STOP 8. CEMETERY RIDGE (THE ANGLE).
On the afternoon of July 2, General Lee had tried to turn the left flank of the Union line at Little Round Top and the Peach Orchard, and the right flank at Culp’s Hill and Spangler’s Spring. Meeting with only partial success in these attempts, he then planned to strike the center. First he massed his artillery on Seminary Ridge and across the fields. Many batteries were hardly more than 800 yards west of here. Beginning at 1 o’clock they engaged in an artillery duel of nearly 2 hours with the powerful Union batteries on this ridge. Then 15,000 men, in a battle line a mile in length, and spearheaded by Pickett’s division, started from the Confederate lines across the open fields, with the Copse of Trees as their guide. When they reached the Emmitsburg Road 300 yards away, the men charged. Canister from Union artillery and concentrated infantry fire from the Union men at the stone walls soon cut wide gaps in the Confederate line. They reached the wall, and a small band of men crossed, but the tide had turned. In Lee’s final great effort, he had lost nearly 10,000 of his men. The remnants gave way and soon were in full retreat to the Confederate lines. The counterattack, which Lee feared, never developed.
The Copse of Trees is at your left, surrounded by the iron fence. The position of Cushing’s battery of United States artillery, which held the position at The Angle, is marked by four guns. The statue of General Meade stands to the right and rear.