Pickett's Charge: The Final Day of Fighting at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

165,620 Union and Confederate soldiers massed for battle around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from June 30 through July 2.  Fighting breaks out on July 1.

The Hummelbaugh House,

close to the Union lines on

Cemetery Ridge was used

as a hospital during the

Battle of Gettysburg.

New Hampshire 
Companies E, 1st Regiment
F & G, 2nd Regiment
Berand's U.S. Sharpshooters
2nd Brigade, 1st Division,
3rd Corps
July 3, 1863

This is a "Witness Tree."

This tree was growing here during the battle for Cemetery Hill on July 3, 1863.  It's estimated that there are between one hundred and two hundred "Witness Trees" on the Gettysburg Battlefield.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee was busy on July 2.  He was collecting reports of the fighting from his commanders.  Captured Union soldiers were interrogated and the information they provided was sent to the General.  There was heavy fighting at the northern end of the battlefield at Culp's Hill, and at the southern end at the Peach Tree Orchard, Devil's Den and Little Round Top.  General Lee made plans to attack the middle of the Union line at Cemetery Hill.  

Casualties are mounting, on both sides.

Union General George Meade, 

reviews reports from July 2, 

decides that the next day's attack 

will be on the center of his lines.

Northern officers and soldiers prepare for the coming assault.

The stone wall at the ridge of Cemetery Hill:  Confederate troops 

will cross the fields & attack along here.

U.S. Park Ranger, Dan,

describes the battle on 

July 3 for the group.

The Confederate attack on Cemetery Hill started at 1:00 pm, with a massive artillery bombardment by 150 cannon.  

Union artillery, 75 cannon, responded.  

Army of the Potomac
Second Corps
Artillery Brigade 
Monument

The cannon crews on both sides loaded and fired for two hours.

Supplies of ammunition &

gunpowder are stored in

the caissons, behind

the cannons.

The heavy, humid July air was soon thick with smoke from the cannons, obscuring targets on both sides.

At 3:00 pm, approximately 15,000 Confederate soldiers and officers stepped out of the trees and advanced on Cemetery Hill.  Known as Pickett's Charge, the men marched a mile across farmers' fields.  When the soldiers climbed fences and moved around farm houses and barns, their lines became disorganized. The advancing men stopped, reformed their lines and continued on.  

The State of Pennsylvania

Monument is the largest

memorial at Gettysburg.

Union soldiers defending Cemetery Hill waited until the enemy crossed the Emmittsburg Road. At close range, the Northern cannons fired canisters, loaded with shot, into the advancing Confederates. The canisters exploded and metal balls ripped into the the enemy. Rifle fire opened up, on both sides. 

The fighting was fierce.  General Armistead and a group of Confederate soldiers climbed the stone wall on the ridge and broke into the Union lines.  Fighting was hand to hand. Opponents picked up stones from the wall and bashed each other.  

 Soldiers used their rifles

 as clubs.

The 72nd Pennsylvania

 Infantry Monument

Northern soldiers pushed Armistead's attack back across the stone wall.  The fighting began to slow as Confederate soldiers started back across the fields, taking as many wounded with them as they could. 

The 20th Massachusetts Monument

is "Roxbury Puddingstone,"

 native to that state.

It symbolizes the boys from Massachusetts who played on boulders, like this one, and grew up to become the soldiers who fought & died here.

The 10th New York

Infantry Monument

(National Zoaves)

First organized in France,

volunteer American Zoave

regiments formed across

Northern states &

fought with distinction.

The land between the Emmittsburg Road and the Cemetery Ridge was littered with wounded, dead and dying soldiers.  General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia began their retreat south to Virginia.  General Meade and the Army of the Potomac had denied General Lee and his Army victory on Northern soil.

At what cost?  Of the 165, 620 men who fought at Gettysburg, An estimated 51,112 men were killed, wounded, missing or captured.