“Great God! Have we got the universe to whip?”

DESPITE BARKSDALE’S FALL and without support of any kind to the north in the Plum Run sector, after the gradual, piecemeal withdraw of the 13th, 17th, and 18th Mississippi from their slugfest, Colonel Humphrey’s indefatigable regiment was still on the move in a desperate bid to gain Cemetery Ridge. After surging across Plum Run, the 21st Mississippi continued to advance on its “battery busting” mission, after capturing the four guns of Bigelow’s 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery. Attacking through the wide-open avenue between the Second Corps’ left and the Union concentration before Little Round Top, Humphreys’ Rebels surged steadily upward. Just ahead lay the fulfillment of the most optimistic Confederate dreams at Gettysburg, the Taneytown Road and Cemetery Ridge, whose capture might spell decisive Southern success, especially if reinforcements were yet hurried forward to Humphreys’ support.

Intrigued at the sight of another tactical opportunity, Humphreys and his 21st Mississippi soldiers had already seen the five guns of Battery I, Fifth United States Artillery galloping over the open ground just below the crest of Cemetery Ridge, and then unlimbering in a great hurry to anchor McGilvery’s left. Barely 150 paces beyond the elevated position of the battery lay Cemetery Ridge’s crest. Therefore, on the 21st Mississippi’s attack toward the mainly barren crest of Cemetery Ridge now “hung the hopes of a struggling Southern nation and people, for if “the last line was carried, the last battery was captured, the enemy’s line was cut in twain,” wrote General John Bell Hood of the enticing possibility. The Union battery was commanded by Lieutenant Malbone Francis Watson, the son of a respected New York Supreme Court judge. Only two years out of West Point, Watson now faced Humphreys, who had attended the academy forty years before. Much depended upon this upcoming meeting between these two gifted officers, who now wore uniforms of different colors. Ironically, after replacing Captain Ames’ Battery G, New York Light Artillery, in the Peach Orchard, Watson’s battery had hastily departed after making only token resistance before pulling out to escape the hard-charging 21st Mississippi. Now Watson would have to face them again, with much more at stake.

Cheering wildly and with their red battle-flags streaming overhead, the 21st Mississippi poured up the open, grassy slope as if nothing could stop them, toward the exposed far left, or extreme southern, end Mc-Gilvery’s line. Captain A.P. Martin described the glaring vulnerability of yet another cluster of Union guns that hoped to do what had yet to be accomplished: somehow stop Humphreys and his rampaging troops. Indeed, Watson’s “battery was without support of any kind [as] the enemy approached nearly in front at a distance of about 350 yards and the battery immediately opened fire on them with shell.”

As the 21st Mississippi drew closer, Captain Martin described how Watson’s five guns unleashed loads of “canister, some twenty rounds” into the onrushing line. Despite the swaths torn through the ranks, the 21st Mississippi absorbed its losses and kept going. Clearly, Watson’s roaring cannon were no insignificant challenge for Humphreys’ veterans, threatening to stop the most successful Confederate assault of the day. This experienced United States battery had seen service during the Seven Days and all of the Army of the Potomac’s campaigns since, and the expert artillerymen worked swiftly and efficiently to cut down more attackers with business-like efficiency.

But Humphreys’ men gave as good as they got. While shooting down Watson’s cannoneers and artillery horses while on the run, Humphreys’ troops continued to pour up the western slope of Cemetery Ridge. After reloading, and with the Mississippians descending upon them, Watson’s cannon unleashed a stream of fire one final time, cutting down another handful of Humphreys’ attackers, who were in a desperate race to reach the guns before they were all downed. Lieutenant Watson and his seasoned gunners, from New York City and Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were tough army regulars, whose discipline and fast-loading capabilities were renowned. They now proved that their lofty reputation was welldeserved.

But regular army discipline now ensured the destruction of this company of the Fifth United States Artillery at the hands of these young, self reliant fighting men from the southwest frontier. The Fifth Corps battery, manned by nearly 80 well-trained gunners, simply did not stand a chance without infantry support and when fully exposed before the sharp-shooting Mississippians. With methodical skill, fast-firing Rebels blasted away to slaughter more than twenty gunners and half of the exposed battery horses, dropping them with seemingly each shot, while they closed in for the kill.

The mounted Lieutenant Watson was a most conspicuous target. In frantic haste, the 21st Mississippi boys fired again and again at the battery commander in the smoky haze. Indeed, so many “men and horses were shot down or disabled” by the 21st Mississippi that the field pieces could no longer be worked. So furious was the fire of Humphreys’ soldiers that it was almost as if they had known that their beloved General Barksdale had been cut down to the northwest by canister fired from one of these Union cannon. One bluecoat artillery officer was killed and another went down wounded, while eighteen enlisted men fell to the terrible fire.

Finally the hard-charging 21st Mississippi swarmed up the slope and poured over Watson’s artillery pieces like a gray and butternut flood. A handful of dazed Yankee gunners were captured, including England-born Sergeant George Davis. As in recently sweeping over Captain Bigelow’s Massachusetts cannon in the now-quiet, body-strewn valley below, Humphreys’ men captured the five 3-inch guns of Battery I, Fifth United States Artillery. All the guns that anchored the left of McGilvery’s Plum Run Line were taken with a thorough, lethal swiftness, representing yet another significant success by the 21st Mississippi. Lieutenant Watson was knocked out of action, hit by a bullet in the knee, resulting in the usual gory procedure of his leg’s amputation. Thanks to the combined effect of Barksdale’s battering ram to the north, and the near turning of the right flank of Willard’s brigade, the 21st Mississippi’s sledge hammer-like blows, and Humphreys’ determined attempt to roll up Mc-Givery’s line of artillery pieces from the south, the Yankees were now “down to a dozen operable guns, then six, and the end seemed close at hand” for the Army of the Potomac’s battered left-center.

McGilvery’s ad hoc line of artillery was unraveling quickly, one of his batteries overrun, and another, Captain Thompson’s, out of ammunition and pulled rearward before it was too late. The First New York Battery, Company B, likewise had retired, leaving only a handful of guns—only half a dozen out of the original fifteen of the Plum Run Line.

Lieutenant Dow believed that the end was near for the Army of the Potomac for “it was evidently their intention, after capturing Company I, Fifth Regulars, to have charged right through our lines to the Taney-town Road, isolating our left wing and dividing our army.” Indeed, Humphreys and his 21st Mississippi soldiers now possessed the opportunity to make that day’s greatest ambition come true: splitting the Army of the Potomac in two and reaping decisive victory on northern soil. Private McNeily, 21st Mississippi, described the breathtaking opportunity gained by some of the hardest fighting of the war: “Taking his bearings after capturing Lieutenant Watson’s battery, Colonel Humphreys found himself the center of a remarkable situation. Looking to his left, some half a mile distant, he saw the other regiments of the brigade engaged with Willard. Behind him, at about the same distance, were Alexander’s guns making trouble for the enemy in two directions. To our right, toward Round Top, half a mile off, was a disorganized mass of apparently some thousands of the enemy, fleeing before Hood with Wofford and other brigades of McLaw’s division … but the view on our front was the most singular. Looking almost to Mead’s [sic] bent back right, not an enemy appeared in sight. The 21st Mississippi had fought its way into the enemy’s rear, and was planted squarely between his left and center.”

Now the 21st Mississippi, continuing to serve as the sharp head of the point of Barksdale’s spear, had once again outflanked another Union defensive position, thanks to hard fighting, tactical flexibility, and Humphreys’ inspired leadership. The capture of the five 3-inch guns of Watson’s battery, just after the capture of the four Massachusetts guns of Bigelow’s battery, marked the most significant Confederate success east of Plum Run and the day’s deepest and most significant penetration. The gains won by the 21st Mississippi unhinged McGilvery’s Plum Run Line from the left flank, and opened the way to gaining the strategic crest of Cemetery Ridge. Even more, if Humphreys turned his soldiers north, they could yet strike the exposed left flank of Willard’s Brigade, relieving pressure from Barksdale’s other three regiments and to perhaps rally them to resume a united offensive in the drive to capture Cemetery Ridge. Or Humphreys could lead his victorious troops south down the ridge to outflank Union commands on his right. Incredibly, the Mississippi Rebels were on the verge of a remarkable breakthrough.

Humphreys himself never forgot the moment when he surveyed the extent of his improbable success from the commanding elevation of the slope just west of the undefended crest of Cemetery Ridge: “From the position I occupied, no enemy could be seen or heard in my front. Not a gun was being fired at me. The federal army was cut in twain.” One bullet-shredded Confederate banner that now marked the most successful penetration and the most significant gains achieved by the Army of Northern Virginia during the three days at Gettysburg was carried by the Wilkinson County soldiers of Company D, 21st Mississippi. A proud emblem of the Jeff Davis Guards, this banner, made of sturdy wool fabric instead of silk, had been donated by the good ladies of Woodville in the state’s southwest corner. This flag now flew in triumph to mark the apex of the Confederate offensive on the second day of Gettysburg.

Amid the wreckage of what once had been an excellent United States artillery unit, Humphreys’ exhausted soldiers caught their breath on the high perch overlooking Plum Run. With his fighting blood up and his tactical instincts sharpened to a razor’s edge, the colonel ordered soldiers with past artillery experience to quickly turn the field pieces south to widen the gap torn into Meade’s left-center. A handful of volunteers in dirty gray and butternut began to turn the captured cannon around. Humphreys explained the tactical situation that promised greater gains at this time: “Eight hundred yards, to my right a confused mass was retreating, driven by McLaws, and Hood. I attempted to turn the guns just captured on them but no rammers or friction wires could be found. Eight hundred yards to my left, the enemy’s line was kept busy by Barksdale.” Meanwhile, Humphreys hurriedly reformed his ranks to continue the assault eastward to gain Cemetery Ridge’s crest.

But the hard-won tactical advantage gained by the 21st Mississippi’s combat prowess was now fleeting. Daylight was fast fading away—it was past 7:30—along with opportunities to reap additional gains when time was now of the essence. It was a harbinger of the Confederacy’s own final sunset, while Humphreys’ men busily reloaded their muskets for more hard fighting that lay ahead.

Indeed, Captain John B. Fassitt, General Birney’s aide-de-camp, was stunned when suddenly told by a dejected young lieutenant of Watson’s captured battery that all of his guns had been captured by Mississippi Rebels. Even more, the frantic artillery officer warned that if the victorious 21st Mississippi soldiers were “able to serve my guns, those troops you have just been forming on the ridge won’t stay there a minute.” Indeed, the 21st Mississippi was in a perfect position to wreak havoc on their exposed left flank, and Captain Fassitt realized as much.

Fortunately, Fassitt “knew of the Garibaldi Guards being detached” in the second line, or reserve, on the left of Willard’s Brigade, and that they were now available for an attempt to save the day. These men of the 39th New York had been held in reserve to protect Willard’s left flank, making them readily accessible for just such an emergency as presented by the 21st Mississippi’s success. Acting without orders, a desperate Fassitt galloped frantically up on a frothing horse to the only available Union troops in reserve in the vicinity of Humphreys’ latest conquest. The 39th New York’s commander, Colonel Hugo Hildebrandt, initially refused Fassitt’s shouted orders to advance against the 21st Mississippi because Fassitt was only a staff officer of Birney’s Division, Third Corps, while the New Yorkers were part of Hancock’s Second Corps. Therefore, the fast-thinking young staff officer repeated the orders in Hancock’s name, instead of Birney’s. Now satisfied, and probably seeing the 21st Mississippi’s red banner flying over the five captured artillery pieces of Watson’s battery down the open slope, Hildebrandt ordered his 39th New York, the southernmost of Willard’s regiments, to the left on the double to meet the day’s most urgent threat.

Fortunately for the Union, these New Yorkers were ably led by Major Hildebrandt, a hard-nosed Prussian commander. Led by Captain Fassitt, the Third Corps staff officer, on horseback, the hardy New Yorkers surged forward by the left flank with fixed bayonets and cheers that indicated high morale. Most of all, they were determined to recapture Watson’s lost battery now in possession of a depleted band of Magnolia Rebels, who were entirely on their own.512

By this time, many of the 21st Mississippi’s finest soldiers, both officers and enlisted men, lay strewn across the bloody fields along the path of Humphreys’ onslaught. Attrition and the lack of ammunition combined with sheer exhaustion to effectively diminish any real chance of successfully resisting the New Yorkers, who were fresh, well-led, and confident.⁵¹³ Already five Gibson cousins of the 21st Mississippi had been hit, including one mortally wounded. Lieutenant Tuing Gibson and Private Gadi Gibson, who suffered wounds in the neck and groin, of the Sunflower Guards (Company I), were casualties by this time.⁵¹⁴ Most important, the sunset of not only July 2 but also of the Confederacy was fast-approaching on the western horizon, and this ultimate demise was heralded in dramatic fashion by Willard’s attackers.

Here, on the high ground just below Cemetery Ridge’s crest, the remains of the 21st Mississippi were about to meet hundreds of highly motivated New Yorkers. The 39th New York was a heavily ethnic unit, consisting of what the yeomen farmers from Mississippi referred to derisively as “foreigners.” Hence, this fine Excelsior State unit was known throughout the army as the “Garibaldi Guard.” These hardy New York bluecoats consisted of Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spanish, Swiss, and Portuguese, including fighting men who had gained solid military experience in European armies. General George B. McClellan, when once describing his army’s regiments, said the most “remarkable of all was the Garibaldi Regiment [for] the men were from all known and unknown lands, from all possible and impossible armies: Zouaves from Algiers, men of the ‘Foreign Legion,’ Zephyrs, Cossacks, Garibaldians of the deepest dye, English deserters, Sepoys, Turcos, Croats, Swiss, Beer-Drinkers from Bavaria, stout men from North Germany … such a mixture was probably never before seen under any flag.”515

These high-spirited 39th New York attackers wore red shirts inspired by Garibaldi’s liberation campaigns in Italy. And the regiment’s ranks included more than a hundred seamen—an anomaly amid Pennsylvania’s pastoral farmlands—from around the world, and also non-English speaking soldiers from Russia, Greece, France, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, Scandinavia, French Canada, Spain, Holland, and Alsace-Lorraine. After their recent exchange from capture at Harpers Ferry, like the rest of Willard’s brigade, the 39th New York’s soldiers were especially eager for the long-awaited opportunity to redeem themselves this afternoon.⁵¹⁶ Consequently, the bloodied survivors, low on ammunition and manpower, but not courage, of Barksdale’s best regiment faced even greater odds with the arrival of so many fresh troops with full cartridge-boxes.⁵¹⁷

Watching helplessly as the blue formations rushed toward his exhausted ranks, a frustrated Colonel Humphreys felt a flush of anger at the lack of support of any kind for his deep penetration, knowing that he must continue to fight on his own against the odds.⁵¹⁸ Humphreys now “mingled vain and bitter regrets over the weakness of his force.” Indeed, where were the promised reinforcements? Where was Wofford’s brigade? Where was Pickett? Where was A.P. Hill’s Corps? Or Ewell’s divisions? What had gone wrong? Was not the army hurrying support forward at such a critical moment?

After fighting so long and hard, Barksdale’s top lieutenant viewed the sickening sight of the beginning of the end of Confederate dreams as “soon a long solid line of infantry was seen advancing down the road towards us.” Nevertheless, the defiant Colonel Humphreys was determined not to relinquish an inch of his hard-earned perch. Here, atop the open, high ground that overlooked Plum Run, Humphreys prepared for more hard fighting. By this time, some of McGilvery’s guns were turned south on Humphrey’s troops, who now took the punishment from canister delivered at relatively close range. Quite likely it was a frustrated Mississippi Rebel who famously swore that the Yankee commanders shouted, “Universe, forward! By Kingdom into line! Nations guide right!” and the onrush of Union reinforcements caused another soldier to declare “Great God! Have we got the Universe to whip?” Indeed, Colonel Humphreys and his surviving band of soldiers, drenched with sweat and streaked with black powder from biting open so many paper cartridges, continued to face the fire of yet another new Union battery and the advance of another veteran infantry command, as well as other Federal reinforcements now arriving on the scene.519

In a letter, Captain Josiah C. Fuller, 32nd Massachusetts, Fifth Corps, which advanced north to meet Humphreys’ threat, recorded how “the rebs tried to … get possession of a road [Taneytown] and thus have a full play on our trains,” but it was not to be. Captain Fuller also proudly penned with a sense of triumph how “Genl. Barksdale (Reb) is dead.”

However, after capturing Watson’s battery and in a final bid to redeem the day, Colonel Humphreys continued to lead his troops farther east up the open slope and ever-closer to Cemetery Ridge’s crest. Humphreys’ men surged onward while it “thrilled the heart of a soldier to catch sight of his red battle-flag,” especially one now pointed toward the strategic crest of Meade’s main line. At this time the 21st Mississippi pushed on in one final offensive effort. Later, to embellish their war records, Union veterans swore that the Mississippians had been immediately and easily pushed rearward by the 39th New York’s counterattack, almost as if to deny Humphreys his final achievement in reaching so close to decisive victory.⁵²⁰ However, Humphreys’ final bid to exploit his dramatic breakthrough continued unabated in a renewed surge up the slope.⁵²¹

However, suddenly the 39th New York’s attack hit the 21st Mississippi’s left flank, raking it with a great rolling sheet of flame that erupted from rows of leveled New York muskets. Here, in a forgotten showdown just below Cemetery Ridge’s crest, the 21st Mississippi and the 39th New York clashed in the last flurry of bitter fighting which swirled savagely beyond Captain Watson’s five captured guns positioned on the slope. One Yankee described how the Mississippians simply “were not willing to give up the battery and position without a struggle, and the fight was a fierce one.” Desperate Mississippi boys thrust bayonets and swung mus-ket-butts at the swarming Federals, but these fresh troops, with full ammunition could not be stopped by those with cartridge-boxes either empty or nearly so.

Fighting on foot and before his men as usual, Humphreys somehow was not touched amid the hail of bullets, while continuing to lead a charmed existence, unlike the unfortunate Barksdale along bloody Plum Run to the northwest. Amid the hand-to-hand combat, Captain Fassitt, the only mounted officer leading the New Yorkers into the fray, lost control of his horse when a 21st Mississippi Rebel grabbed the bridle in an attempt to capture him. Another Mississippian stuck his musket into the captain’s face to deliver the coup-de-gråce. But just before the soldier pulled the trigger, Captain Fassett knocked the gun away with his saber. Nevertheless, the bullet, most likely a .577 caliber Enfield round, tore through the captain’s kepi’s visor. It was a close call. A Garibaldi Guardsman promptly ran his bayonet through the Mississippi Confederate.

Meanwhile, amid the swirling hand-to-hand combat, Captain Fassitt aimed his pistol with a steady hand at the bridle-holding Johnny Reb, shooting him down, and thence winning the Congressional Medal of Honor for his key role in saving the day. There were simply too many fresh Garibaldi Guards to fight off, and the tide finally turned against the 21st Mississippi for the first time all day. One New Yorker described how after more bitter fighting, literally under the shadow of Cemetery Ridge’s crest, “the Mississippians were driven off from the guns, the Battery became ours as well as the just honor of the day.” Indeed, without support, ammunition, reinforcements, or a prayer this late afternoon, Colonel Humphreys had no choice but to prepare to retire west and back down the slope leading to the low ground of Plum Run.522 In Humphreys’ words: “I saw my safety was in a hurried retreat.”⁵²³

Once and for all, the threat of the howling tide of victorious Mississippi Rebels pouring through the gap in Meade’s left-center had finally receded. Lieutenant Dow, commanding the four smoothbore Napoleons of the 6th Maine Battery just north of Watson’s battery, was awed by the ferocity of the 21st Mississippi’s desperate bid to “charge right through our lines to the Taneytown road, isolating our left wing and dividing our army.”⁵²⁴ In the end, the Mississippians’ bloody repulse on both wings was the turning point in the savage fighting on July 2, “ending that threat to the Union center,” in the words of Noah Andre Trudeau, in what was the true location of the “High Water Mark” of the Confederacy.525

All the while, large numbers of further Federal reinforcements were on the way, converging on Humphreys, who now faced more than the 39th New York. General Henry H. Lockwood’s Maryland and New York brigade, General Thomas H. Ruger’s First Division, Twelfth Corps, suddenly appeared before Humphreys. Indeed, thanks to the advantage of interior lines and timely leadership decisions, as General Oliver O. Howard described, thousands of “troops came from all parts of the army to assist Sickles” and his beaten Third Corps. They would have been too late, however, if Barksdale’s Brigade had been properly supported.

With heartbreak, the hard-fighting Colonel Humphreys wrote of the no-win situation and the moment that he dreaded most of all, when he realized that all his efforts had been in vain: “I discovered a long Federal line marching from the direction of Cemetery hill directly against me— Looking again to my right and rear I saw Wofford retiring, towards the Peach Orchard—To my left the 3 other regiments that were with [Barksdale], were also retiring—I could see no other reinforcements coming, and determined to retire to the stone wall where I captured Graham and 4 guns and there make a stand—once safely behind the stone fence I could control the ground on which I left the 5 guns—The enemy did not urge his claim to them—and as I know the Federal Army was cut in twain, and hoping for reinforcements to hold what we had gained, and thus secure a triumph over the separate wings I felt the jubilation of the victor.”⁵²⁶

After tenaciously battling the 39th New York and now thwarted by Lockwood’s fresh brigade in front, Humphreys’ exhausted Mississippians, including a good many blood-stained walking wounded, slowly retired down the slope and back across Plum Run and its shallow valley of broken dreams. Here, on the ascending ground just near the Trostle house and before the prized 9th Massachusetts Battery guns, which none of Humphreys’ men wanted to relinquish, the 21st Mississippi’s survivors made yet another defensive stand with what few rounds remained in their cartridge boxes. Humphreys was yet determined to preserve the precious ground gained and retain Captain Bigelow’s bronze cannon.

But as the night closed in on the isolated but still defiant 21st Mississippi survivors, one of Barksdale’s staff officers, a captain, finally reached Humphreys with new orders from Longstreet. Because Barksdale had fallen in the Plum Run sector to the north, Humphreys now commanded what was left of the decimated Mississippi Brigade, which had withdrawn back to the Peach Orchard. Not ready to concede defeat, Colonel Humphreys described how “greatly to my mortification I was ordered to fall back to the Peach Orchard. I demurred and protested but the order was final.” Consequently, the 21st Mississippi now retired all the way back to the Emmitsburg Road. Longstreet described how “when Humphreys, who succeeded to Barksdale’s brigade, was called back to the new line he thought there was some mistake in the orders, and only withdrew so far as a captured battery. And when the order was repeated, retired under protest.” Quite simply, the Mississippians had been the last troops willing to retire after achieving the greatest gains of any of Lee’s regiments on July 2, after some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.

Colonel Humphreys described the bitter end: “I spiked one of the guns, and unmolested by pursuit I formed on the left of Wofford at the Peach Orchard from which we had driven Sickles Corps.” Humphreys now took command of what little was left of the battered Mississippi Brigade.

All in all, no single Confederate regiment during the three days at Gettysburg achieved more significant gains when more was at stake than the 21st Mississippi. Even though only a single regiment, which fought independently as Barksdale’s freewheeling right wing, Humphreys’ 21st Mississippi had unhinged the Peach Orchard defensive line by first overwhelming the apex of the salient angle and overrunning Union regiments and artillery. Then, Humphreys captured guns from Winslow’s, Bigelow’s, and Watson’s batteries, as well as undetermined guns. Most of these afterward had to be relinquished. In sum, the 21st Mississippi’s remarkable success “by a single regiment was an unexcelled, it ever equaled, achievement” of the Civil War. In John Bell Hood’s words: “Thus it was that the 21st Mississippi Regiment bore the stars and bars to the very farthest point reached in the enemy’s line on the bloody field of Gettysburg.”

Private McNeily described the 21st Mississippi’s sweeping onslaught that resulted in the capture of the guns of Bigelow’s and Watson’s batteries as “one of the most thrilling battle episodes of the war … while these two batteries were wholly unsupported by infantry, they were captured by a regiment which entering the battle with three hundred men, numbered then but little more than two hundred.” General McLaws declared with pride that the 21st Mississippi was the “‘flower of Southern chivalry,’ with one of its companies [having] four men pledged to remain always privates, who were worth $400,000.” But perhaps Union General Hunt bestowed the best tribute to what the 21st Mississippi had accomplished in establishing the true “High Tide” of the Confederacy by writing with admiration how he believed that “Colonel Humphreys’ 21st Mississippi the only regiment which succeeded in crossing Plum Run” on the bloody July 2nd.527 Barely escaping alive after having two horses shot from under him and with nine bullets “through his cloak,” Colonel Humphreys had orchestrated one of the most brilliant offensive performances of the Civil War.⁵²⁸

On this single afternoon in hell, Lee “had staked everything—his splendid army, the fate of Richmond, and perhaps even the Confederacy itself—on destroying the Federal army.”⁵²⁹ And that best chance for winning the war’s most decisive battle had come and gone, slipping away forever before the sunrise of July 3, after the Mississippi Brigade’s attack had been thwarted.⁵³⁰ The great opportunity to win it all would never come again for either the Army of Northern Virginia or the Confederacy, after Lee and his generals had their worst day. Perhaps Porter Alexander said it best, although in a private note to his father which never saw light in his official writings: “Never, never, never did Gen. Lee himself bollox a fight as he did this.”⁵³¹

Indeed, in the words of historian Stephen W. Sears about why the Army of Northern Virginia had failed in the battle: “George G. Meade, unexpectedly and against the odds, thoroughly outgeneraled Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg.”⁵³² But while the army’s commander and his top lieutenants had been badly outgeneraled on July 2, the Mississippi Brigade had not been outfought by any unit on either side. And no one had outgeneraled Barksdale on his finest day. But in the end, no amount of heroics, successes, or gains reaped by Barksdale and his men, not even their “dash and fanatical desperation,” could compensate for the glaring leadership failures at the highest levels in the art of war.⁵³³ Nevertheless, and against the odds, and despite the handicaps and obstacles to success set in place by their own leadership, Barksdale and Humphreys and their crack troops had come tantalizingly close to achieving decisive results.