Third Day, July 3
Despite objections from his trusted General, James Longstreet, Lee spent the morning massing 15,000 men under General George Pickett for a charge on the Union center along Cemetery Ridge.
Despite objections from his trusted General, James Longstreet, Lee spent the morning massing 15,000 men under General George Pickett for a charge on the Union center along Cemetery Ridge.
Pickett's charge would begin after a massive artillery attack involving 142 Confederate cannons. 103 Union cannons responded. People felt the ground shake 30 miles away.
"As we lay flat on our faces they would strike the ground in front of us and, bounding over our heads, would go on their way growling in an anger too terrible for conception. Again they would explode in our front and the angry missiles would come down with a sound unpleasant to the ears. Each fell with a proximity that within hours of less excitement would cause the bravest to think of the uncertainty of human life. |
"Caisson after caisson blowed up, and still the Rebels' fire was fierce and rapid as ever. I kept thinking surely they cannot fire much longer, their guns will get so hot they will have to stop, and they cannot afford, so far from their base, to waste so much ammunition. It was awfully hot where we lay with the sun shining down on us and we so close to the ground that not a breath of air could reach us." |
As Pickett's men advanced, Union artillery opened up on them with bloody effectiveness. Despite heavy casualties the rebels closed their lines and continued on. What remained of those 15,000 men smashed into the Union line breaking through at one point. The Minnesotans and the rest of the first brigade shifted on the run to meet the crisis. They met the rebels in hand to hand combat. Many Confederates threw down their weapons and surrendered, others ran back towards Seminary ridge. The Battle of Gettysburg was over.
"Copses strewed the ground at every step. Arms, legs, heads, and parts of dismembered bodies were scattered all about, and sticking among the rocks, and against trunks of trees, hair, brains, entrails, and shreds of human flesh still hung, a disgusting, sickening, heartrending spectacle to our young minds. One man has as many as twenty canister or case shots through different parts of his body, though none through a vital organ, and he was still gasping and twitching with a slight motion of the muscles, and vibrations of the pulse, though utterly unconscious of approaching death."
- unknown Federal private, Fifth Corps