Pickett or Pettigrew? An Historical Essay

by W. R. Bond

Let us allow the Colonel to continue: “From the time the charge began up to this moment, not a shot had been fired at us nor had we been able to see, because of the density of the smoke, which hung over the battlefield like a pall, that there was an enemy in front of us. The smoke now lifted from our front and there, right before us, scarcely two hundred yards away, stood Cemetery Heights in awful grandeur. At their base was a double line of Federal infantry and several pieces of artillery, posted behind stone walls, and to the right and left of them both artillery and infantry supports were hurriedly coming up. The situation was indeed appalling, though it did not seem to appall. The idea of retreat did not seem to occur to any one. Having obtained a view of the enemy’s position, the men now advanced at the double quick, and for the first time since the charge began they gave utterance to the famous Confederate yell.” So it seems that all that has been spoken and written about their having marched one thousand yards under the fire of one hundred cannon and twenty thousand muskets, is the veriest bosh and nonsense. They marched eight hundred yards as safely as if on parade. When the smoke lifted they charged for two hundred yards towards the breastworks; the left only reached it—the right never did, but lay down in the field and there and then fifteen hundred of them “threw down their muskets for the war.” Colonel Wood continues: “The batteries to the right and left of Cemetery Heights now began to rain grapeshot and canister upon us, and the enemy’s infantry at the base of the Heights, poured volley after volley into our ranks. The carnage was indeed terrible; but still the division, staggering and bleeding, pushed on towards the Heights they had been ordered to take. Of course such terrible slaughter could not last long. The brave little division did not number men enough to make material for prolonged slaughter.”

The carnage was for them indeed terrible, and their subsequent behaviour up to their defeat and rout at Five Forks, showed that they never forgot it. Let us see what was this horrible carnage. The fifteen regiments, according to General Longstreet, carried into the charge, of officers and men, forty-nine hundred. It is more probable that the number was fifty-five hundred. If they had the former number their per centage of killed and wounded was nearly twenty-eight, if the latter, not quite twenty-five. On the first day the North Carolina brigade lost thirty and on the third sixty per cent. The “brave, the magnificent,” when they had experienced a loss of fifteen killed to the regiment, became sick of fighting, as the number surrendered shows. One regiment of the “cowards,” the 42d Mississippi, only after it had met with a loss of sixty killed and a proportionate number of wounded, concluded that it was about time to rejoin their friends. Another regiment of the “cowards,” the 26th North Carolina, only after it had had more men killed and wounded than any one of the two thousand seven hundred Federal and Confederate regiments ever had, came to the same conclusion. The five North Carolina regiments of this division had five more men killed than Pickett’s fifteen.

To continue: “In a few brief moments more the left of Armistead’s brigade, led by himself on foot, had passed beyond the stone wall, and were among the guns of the enemy, posted in rear of it. General Garnet had before then been instantly killed, and General Kemper had been severely wounded. The survivors of their brigades had become amalgamated with Armistead’s.” How can any one see any organization to boast of here? “Our line of battle was not parallel to the Heights, and the left of the diminished line reached the Heights first. The right of the line never reached them. The men of the right, however, were near enough to see General Armistead shot down near a captured gun as he was waving his sword above his head, and they could see men surrendering themselves as prisoners. Just then a detachment of Federal infantry came out flanking our right, and shouted to us to surrender. There was nothing else to do, except to take the chance, which was an extremely good one, of being killed on the retreat back over the hill. But a few, myself among the number, rightly concluded that the enemy was weary of carnage, determined to run the risk of getting back to the Confederate lines. Our retreat was made singly, and I at least was not fired upon.” If the division had equalled Col. Wood in gallantry, it would not have surrendered more sound men than it had lost in killed and wounded, as by taking some risk the most of those captured might have escaped as he did. The Colonel concludes: “When the retreat commenced on the night of the 4th of July, the nearly three hundred men who had been confined in the various brigade guard houses were released from confinement, and they and their guard permitted to return to duty in the ranks, and many detailed men were treated in the same way. On the morning of the 5th of July, the report of the division showed not quite eleven hundred present. Eleven hundred from forty-five hundred leaves thirty-four hundred, and that was the number of casualties suffered by Pickett’s little division at Gettysburg.” I have known individuals who took pride in poverty and disease. The surrender of soldiers in battle was often unavoidable; but I have never known a body of troops other than Pickett’s, who prided themselves upon that misfortune. General Pemberton or Marshal Bazaine may have done so. If they did, their countrymen did not agree with them, and it is well for the fame of General Lee and his army that the belief that the road to honor lay in that direction, was not very prevalent. Pickett’s division has been compared to a “lance-head of steel,” which pierced the centre of the Federal army. To be in accord with the comparison, it was always represented as being smaller than it really was.

Colonel Wood, at the conclusion of his article, puts its strength at 4,500 officers and men, at the beginning at 4,500 “men.” This last would agree with General Longstreet’s estimate of 4,900 effectives. Knowing as I do the average per brigade of Jackson’s Veterans—one-half of the army—and that they had been accustomed to fight two days for every one day fought by Longstreet’s men, I think it probable that Pickett’s brigade must have averaged nearly, if not quite, two thousand.

But I will place the strength of the division at fifty-five hundred. I have heard that fifteen hundred were surrendered. Official records say that thirteen hundred and sixty-four were killed and wounded.

According to Colonel Wood, leaving out the three hundred guard-house men, eight hundred appeared for duty on the morning of the 5th. These three numbers together make thirty-six hundred and sixty-four, which taken from fifty-five hundred leaves eighteen hundred and thirty-six, and this was the number of men which the “brave little division” had to run away. They ran and ran and kept running ’till the high waters in the Potomac stopped them. As they ran they shouted “that they were all dead men, that Pettigrew had failed to support them, and that their noble division had been swept away.” The outcry they made was soon heard all over Virginia, and its echo is still heard in the North.

After our army had re-crossed the river and had assembled at Bunker Hill, the report that Pickett’s division of “dead men” had drawn more rations than any division in the army, excited a good deal of good-natured laughter. Among the officers of our army, to whom the casualty lists were familiar, the question was often discussed, why it was that some of Pettigrew’s brigades, marching over the same ground at the same time, should have suffered so much more than General Pickett’s? This question was never satisfactorily answered ’till after the war. The mystery was then explained by the Federal General Doubleday, who made the statement that “all the artillery supporting Webb’s brigade (which being on the right of Gibbons’ division, held the projecting wall) excepting one piece, was destroyed, and nearly all of the artillerymen either killed or wounded by the cannonade which preceded the assault.”

Of course there were exceptions, but the general rule was that those troops who suffered the most themselves inflicted the greatest loss on the enemy and were consequently the most efficient. Colonel Fox says: “The history of a battle or war should be studied in connection with the figures which show the losses. By overlooking them, an indefinite and often erroneous idea is obtained. By overlooking them many historians fail to develop the important points of the contest; they use the same rhetorical descriptions for different attacks, whether the pressure was strong or weak, the loss great or small, the fight bloody or harmless.” As it was the custom in some commands to report every scratch as a wound, and in others to report no man as wounded who was fit for duty, the most accurate test for courage and efficiency is the number of killed. In the eight brigades and three regiments from Virginia in this battle, three hundred and seventy-five were killed, and nineteen hundred and seventy-one wounded. That is for every one killed five and twenty-five hundredths were reported wounded. In the seven brigades and three regiments from North Carolina, six hundred and ninety-six were killed and three thousand and fifty-four wounded. That is for every man killed only four and forty hundredths appeared on the list as wounded.

If it be a fact that from Gettysburg to the close of the war, among the dead upon the various battlefields comparatively few representatives from the Virginian infantry were to be found, it is not always necessarily to their discredit. For instance, even at Gettysburg two such brigades as Mahone’s and Smyth’s had respectively only seven and fourteen men killed. It was not for them to say whether they were to advance or be held back. Their duty was to obey orders. In the same battle two of Rodes’ North Carolina brigades—Daniel’s and Iverson’s—had between them two hundred and forty-six men buried upon the field. Here we see that the eight regiments and one battalion, which formed these two North Carolina commands, had twenty-two more men killed than Pickett’s fifteen. And yet Virginia history does not know that they were even present at this battle.

Now, for a brief recapitulation. The left of Garnett’s and Armistead’s brigades, all of Archer’s and Scales’ (but that all means very few, neither of them at the start being larger than a full regiment) a few of the 37th and the right of Pettigrew’s own brigade took possession of the works, which the enemy had abandoned on their approach. Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s left and Pickett’s right lay out in the field on each flank of the projecting work and in front of the receding wall, and from forty to fifty yards from it. There they remained for a few minutes, ’till a fresh line of the enemy, which had been lying beyond the crest of the ridge, approached. Then being attacked on both flanks, and knowing how disorganized they were, our men made no fight, but either retreated or surrendered. Archer’s, Scales’ and Pettigrew’s own brigade went as far and stayed as long or longer than any of Pickett’s. Davis’ brigade, while charging impetuously ahead of the line was driven back, when it had reached a point about one hundred yards from the enemy. Lane’s, the left brigade, remained a few moments longer than any of the other troops and retired in better order.