This Day in Civil War History (Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg)

July 3, 1863—Stymied after two days of repelled attacks on the Union Army at Gettysburg, Penn., General Robert E. Lee ordered a massive cannonade fire, followed by a 12,000-man infantry charge under a hot, midday July sun, toward what he believed to be a perilously weak Federal center at Cemetery Ridge. But Pickett’s Charge ended disastrously for the proud Army of Northern Virginia, which never again pushed so far north nor enjoyed a string of major successes.

In comparison with Antietam Battlefield, Gettysburg suffers more from development and honty-tonk exploitation in town. But for the immense struggle that took place here, it deserves its pride of place in the annals of American military history. Over 20 years ago, I spent a full day visiting the battlefield, looking out over such storied place names as Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill, The Devil’s Den, and, of course, “The Angle,” marking the so-called “Highwater Mark of the Confederacy.”

Location, Location, Location

In the real estate business, the mantra is “location, location, location.” The look I had from the high points on the battlefield in this small Pennsylvania farm community proved that this motto applies just as strongly in the military.

By late morning of the 3rd, the Army of the Potomac had consolidated a line resembling a fishhook from Big Round Top to Culp’s Hill. Dislodging them at this point was well-nigh impossible. Lee’s strong right arm, General James Longstreet, surely thought so, and he would have known all about strong defensive positions, having defended from one against a charge of hopelessly brave Irish soldiers in the Union Army on Marye’s Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

So why did Lee give the order to advance? For a long time, historians didn’t even get to this part of the question, really: They were more interested in trying and convicting Longstreet of being so dilatory in following his chief’s orders that he essentially lost the battle for the South. Nowadays, they are more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This brings us back to Lee’s inexplicable decision. And here, I’m afraid, we are less in the realm of cold military strategy and tactics and more into the thickets of human psychology. As the fine Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears noted in an adept summary of the battle in the Summer 2003 issue of MHQ Magazine, Lee had just experienced two days in which trusted subordinates had either disobeyed orders or seriously let him down:

* Maj. General Henry Heth precipitated the battle in the first place by disobeying Lee’s order not to engage any part of the Union Army until the entire Confederate Army was together.

* Lieutenant General Richard Ewell, the replacement for Lee’s beloved Stonewall Jackson—a man who knew how to intuit exactly what his boss wanted—had failed to follow up a good day of fighting on July 1 by seizing Cemetery Hill.

* Major General J.E.B. Stuart had ridden off on a wild ride completely around the Federal Army, depriving Lee of important military intelligence on where and in what numbers the enemy were vulnerable.

* Ewell—him again!—protested twice when Lee wanted to shift the Second Corps from the army’s left flank to its right. Each time, Lee gave in.

Now here was “Old Pete” Longstreet, following the same script as the other generals. By now, it may not have mattered how valid or even unassailable his logic was. Lee was not to be messed with, particularly when his blood was up. He was not only one of the most aggressive commanders on either side of the war, but at this point he might have felt, despite his professed humility, the most messianic.

Especially after the stunning blow his men had delivered to the Union at Chancellorsville, he felt that the Army of Northern Virginia was capable of anything he asked it to do. Moreover, He might not have enough time to be around for the special destiny God had prepared for him: He was starting to feel the first hints of the heart disease that would kill him in seven years. For all these reasons, Longstreet could tell his chief would brook no further delays.

No "Shiny Penny," He!

In visits to historic sites, you’re not only likely to receive some geography lessons mixed in with your history, but also a bit of psychology. So it proved with a battlefield tour guide who told me, my brother, and my sister-in-law about one particular soldier in the battle: Alexander Schimmelfennig, one of the so-called “political generals” on both sides who occupied positions of powers higher than their talents deserved.

At one point in the battle, our guide explained, Schimmelfennig avoided the whir of fire by jumping into the first area where he could see a hole. That hole, the guide said, proved to be counterproductive, because it was still a functioning pigsty. In German, “Schimmelfennig” might mean “shiny penny,” our guide indicated, but he sure wasn’t a shiny penny after that!

Two Other Sites Providing Insight into Gettysburg

Two other sites, hundreds of miles removed from the battlefield, also provide fascinating sidelights on Gettysburg. Richmond features Hollywood Cemetery, the final resting place not only for former U.S. President John Tyler (the only one, incidentally, who died no longer a citizen of his country, as he had thrown in his lot with the Virginia secessionists), but also Confederate President Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, and, most of all, General George E. Pickett.

The name of the military action that immortalized the latter is a bit of a misnomer. Pickett himself was not at the head of his army—he stayed back, the way generals are supposed to do, so they can see what is happening on the field. A good thing he did, though, because, of all his field-officers in the three brigades, only one major emerged unhurt; two of his three brigadier generals died, and the third was grievously wounded.

Pickett, who ended up his days 10 years after the war in a somewhat less glorious profession—insurance salesman—lies buried in Hollywood Cemetery facing the men he led. Many of them had been buried on the field where they fell, but in 1872 they were reinterred and placed here. The plot was originally reserved for soldiers, but eventually the general’s widow, LaSalle Corbell Pickett—his third wife, a woman who played an indelible part in shaping his postwar legend—came to be buried alongside her husband.

The second site that evokes Gettysburg is in a much more urban environment—the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia. Its Website calls it “the oldest chartered Civil War institution in the United States created to preserve the history of that conflict.” Though there are some Confederate items here, the strength of its holdings, I found when I visited a few years ago, lies in its Union holdings.

On the way to the third floor, for instance, is a copy of a large painting of “Pickett’s Charge” by Peter Rothermel. The first floor contains a room dedicated to Major General George Gordon Meade, the Union commander at Gettysburg, including his war horse, “Old Baldy,” stuffed and mounted in a display case.

Immediately after the battle, Meade disappointed many observers (including Abraham Lincoln) by not destroying the remnants of Lee’s army as they straggled back to Virginia. Dealing with 22,000 casualties of his own, however, Meade was not in a position to engage in another fight to the death so soon after the first one. Moreover, his actions during the battle itself really cannot be faulted.

In fact, if there was one major reason why Robert E. Lee finally lost here after his remarkable string of victories, it was because he was finally facing, in General Meade, a competent commander—someone with a keen appreciation of positioning forces and the ability to follow up to ensure that his subordinates were where he needed them to be—and if they weren’t, that he could find someone, fast, who soon would be.