced furious, shouting at Kilpatrick: "Take that back!" Kilpatrick acted as though he wanted to continue the quarrel but a bit of good sense broke through, and he said: "I didn't mean it. Forget it."
Farnsworth cooled off, but he still didn't like the odds. "General, if you order the charge, I will lead it, but you must take the responsibility."
Kilpatrick said: "I take the responsibility." The argument had been loud enough for the rebels to overhear, and they were completely ready when Farnsworth and his troopers threw themselves at their line. The Union cavalry broke through to find themselves trapped. They galloped in circles, vainly looking for an exit. Farnsworth was shot five times and killed. 65 other Federals went down as well.
Kilpatrick unsurprisingly expressed no regret, suggesting that if nearby Federal infantry had supported the charge there might have been a significant breakthrough. Possibly so, but no arrangements had been made for a coordinated attack, and as related Meade had made it clear that he intended no counterthrust. Kilpatrick later eulogized Farnsworth's bravery, but it was unfortunate that Farnsworth hadn't had the bravery to tell Kilpatrick to go straight to hell.
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