Pickett or Pettigrew? An Historical Essay

by W. R. Bond

SAFE SURRENDER OR DANGEROUS RETREAT?

Leaving out Lane’s brigade, which lay far over to the left in the Emmittsburg road, our line, which was so imposing at the beginning of the assault, covered the front of only two Federal brigades at its close. Into the interval between Lane’s and Pettigrew’s troops New Yorkers were sent, who attacked the left of the latter’s own brigade. About the same time Vermonters moved up and fired several volleys into Pickett’s right. Which body of these flankers first made their attack has been a subject of some dispute, but it is a matter of no importance. Neither attack was made before Armistead was wounded. But there is a matter of very great importance, and that is to correctly decide which of the two contrary lines of action taken that day is the more honorable and soldier-like. Here were troops lying out in the open field, all of them knowing that they had met with a frightful defeat. Those on the left, seeing a move on the part of the enemy to effect their capture, thought it a duty they owed themselves, their army and their country to risk their lives in an effort to escape. Acting upon this thought they went to the rear with a rush, helter skelter, devil take the hindmost, and the most of them did escape. Those on the right when ordered to surrender did so almost to a man. The North Carolinians, Alabamians and Tennesseeans upon the field felt that to surrender when there was a reasonable hope of escape was very little better than desertion. If the opinions of the Virginians were not quite as extreme as this, they certainly would have been surprised at that time had they been told that their conduct was heroic. Since then maudlin sentimentalists have so often informed them it was that now they believe it. The time may come when history will call their surrender by its right name.

STRAGGLERS.

The late Gen. James Dearing, of Virginia, at the time of the battle an artillery major, witnessed the assault, and shortly afterwards, giving a description of it to a friend of the writer, mentioned a circumstance which partly accounts for the fact that all of Pickett’s troops were not captured. It was that from the very start individuals began to drop out of ranks, and that the number of these stragglers continued to increase as the line advanced, and that before a shot had ever been fired at them it amounted to many hundreds. This conduct on the part of so many must be taken into consideration in accounting for the shortness of our line at the close of the assault; also that the troops both to the right and left dressing upon Archer’s brigade there was in consequence much crowding towards the centre. By adding to these causes the deaths and wounds the explanation of a condition which has puzzled many writers is readily seen.

“THE POST OF DEATH AND HONOR.”

General Longstreet is supposed to have always thought that after the second of Pettigrew’s brigades gave way there were none of Hill’s troops left upon the field. This General, while honest, was so largely imaginative that his statement of facts is rarely worthy of credence. He says that “Pickett gave the word to retreat.” There are very many old soldiers, many even in Richmond, who do not believe that Pickett was there to give that word. That in the beautiful language of a recent writer, “He may have been trying to reach the post of death and honor, but he was far away, and valor could not annihilate space.”

JUDGING OTHERS BY OURSELVES.

Gen. Longstreet is reported recently to have said at Gettysburg that if Gen. Meade had advanced his whole line on July 4th he would have carried everything before him. It is hardly fair for Gen. Longstreet to do so, but he is evidently judging the army by his troops, some of whom are said to have been so nervous and shaky after this battle that the crack of a teamster’s whip would startle them. He is mistaken, for it must be remembered that the enemy was about as badly battered as we were, and that the troops composing Ewell’s and Hill’s corps had beaten this enemy only two months before when it was on the defensive. Now we would have been on the defensive; is it probable that we would have been beaten?

PETTIGREW’S BRIGADE.

This brigade was composed of the 11th, 26th, 47th, 52nd and 44th North Carolina. When the army went on the Gettysburg campaign the last named regiment was left in Virginia. That this brigade had more men killed and wounded at Gettysburg than any brigade in our army ever had in any battle is not so much to its credit as is the fact that after such appalling losses it was one of the two brigades selected for the rear guard when the army re-crossed the river. At Gettysburg Capt. Tuttle’s company of the 26th regiment went into the battle with three officers and eighty-four men. All the officers and eighty-three of the men were killed or wounded. In the same battle company C. of the 11th regiment, had two officers killed (First Lieut. Tom Cooper, a University boy, was one of them) and thirty-four out of the thirty-eight men killed or wounded. Capt. Bird with the four remaining men participated in the assault of the third day, and of them the flag bearer was shot and the captain brought out the colors himself. He was made major, and was afterwards killed at Reams Station. Bertie county should raise a monument to his memory. In the assault Col. Marshall, of the 52nd, commanded this brigade ’till he was killed. At the close of the battle Maj. Jones, of the 26th, was the only field officer who had not been struck, and he was subsequently killed at the Wilderness.