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Sunday, April 19, 2015

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.





close to the Union lines on
Cemetery Ridge was used
as a hospital during the









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 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.






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.  






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.  








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.









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. 






 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.





(National Zoaves)

First organized in France,
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.  

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