On Pickett's Charge by Carol Reardon

Author:Carol Reardon [Reardon, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877), Military
ISBN: 9780807836200
Google: 9QIZ4sT30acC
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2012-01-01T15:59:14+00:00

Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, commander of the II Corps of the Army of the Potomac. The Northern press made him a hero. (Francis Trevelyan Miller, comp., Photographic History of the Civil War [New York: Review of Reviews, 1911], 10:179)

In addition to celebrating only a few individual heroes, most reporters also underappreciated the contributions of units other than those of the II Corps. One New York correspondent noted that while “Gen. HANCOCK, with the noble old Second Army corps,” held the Union center, he was only “aided by Gen. Doubleday’s division of the First corps.”40 Specific mention of the Vermont Brigade’s attack on Pickett’s right flank did not appear at all in some early accounts. A Philadelphia paper extended credit to the III and V Corps, which took no part in the repulse.41

Those same Philadelphia newspapers offered the exception to the profusion of generalities that typically described the events of July 3. With pardonable pride, their reporters gave special attention to a local interest story. They bragged about the accomplishments of Webb’s Philadelphia Brigade at the Angle: “The doings of this body, attached to the Second Corps, should not be allowed to go unnoticed,” and “their unwavering behavior under the most galling fire and the most desperate bayonet charges . . . have made them conspicuous for unexampled daring and bravery.”42

Although the correspondents waxed eloquent as they praised the victory, they noted its horrendous cost to both sides. Even if most could not share the sense of personal loss the soldiers themselves felt, they still felt compelled to let their readers know that Gettysburg did “not equal in duration the seven days’ fight on the Chickahominy, but outstrips it in severity. Indeed, in point of reckless prodigality of human life and desperate valor it will rank with the most celebrated battles of the world.”43 As Wilkeson looked around, he saw ground “red with blood and covered with mangled bodies.” In a small space in front of Gibbon’s division, he counted seven dead Southerners, three of whom were piled on top of one another. Nearby, fifteen more, “the adventurous spirits who, in the face of the horrible stream of canister, shell and musketry, scaled the fence wall in their attempt upon our batteries” lay stiff in death.44

Great, if contradictory, interest in the fate of senior Confederate officers—exclusive of Longstreet and Hill—further confirmed the severity of the fighting. Wilkeson reported Confederate general Richard B. Garnett’s death.45 Another reported that “Gen. Dick Garnett himself was wounded and barely made his escape.”46 Another noted that while most of Garnett’s survivors surrendered, the general himself “by the aid of two of his men, succeeded, though wounded, in making his escape.”47 Reports on the mortally wounded Gen. Lewis Armistead cited him as “Olmstead, of Georgia,” “Armstead,” and in one case, a writer noted the death of the “rebel General Arnold.”48 When Armistead was captured, Wilkeson reported wrongly that he “asked immediately for General Meade, who was his classmate at West Point.”49 Another paper misidentified the captured Col.

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