"Pickett's Charge: To walk It"
©St. Louis Post-Dispatch - December 16, 2001
Wayne E. Motts estimates that in 13 years as a licensed battlefield guide at
Gettysburg, he has walked Pickett's Charge more than a thousand times. He
says he's walked it with George Pickett V and other descendants of
Confederate generals who fought there.
"The only way to truly understand Pickett's Charge is to walk it," he says.
Last month, it was our turn. With Motts as our company commander, 20 members of a HistoryAmerica Tours group adopted the identities of 20 members of Company F, 53rd Virginia Infantry Regiment, part of Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead's brigade.
Retracing the march of Pickett's Charge is one of the most popular things
that visitors do at Gettysburg National Military Park. It involves a walk of
about a mile across an open field, from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge,
the path marched by some 12,000 Confederate soldiers on July 3, the third
day of the battle.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's plan was to assault what he believed to be
the Union's weak point -- the center of its line at Cemetery Ridge. The
attack was led by a division commander, Maj. Gen. George Pickett.
The charge was a catastrophic failure, as the South suffered roughly 50
percent casualties in a barrage of artillery and rifle fire from 6,000 Union
soldiers. All 15 of the regimental commanders in Pickett's division were
killed or wounded.
Armistead was the only general to advance inside the Union line, but it was
a hollow victory. Carrying his hat atop an upraised sword as he led his men,
Armistead was mortally wounded.
The 53rd Virginia was able to plant its flag inside the Union line -- at a
huge price. Each time the regiment's color bearer was killed or wounded
during the charge, a new man would assume the duty. Hutchings Carter was the
11th man to carry the flag, and it was he who planted it on Cemetery Ridge.
"But when he turned around," Motts says, "he was all by himself."
For our march, Motts had us form into two lines on Seminary Ridge, having
given each of us an index card bearing the name of a member of Company F.
Motts had three primary goals: to show us the kind of terrain that lay
between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge; to convince us that Lee's plan
wasn't the hare-brained scheme that it appears to be on its face; and to
give us a feel for the courage it took for the Confederate soldiers to
follow their leaders into the killing field at Cemetery Hill.
From a distance, the open field appears to be flat, but we discovered that
there are dips and ripples, with swales large enough that troops could
advance in some spots without being seen from the Union line. Unfortunately
for the Confederates, a two-hour artillery barrage that they had unleashed
toward Cemetery Ridge had failed to do sufficient damage.
"Pickett's Charge failed because artillery didn't accomplish what Lee had
envisioned it would do," Motts said.
Instead, the soldiers and artillery along the Union line were relatively
intact and braced for the charge.
When we had advanced to a rise almost halfway across the field, we could
easily be seen from the entire Union center.
"When you're standing here, the artillery is going to hit you like a blast
of hot air," Motts said. "The rest of the way, you'll be under artillery
fire from Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge."
When we reached Emmitsburg Road, we were about 200 yards from the stone wall
that protected Union troops on Cemetery Ridge. From there, it was up a slope
for the Confederates, making a bayonet charge into an incredible barrage of
bullets and cannon fire.
Pickett's Charge lasted less than an hour, and when it was over, so was the
Battle of Gettysburg, for all intents and purposes. The charge went down in
history as Lee's biggest mistake of the war.
Before his death in 1870, Lee was invited to return to Gettysburg but
declined, Motts said. Over the years, other survivors of the charge were
invited to come back and walk across the field again, but some did not.
"Some could not emotionally bring themselves to come back here," Motts said.
"Soldiers who marched here were emotionally scarred for life."
Pickett survived the charge but never forgave Lee. Pickett sold insurance
after the war and is said to have remarked once to Confederate cavalry
officer John S. Mosby, "That old man destroyed my division."
Mosby replied, "Yes, but it made you immortal, didn't it?"
Battlefield guide Wayne E. Motts is the author of the only published
biography of Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, titled "Trust in God and
Fear Nothing."
Desoto Joe/The Record Man
MacLinks would like to take this opportunity to thank the St Louis Post-Dispatch and their staff for the preceding story. Their web site is located at: http://home.post-dispatch.com/
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