At the "supreme moment," I was quietly picking blackberries in an old field where the reserve artillery had been parked.
When the tremendous firing began and the reserve artillery were ordered down, I stopped my blackberrying, out of season, and went down to the front to see what the fuss was all about.
Pickett's charge has been done—and over-done—so very thoroughly by both sides, that I shall not even attempt to add a word to the mass of stuff that has already been printed about it.
There is, however, a little story about a charge of Pennsylvanians in the Virginia "burg," led by the glorious but unobtrusive Meade, that the old Army of the Potomac should not themselves forget, nor allow their old-time enemies to obliterate, or snow under. I refer to the charge of Meade on the left at Fredericksburg, December 11th, 1862, where, with fewer numbers, he accomplished greater results than Pickett against greater odds:
With the Rappahannock River in the rear, Meade led his Division over a mile of plain under a heavy artillery fire, and broke the celebrated Stonewall Jackson line, and penetrated 600 yards beyond their line. If he had been sustained, the slaughter at Marye's Heights would have been avoided.
It was also at Marye's Heights, where greater heroism was shown, where not one grand attempt was made, but where charge after charge was made against an absolutely impregnable position, yet one never hears of these charges.
The gallant Allabach, the veteran of two wars, led the last final onslaught on Marye's Heights, at the head of a small brigade of Pennsylvania troops of Humphrey's Division that had never before been under fire, and this handful comparatively, went into the very jaws of death, and, though they did not reach the stone wall, they got nearest to it and kept their ground, within a few rods of it till dark, when they were ordered to fall back.
No prisoners were taken at Fredericksburg as there were at Gettysburg.
The snake, Secession, had its back-bone broken at Gettysburg to be sure, but boys of the dear old Army of the Potomac—patient, noble, long-suffering old Army of the Potomac—remember the early, the dark days, when Meade, Hancock, Reynold, Warren, Humphreys, etc., were our immediate commanders; do not forget the old Army of the Potomac and its numerous general officers when the proper praises are so freely being given to its later chiefs.
Though the final charge of Pickett, preceded and attended as it was by peculiarly dramatic surroundings, has furnished a subject for more speeches, historical essays, paintings, poems, than any other event which ever occurred in America, yet, in point of fact, history is wrong in ascribing the credit to Pickett.