Three divisions, containing nine brigades and numbering about nine thousand and seven hundred officers and men, were selected for the assaulting column. The field over which they were ordered to march slowly and deliberately, was about one thousand yards wide, and was swept by the fire of one hundred cannon and twenty thousand muskets. The smoke from the preceding cannonade, which rested upon the field, was their only cover. In view of the fact, that when the order to go forward was given, Cemetery Ridge was not defended by Indians or Mexicans, but by an army, which for the greater part, was composed of native Americans, an army, which if it had never done so before, had shown in the first and second day’s battles, not only that it could fight, but could fight desperately. In view of this fact, whether the order to go forward was a wise thing or a frightful blunder, I do not propose to discuss. The purpose of this paper will be to compare and contrast the courage, endurance and soldierly qualities of the different brigades engaged in this assault, dwelling especially upon the conduct of the troops commanded respectively by Generals Pickett and Pettigrew.
If certain leading facts are repeated at the risk of monotony, it will be for the purpose of impressing them upon the memories of youthful readers of history. As a sample, but rather an extreme one, of the thousand and one foolish things which have been written of this affair, I will state that a magazine for children, “St. Nicholas,” I think it was, some time ago contained a description of this assault, in which a comparison was drawn between the troops engaged, and language something like the following was used: “Those on the left faltered and fled. The right behaved gloriously. Each body acted according to its nature, for they were made of different stuff. The one of common earth, the other of finest clay. Pettigrew’s men were North Carolinians, Pickett’s were superb Virginians.” To those people who do not know how the trash which passes for Southern history was manufactured, the motives which actuated the writers, and how greedily at first everything written by them about the war, was read, it is not so astonishing that a libel containing so much ignorance, narrowness and prejudice as the above should have been printed in a respectable publication, as the fact, that even to this day, when official records and other data are so accessible, there are thousands of otherwise well-informed people all over the land who believe the slander to be either entirely or in part true. And it looks almost like a hopeless task to attempt to combat an error which has lived so long and flourished so extensively. But some one has said, “Truth is a Krupp gun, before which Falsehood’s armor, however thick, cannot stand. One shot may accomplish nothing, or two, or three, but keep firing it will be pierced at last, and its builders and defenders will be covered with confusion.” This little essay shall be my one shot, and may Justice defend the right.
In the great war the soldiers from New York and North Carolina filled more graves than those from any of the other States. In the one case fourteen and in the other thirty-six per cent. of them died in supporting a cause which each side believed to be just.
Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia each had about the same number of infantry at Gettysburg, in all twenty-four brigades of the thirty-seven present. Now, this battle is not generally considered a North Carolina fight as is Chancellorsville, but even here the soldiers of the old North State met with a greater loss (killed and wounded, remember, for North Carolina troops never attempted to rival certain Virginia brigades in the number of men captured), than did those from any other State, and, leaving out Georgians, greater than did those from any two States. Though the military population of North Carolina was exceeded by that of Virginia and Tennessee, she had during the war more men killed upon the battlefield than both of them together. This is a matter of record. It may be that she was a little deliberate in making up her mind to go to war, but when once she went in she went in to stay. At the close of the terrible struggle in which so much of her best blood had been shed, her soldiers surrendered at Appomattox and Greensboro more muskets than did those from any other State in the Confederacy. Why troops with this record should not now stand as high everywhere as they did years ago in Lee’s and Johnston’s armies, may appear a problem hard to solve, but its solution is the simplest thing in the world, and I will presently give it.
The crack brigades of General Lee’s army were noted for their close fighting. When they entered a battle they went in to kill, and they knew that many of the enemy could not be killed at long range. This style of fighting was dangerous, and of course the necessary consequence in the shape of a casualty list, large either in numbers or per centage, followed. Then there were some troops in the army who would on all occasions blaze away and waste ammunition, satisfied if only they were making a noise. Had they belonged to the army of that Mexican general who styled himself the “Napoleon of the West,” they would not have been selected for his “Old Guard,” but yet, without exception, they stood high in the estimation of the Richmond people, much higher indeed than very many of the best troops in our army.
As said above, Longstreet’s assault is almost invariably spoken and written of as “Pickett’s charge.” This name and all the name implies, is what I shall protest against in this article. At the battle of Thermopylæ three hundred Spartans and seven hundred Thespians sacrificed their lives for the good of Greece. Every one has praised Leonidas and his Spartans. How many have ever so much as heard of the equally brave Thespians? I do not know of a case other than this of the Thespians, where a gallant body of soldiers has been treated so cruelly by history, as the division which fought the first day under Heth and the third under Pettigrew. I have no personal concern in the fame of these troops, as I belonged to and fought in another division; but in two of its brigades I had intimate friends who were killed in this battle, and on their account I would like to see justice done. Among these friends were Captain Tom Holliday, A. A. G., of Davis’ Brigade, and Harry Burgwyn, Colonel of the 26th North Carolina. (This regiment had more men killed and wounded in this battle than any one of the seven hundred Confederate or the two thousand Federal ever had in any battle. Official records show this.) And then, too, I know of no reason why truth, honesty and fair dealing should not be as much prized in historical as in business matters.
As the battle of Gettysburg was the most sanguinary of the war, as by many it is considered “the turning of the tide,” so the final charge made preceded and attended as it was by peculiarly dramatic circumstances, has furnished a subject for more speeches, historical essays, paintings and poems than any event which ever occurred in America. Painters and poets, whose subjects are historical, of course look to history for their authority. If history is false, falsehood will soon become intrenched in poetry and art.
The world at large gets its ideas of the late war from Northern sources. Northern historians, when the subject is peculiarly Southern, from such histories as Pollard’s, Cook’s and McCabe’s, and these merely reflected the opinions of the Richmond newspapers. These newspapers in turn got their supposed facts from their army correspondents, and they were very careful to have only such correspondents as would write what their patrons cared most to read.
During the late war, Richmond, judged by its newspapers, was the most provincial town in the world. Though the capital city of a gallant young nation, and though the troops from every State thereof were shedding their blood in her defence, she was wonderfully narrow and selfish. While the citizens of Virginia were filling nearly one-half of the positions of honor and trust, civil and military, Richmond thought that all should be thus filled. With rare exceptions, no soldier, no sailor, no jurist, no statesman, who did not hail from their State was ever admired or spoken well of. No army but General Lee’s and no troops in that army other than Virginians, unless they happened to be few in numbers, as was the case of the Louisianians and Texans, were ever praised. A skirmish in which a Virginian regiment or brigade was engaged was magnified into a fight, an action in which a few were killed was a severe battle, and if by chance they were called upon to bleed freely, then, according to the Richmond papers, troops from some other State were to blame for it, and no such appalling slaughter had ever been witnessed in the world’s history.
Indiscriminate praise had a very demoralizing effect upon many of their troops. They were soon taught that they could save their skins and make a reputation, too, by being always provided with an able corps of correspondents. If they behaved well it was all right; if they did not it was equally all right, for their short-comings could be put upon other troops. The favoritism displayed by several superior officers in General Lee’s army was unbounded, and the wonder is that this army should have continued to the end in so high a state of efficiency. But then as the slaps and bangs of a harsh step-mother may have a less injurious effect upon the characters of some children than the excessive indulgence of a silly parent, so the morale of those troops, who were naturally steady and true, was less impaired by their being always pushed to the front when danger threatened, than if they had always been sheltered or held in reserve.