Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg: A Guide to the Most Famous Attack in American History

Captain Charles Phillips of the 5th Massachusetts Battery likewise admitted that he was forced to open counter-battery fire on Hancock’s conflicting orders, “but in the thick smoke probably did very little damage. By your [McGilvery’s] orders, we soon ceased firing.” 11 Phillips later called it all a “foolish cannonade” 12 and quipped sarcastically that Hancock showed “how little an infantry officer knows about artillery.” A private in the battery agreed that Phillips’s reaction was “exactly what the rank and file thought.” 13 Not every artilleryman ridiculed Hancock’s objectives however. Thompson’s battery men “were only too glad for the chance, for it is much easier to fight than lay idle under such a storm of shot, shell, and missiles.” 14

Since Hunt and McGilvery’s orders to conserve ammunition had been (primarily) observed by those batteries along McGilvery’s front, these guns were finely positioned to enfilade Kemper’s right flank and then to later hit Wilcox and Lang head on. “The execution of the fire must have been terrible,” McGilvery wrote, “as it was over a level plain, and the effect was plain to be seen. In a few minutes, instead of a well-ordered line of battle, there were broken and confused masses, and fugitives fleeing in every direction.” 15 Captain Phillips observed that when “Longstreet reached our lines, the bushes and trees on our right concealed his troops” so that “we could not fire with very good effect, but this was merely during the last 50 yards or so of his charge. During the greater portion of it he was entirely exposed to our fire.” 16 The damage would have been equal, if not more severe, when Wilcox and Lang frontally approached near the end of the attack. “My men falling all around me with brains blown out,” recalled a lieutenant in Lang’s 5th Florida, “arms off and wounded in every description.” 17

On one point both Hancock and Hunt seemed to agree: there was a noted lack of comparable fire from the II Corps batteries as Longstreet’s troops approached. But not surprisingly both men differed on the cause. “No attempt was made to check the advance of the enemy until the first line had arrived within about 700 yards of our position,” Hancock thundered in his report, “when a feeble fire of artillery was opened upon it, but with no material effect, and without delaying for a moment its determined advance.” 18 Hunt, the more prolific writer of the two and eager to defend any perceived besmirches on his reputation, countered:

I had counted on an artillery cross-fire that would stop it before it reached our lines, but, except for a few shots here and there, Hazard’s [II Corps] batteries were silent until the enemy came within canister range. They had unfortunately exhausted their long range projectiles during the cannonade, under the orders of their corps commander, and it was too late to replace them. Had my instructions been followed here, as they were by McGilvery, I do not believe that Pickett’s Division would have reached our line. We lost not only the fire of one-third of our

guns, but the resulting cross-fire, which would have doubled its value. 19

The upshot of all this was that Hancock and Hunt developed a mutual dislike for each other, and neither officer would be shy about criticizing the other, directly or indirectly, ever again. Later that afternoon, after being wounded in the groin, Hancock still found time to criticize the handling of the artillery by complaining to Meade “that the twelve guns on my salient had been removed by someone, whom I call upon you to hold accountable, as without them, with worse troops, I should certainly have lost the day.” 20

Although Hunt ended the war with a brevet rank of major general, he reverted to a postwar rank of colonel of the 5th U.S. Artillery. Hancock appears to have ignored the customary courtesy of postwar officers to address each other by their highest attained ranks and instead referred to Hunt as “Col. Hunt,” a fact that was indignantly noted by Hunt. Hancock went to his grave insisting that he simply outranked Hunt at Gettysburg and that the defense of Cemetery Ridge was his responsibility. For his part, Hunt wrote Gen. William T. Sherman in 1882 that Hancock suffered from “an aggravated form of the military disease described…as ‘pruriency of favor-not earned’ the characteristic symptom being ‘self-puffing’ to the malignant exclusion of others…and he resorts to defamations which sinks sometimes to calumny.” 21

STOP 5 Stannard’s Brigade Counterattacks

This portion of the Union defensive works was assigned to Brig. General George Stannard’s Third Brigade of Vermonters from the Third Division of I Corps. Stannard’s men had enlisted for nine month terms in the fall of 1862 and their service was set to expire within one month. The brigade was also new to the Army of the Potomac, having been sent from the defenses of Washington to reinforce Meade’s army only days before the battle. Stannard noted during the march north, “many of the men fell out. The great proportion after we left Frederick. I think whiskey the cause. They marched until this time first rate. They count their time by days. Consequently they do not have any heart in their work. Officers as little as men.” 1

On July 3, Stannard fought with his 13th, 14th, and 16th Vermont regiments. Two additional regiments, the 12th and 15th Vermont, were detached to guard the corps supply wagons. 2 Prior to the Confederates’ approach, the 16th manned Stannard’s skirmish line. The 16th’s commander, Col. Wheelock Veazey, described his line as “extending from a little to the right of the brick house [the Codori house] on the Pike in our front, a short distance along the Pike and then along the bottom of the ravine or slope out towards Round Top and connecting on the left with the line of the 5th Corps.” 3 Veazey also observed a curious effect of the great cannonade:

As Kemper’s Brigade approached from the west, first crossing near the Klingle farm and then passing by the Codori farm, they made inviting targets to Stannard’s troops, who by this time had moved into positions west of modern Hancock Avenue and in advance of the line of Union monuments. Looking across this field, you can imagine the exposure that Kemper’s right flank must have presented.

After Veazey’s 16th Vermont was pulled in from the skirmish line and placed in the rear of the other Vermont regiments, Kemper initially appeared headed toward the front of the 14th Vermont (on Stannard’s left). According to General Stannard, “the enemy came within 100 yards or thereabout” when the 14th’s colonel “in order to change his line, had a part of his regiment raise up. That being discovered the rebels halted,” and Stannard “immediately ordered a fire from both” the 13th and 14th regiments. The rebels then “immediately changed direction by their left flank,” to Stannard’s right, and kept moving under fire for the entire distance. “When past our front they changed direction again by the right flank, and marched direct to the attack of our lines.” 5

To the Vermont observers, it appeared that their fire was causing Kemper’s men to diverge or crowd toward the Copse of Trees. Naturally, some Confederate accounts saw it quite differently. Colonel Joseph Mayo claimed that when “within a hundred yards of his [the enemy’s] works, our men poured into the enemy one well-directed volley and then at the command of General Kemper rushed with a cheer upon the works, closely followed by the noble brigades of Garnett and Armistead. The entrenchments were carried, the enemy was driven from his guns.” Mayo also wrote that portions of the 11th and 24th Virginia regiments “were thrown back at right angles to our line” to protect their right and rear, but such coverage must have been nominal at best. 6

With Kemper having primarily passed his lines and again moving forward, Stannard now saw an even greater flanking opportunity. “Forming in the open meadow in front of our lines,” the 13th and 16th regiments “changed front forward on first company” with the 16th forming on the left of the 13th, at right angles to the main Union line and again facing Kemper’s new right. (The 16th’s left may have been nearly as far out as the Codori buildings.) The Vermonters poured in a very “destructive fire at short range, which the enemy sustained but a very few moments before the larger portion of them surrendered and marched in- not as conquerors, but as captives.” 7 It was the most difficult maneuver performed by any regiments in Meade’s army during this assault, but Stannard successfully managed to place “the rebels under flank fire the whole length of their lines.” 8 Stannard’s aide Lt. George G. Benedict wrote that the Confederates “began to break and scatter” in “less than five minutes” and “in ten more it was an utter rout.” 9 Colonel Veazey of the 16th wrote: