Pickett's Charge: A Modern Pictorial
the field.
It wasn't long after that the Confederate withdrawal evolved from a scattered retreat to a rout of hundreds of men at a time. It didn't take long for nurses to begin the terrible task of tending to the wounded, determining who they could save and who they couldn't. But they tried to comfort as many as they could. The Confederate assault was an abysmal failure. It took only forty minutes for over 6,000 Confederate troops to fall. And as the weary Rebels were making their way back to Seminary Ridge, General Lee himself rode out to meet them, saying it was his fault, that he was entirely to blame for this massacre.
So came an end to the Confederate assault at Gettysburg. This Union victory over Lee's army, coupled with the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, turned the tide of the War. Though Lee and his men would fight on for nearly two more years, he and his troops never truly recovered from the bloodbath that was Gettysburg. And General Pickett, the man for whom this assault is named, never forgave Lee for the destruction of his brigade.
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Sources and Suggested Readings
Boritt, Gabor S. (ed.). (1997). The Gettysburg Nobody Knows. New York: Oxford University Press.
Champ, Clark. (1985). Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books.
Coddington, Edwin B. (1963). The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Foote, Shelby. (1994). Stars In Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign. New York: The Modern Library.
Haskell, Lt. Frank A. and Oates, Col. William C. (1992). Gettysburg. New York: Bantam.
Reardon, Carol. (1997). Pickett's Charge in History and in Memory. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
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A special thanks goes out to Dr. Judith Zaenglein, one of my professors at Penn State, for taking time out of her busy schedule to scan these photos for me. Dr. Z., I hope you enjoy the end product.