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A Most Fearful Sacrifice-  AMFS ,from Flying Pig Games, a Hermann Luttmann design.

Pickett’s Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Union positions on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg in the state of Pennsylvania during the American Civil War.

Its futility was predicted by the charge’s commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered militarily or psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. The charge is named after Maj. Gen. George Pickett, one of three Confederate generals who led the assault under Longstreet.

Pickett’s Charge was part of Lee’s “general plan”[1] to take Cemetery Hill and the network of roads it commanded. His military secretary, Armistead Lindsay Long, described Lee’s thinking:

There was … a weak point … where [Cemetery Ridge], sloping westward, formed the depression through which the Emmitsburg road passes. Perceiving that by forcing the Federal lines at that point and turning toward Cemetery Hill [Hays’ Division] would be taken in flank and the remainder would be neutralized. … Lee determined to attack at that point, and the execution was assigned to Longstreet.[2]

On the night of July 2, Meade correctly predicted to General Gibbon, after a council of war, that Lee would attack the center of his lines the following morning. 

The infantry assault was preceded by a massive artillery bombardment that was meant to soften up the Union defense and silence its artillery, but was largely ineffective. Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three-quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repelled with over 50% casualties, a decisive defeat that ended the three-day battle and Lee’s campaign into Pennsylvania.[3] Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, Pickett reportedly replied, “I’ve always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.

Explore the what if’s, the maybes..the could have been across these fateful days of American Civil War that saw the beginning of the end of a national crisis in: