One hundred and sixty years ago, this was the most dangerous place on earth. This is Seminary Ridge, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
From this spot, General Robert E. Lee launched a massive attack on Union forces. After two days of intense fighting, this assault would decide the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Final Battle
Confederate cannon pounded the Union position on Cemetery Ridge. In the woods just behind the artillery, 13,000 men prepared a massive infantry assault.
“Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia!”
Major General George E. Pickett
At about 2pm, the rebels emerged from the woods. They faced a one mile march across open ground in order to reach the Union line.
I wonder what was in these men’s minds at this moment.
Most were little more than boys. Many had probably never left their hometowns.
This may have been their one experience of the outside world.
“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863…”
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
Pickett’s Charge
The march began, to the tune of fife and drums.
Then, the Union cannons roared. These young boys were cut apart — and still they marched.
The Confederate artillery had mostly failed to soften up the Union defenses. Many of the cannonballs had overshot Union lines.
As the Confederates got closer, cannonballs were replaced by canister fire. This devastating ammunition was composed of a canister filled with metal balls.
It effectively turned a cannon into a massive shotgun. Metal balls skipped off the ground, ripping apart the soldiers’ bodies.
The Union Triumph
Brigadier General Lewis Armistead was one of the few Confederates to survive this barrage and make it through the Union lines. Just as he crossed the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge, Armistead was mortally wounded.
He fell just passed the Union lines.
This spot marks the high-water mark of the Confederacy. No rebel troops ever advanced further north.
The Confederates took nearly 7,000 casualties in less than an hour — nearly 2 every second. Pickett’s Charge marked the turning point of the Battle of Gettysburg, and ultimately of the entire war.
Seminary Ridge Today
As I looked out from Seminary Ridge this past Sunday, I was struck by how futile this assault was. Indeed, one of Lee’s generals, James Longstreet, opposed the charge.
Troops were standing in the middle of a field with artillery fire raining down on them. What chance did they have of success?
We are used to viewing the Confederates as devils and the Union troops as saints. But for a young boy born in Virginia, what choice was there?
Many of the Southern troops were drafted. Most were poor.
They had no say in where they went or what they fought for. Their position wasn’t so different than that of the slaves whose freedom was at stake.
Walking this bloodsoaked ground exactly 160 years and 2 months later, I was grateful for the peace we now have. People from all over the country, and indeed the world, can come here in peace and learn about the past.
Today, Seminary Ridge is quiet. The field ahead is full of crops, as it has been for centuries.
Today, we live in a better world.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato
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