Pickett the order to charge. He did not like this responsibility, and asked Longstreet for specific instructions, but the reply which came lacked precision. Still the artillery must open, and when the fire of the Federal guns had ceased, as has been related, Alexander, looking anxiously through his glass at the points whence it had proceeded, and observing no sign of life in the five minutes that followed, sent word to Pickett: "For God's sake, come quick. . . . Come quick, or my ammunition won't let me support you properly." Pickett went to Longstreet. "General, shall I advance?" he asked. Longstreet could not speak, but bowed in answer. "Sir," said Pickett, with a determined voice, "I shall lead my division forward."2 Alexander had ceased firing. Longstreet rode to where he stood, and exclaimed: "I don't want to make this attack. I would stop it now but that General Lee ordered it and expects it to go on. I don't see how it can succeed." But as he spoke Pickett at the head of his troops rode over the crest of Seminary Ridge and began his descent down the slope. "As he passed me," writes Longstreet, "he rode gracefully, with his jaunty cap raked well over on his right ear, and his long auburn locks, nicely dressed, hanging almost to his shoulders. He seemed a holiday soldier." 4 From the other side the Union soldiers watched the advance of Pickett and his fifteen thousand with suspense, with admiration. As they came forward steadily and in perfect order with banners flying, those who looked on might for the moment have thought it a Fourth of July parade.

The Confederates had nearly a mile to go across the valley. As they descended the slope on that clear afternoon under the July sun in full view of their foe, they received a dreadful fire from the Union batteries, which had been put in entire readiness to check such an onset. Steadily and coolly they advanced. After they had got away, the Confederate artillery reopened over their heads, in the effort to draw the deadly fire

1 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 364. 3 Ibid., p. 365.

2 Ibid., p. 345.

4 Ibid., p. 345.

CH. XX.]

PICKETT'S CHARGE

1

289

directed at them from Cemetery Ridge; but the Union guns made no change in aim, and went on mowing down Pickett's men. Half-way across there was the shelter of a ravine. They stopped for a moment to breathe, then advanced again, still in good order. A storm of canister came. The slaughter was terrible. The left staggered; but, nothing daunted, Pickett and what was left of his own division of forty-nine hundred pressed on in the lead. The other divisions followed. Now the Union infantry opened fire. Pickett halted at musket range and discharged a volley, then rushed on up the slope. Near the Federal lines he made a pause "to close ranks and mass for a final plunge." In the last assault Armistead, a brigade commander, pressed forward, leaped the stone wall, waved his sword with his hat on it, shouted, "Give them the cold steel, boys!" and laid his hands upon a gun. A hundred of his men had followed. They planted the Confederate battle-flags on Cemetery Ridge among the cannon they had captured and for the moment held. Armistead was shot down; Garnett and Kemper, Pickett's other brigadiers, fell. The wavering divisions of Hill's corps "seemed appalled, broke their ranks," and fell back. "The Federals swarmed around Pickett," writes Longstreet, "attacking on all sides, enveloped and broke up his command. They drove the fragments back upon our lines." Pickett gave the word to retreat.

4

The Confederates in their charge had struck the front of the Second Corps. Hancock, its commander, "the best tactician. of the Potomac army," showed the same reckless courage as Armistead, and seemed to be everywhere directing and encouraging his troops. Struck by a ball, he fell from his horse; and lying on the ground, "his wound spouting blood," he raised himself on his elbow and gave the order, “Go in,

1 Longstreet, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 346.

This is almost exactly quoted from Doubleday, p. 195.

3 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 347.

4 Walker, Second Army Corps, p. 296.

Colonel, and give it to them on the flank."1 Not until the battle of Gettysburg was over did he resign himself to his surgeon, and shortly afterwards he dictated this despatch to Meade: "I have never seen a more formidable attack, and if the Sixth and Fifth corps have pressed up, the enemy will be destroyed. The enemy must be short of ammunition, as I was shot with a tenpenny nail.2 I did not leave the field till the victory was entirely secured and the enemy no longer in sight. I am badly wounded, though I trust not seriously. I had to break the line to attack the enemy in flank on my right, where the enemy was most persistent after the front attack was repelled. Not a rebel was in sight upright when I left." 3

Decry war as we may and ought, "breathes there the man with soul so dead" who would not thrill with emotion to claim for his countrymen the men who made that charge and the men who met it?4

Longstreet, calm and self-possessed, meriting the name "bulldog" applied to him by his soldiers, expected a counter attack, and made ready for it. Lee, entirely alone, rode up to encourage and rally his broken troops. "His face did not show signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance," recorded an English officer in his diary on the day of the battle, "and he was addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encouragement, such as, 'All this will come right in the end: we'll talk it over afterwards, but in the mean time all good men must rally. We want all good and true men just now.' He spoke to all the wounded men that passed him, and the slightly wounded he exhorted 'to bind

2 For an exact account of Hancock's wound, see ibid., p. 148.

8 O. R., vol. xxvii. part i. p. 366.

• The loss of the Union army in the three days' battles was 3072 killed, 14,497 wounded, 5434 captured or missing, total 23,003; that of the Confederates, 2592 killed, 12,709 wounded, 5150 captured or missing, total 20,451. — Century War Book, vol. iii. pp. 437, 439.

Three Months in the Southern States, Lieut.-Col. Fremantle (N. Y. 1864), p. 266.

CH. XX.]

LEE'S SELF-CONTROL

291

up their hurts and take up a musket' in this emergency. Very few failed to answer his appeal, and I saw many badly wounded men take off their hats and cheer him. He said to me, 'This has been a sad day for us, Colonel- a sad day; but we can't expect always to gain victories.'

Notwithstanding the misfortune which had so suddenly befallen him, General Lee seemed to observe everything, however trivial. When a mounted officer began licking his horse for shying at the bursting of a shell, he called out, 'Don't whip him, Captain; don't whip him. I've got just such another foolish horse myself, and whipping does no good.""

An officer almost angry came up to report the state of his brigade. "General Lee immediately shook hands with him and said cheerfully, 'Never mind, General, all this has been MY fault-it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can." "1

The Books are full of the discussion whether or not Meade should have made a counter-attack. Those who say he ought to have done this maintain that the Confederate army might have been destroyed. It is true that he did not appreciate the magnitude of his victory, but ought the critic to demand from him any greater military sagacity than from Lee? The Confederate general under similar circumstances did not comprehend how badly he had beaten Burnside at Fredericksburg and did not follow up his great success.3

We need concern ourselves only for a moment with the controversy between Longstreet and the friends of Lee. It is clear that Longstreet did not give his commander the

1 Three Months in the Southern States, Lieut.-Col. Fremantle (N. Y. 1864), p. 268.

2 See his despatch to Halleck, July 3, 8.35 P. M., O. R., vol. xxvii. part i. p. 74.

8 Ante, p. 198. Halleck wrote Grant, July 11: "Meade has thus far proved an excellent general, the only one, in fact, who has ever fought the Army of the Potomac well. He seems the right man in the right place. Hooker was more than a failure. Had he remained in command he would have lost the army and the capital." — Ibid., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 498.

hearty co-operation which the occasion demanded. On the other hand, it is difficult, if not impossible, to traverse his argument that Lee should have put some officer in charge of the movement who had confidence in the plan of attack, or, as so much depended on it, that the commander himself should have given to the operations of the third day his personal attention. The champions of Lee maintain that his orders required the charge of Pickett to be made by a more powerful column than was sent across the valley under the murderous fire of the foe, and that Longstreet was at fault for neglecting to supply his remaining two divisions for the attack. Reduced to figures, it means that 23,000 instead of 15,000 should have made the assault. They would have had to contend with 70,000 men, strongly intrenched, of whom two corps were fresh, whose generals were prepared and alert. There is no reason for thinking that the result would have been different. The comparison which is frequently made between Lee's attack at Gettysburg on the third day and Burnside's storming of Marye's Heights is a reproach to the generalship of the Confederate commander, and is keenly felt by his friends, who would all regard him infallible. Had it not been for the Gettysburg campaign, the intimations in Southern literature would be more frequent than they are that he is entitled to rank with Napoleon in the class of great commanders. But the likeness in military ability will halt before it is pushed far. Nevertheless, let the comparison of the emotions of Napoleon and Lee after disaster be made, and his countrymen will perceive what reason they have to revere the memory of the American. Thus he wrote, July 9, to Pickett: "No one grieves more than I do at the loss suffered by your noble division in the recent conflict, or honors it more for its bravery and gallantry." "3 At the end of the account, said Napoleon in 1813, what has the Russian campaign cost

1 Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, p. 388.

2 Ibid., p. 398; Taylor, Four Years with Gen. Lee, p. 107.

8 O. R., vol. xxvii. part iii. p. 987.