July 3, 1863
Day Three of the Battle of Gettysburg would decide what direction the war would take. Either Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee would defeat the newly appointed Commanding General of the Army of the Potomac, George Meade, or the North would withstand the South’s final push and most likely secure the Union.
An eerie silence hung over the field; the dead scattered across the landscape. The silence was broken by the occasional shot from various Union sharpshooters on Cemetery Hill or Ziegler’s Grove or from the Confederate sharpshooters in the town of Gettysburg and Bliss Farm. The constant moans of the wounded not yet removed from the battlefield were an underlying sound that the combatants had become numb to over the last two days of horrific fighting.
Lee had decided, against the advice of top commander Gen. James Longstreet, to attack the Union position where Gen. Ambrose Wright’s brigade had penetrated and split the Union defenses on Cemetery Hill by the now famous Copse of Trees that became the guiding mark for Gen. George Pickett’s Virginians, whose 6,000-strong division was fresh and had not seen any action yet. To Pickett’s left would be Gen. James Pettigrew’s division and Gen. Isaac Trimble’s two brigades, and anchoring his right flank was Col. David Lang and Gen. Cadmus Wilcox’s brigades. In all 15,000 Confederate soldiers would make the fabled charge. The other part of Lee’s plan was to have his cavalry commander, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, attack the rear of the Union line. Lee hoped that the combined effect would be like an anvil and hammer, crushing the Yankee defenders.
General Meade, having called a war council late in the night on July 2, had come to the conclusion that Lee would strike where he had penetrated his line on that day and so he made ready for a full frontal assault, knowing that the Rebels would have to go through “artillery hell” before even reaching his troops hunkered down behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge. On the backside of Cemetery Ridge he placed his reserves, with specific units behind them with the orders to shoot anyone who broke rank. The action started at three p.m. with a Confederate signal gun firing a single shot. The Confederate batteries along the line opened up, concentrating on the Bloody Angle and the Copse of Trees, trying to weaken the Union defensive line. The Union artillery answered, and for an hour and a half, more than 100 cannons blasted away at each other. The sound was so loud that people could hear the muffled noise in Washington, D. C.
Pickett started his advance at four, and by six p.m. the remnants of the once-invincible Confederate army streamed back to Seminary Ridge. The day would be costly for Lee, as the Union defenders sustained fewer casualties than the Confederates. Pickett alone had close to 2,600 of his men surrender on the field, and close to the wall lay more than 500 dead Confederate soldiers, most from Gen. Lewis Armistead’s brigade. Armistead had crossed the wall at the Bloody Angle and led 200 Virginians up the slope of Cemetery Ridge. He was mortally wounded as he raised his hat on his sword near Cushing’s Battery A, and 80 of the 200 men who followed him over the wall died there with him. On July 4, 1863, Lee would start his retreat South with what was left of his army later that evening.
The Battle of Gettysburg was over, and one of the greatest battles ever fought was now etched in history.