Today marks the 142nd anniversary of the last day of battle at Gettysburg, Pa. in the American Civil War. On this day, General Robert E. Lee ordered what has become known as Pickett's charge. General Lee ordered a charge against an entrenched federal force holding the high ground south of Gettysburg. Waiting on the other side was the federal Army of the Potomac, an army led by General George Meade, entrenched on hills and behind a stone wall, a stone wall not unlike the one that the men of the Army of Northern Virginia crouched behind when they summarily cut down thousands of men at Fredericksburg the previous December. The high ground, centered around a small grove of trees, has become known as the confederacy's high-water mark for the Army of Northern Virginia (as a group) never before or after ventured so far into federal territory.
In this battle, Lee ordered one of his most-trusted corps commanders, James Longstreet, to attack the fortified federal position with the division of George Pickett (who had not led his division into battle before and whose division was, therefore, rather rested) plus two other divisions. Longstreet thought the charge was unnecessary and dangerous. After all, the divisions under his command would have to charge across an open field 1 mile in length against an entrenched opponent. Instead, Longstreet argued for a withdrawal of confederate forces into defensive positions south of Gettysburg and between Gettysburg and Washington DC. Longstreet argued that if this were done, the federals would have to come out of their entrenched positions and attack the southerners on ground of the southerners' choosing. But Lee, probably remembering the great successes his army had during the previous 7 months, decided against this. Besides, he thought, a withdrawal would likely hurt the morale of his army. So, Lee ordered the charge, to be preceded by a great southern cannonade.
The charge ended in disaster. The confederate cannon fire did little to soften up the federal positions and while a few confederates breached the stone wall near the grove of trees, most did not, and thousands of confederates were wounded or killed in the mile-long field between the confederate and federal positions. After they beat back the confederates, the victorious federals shouted "Fredericksburg!! Fredericksburg!!", realizing they had bestowed upon the southerners what the southerners had so horribly bestowed upon the federals back in December at Fredericksburg. As the confederates retreated, Lee approached Pickett to have him reform his division for defense. Pickett replied "General Lee, I have no division." Later in life, Pickett commented about Lee "That man had my division slaughtered."
While the federals routed the confederacy on this day 142 years ago, the American Civil War raged on for two more years. Longstreet became vilified in the south partly because he dared criticize Lee's battle plan on the third day of July, 1863 (and also partly because Longstreet, after the war, accepted an ambassador's position in the, gulp {if you were a southerner} American government). But Lee deserves some fault. He believed in an invincibility of his army, but he seems to have forgotten that two of the major reasons for recent confederate successes prior to Gettysburg were not there: the confederates were not entrenched behind a stone wall (as in Fredericksburg) and Thomas Jackson was dead. In some ways, this day, 142 years prior, was the beginning of the end of the fighting of the American Civil War.***
*** By the way, Gettysburg was not the only major battle to conclude at that time. The Battle of Vicksburg, a pivotal town on the Mississippi River in Mississippi, ended on July 4th, 1863. This federal victory all but ensured federal control of the Mississippi River and split the confederacy in two.