Pickett's Charge, 1863
It was carnage incarnate. Often described as the "high water mark" of the Confederate cause during the Civil War, Pickett's Charge has also come to represent the naked brutality of combat. It occurred on July 3, 1863, the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg that ravaged the outskirts of a small town in central Pennsylvania. Frustrated by two days of inconclusive struggle, General Robert E. Lee decided to hurl his forces at the center of the Union line, with the objective of breaking through and thus setting the stage for the piecemeal destruction of his enemy.
The description of the Confederate attack as "Pickett's Charge" is misleading on two counts. First, Major General George Pickett was the commander of only one of the three Confederate units that took part in the assault. Major General Isaac R. Trimble and Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew each commanded a unit of the attack. The second misconception is with respect to describing the Confederate assault as a "charge." The assault line of the approximately 12,500 Confederate soldiers engaged in the attack extended a half-mile in width. The hapless attackers were required to advance one mile through an open field and over a stone fence before they could engage their enemy. The majority of this distance was covered at a rank-and-file walk while Union troops poured deadly cannon and rifle fire upon them. The Confederates could not fire back. The Union troops, however, maintained a murderous hail of rifle fire by organizing themselves into efficient lines of four soldiers. After the first in line fired, he would move to the back of the line to reload his weapon while the next in line fired.
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