union won the battle of pickett's charge.
union won the battle of pickett's charge.
who won the battle of pickett's charge?
union
pickett's division arrived at the battle of gettysburg on the evening of the second day, july 2, 1863. it was reduced to 3 brigades present, corse's still being detached in virginia and jenkins' transferred. it had been delayed by the assignment of guarding the confederate lines of communication through chambersburg, pennsylvania. after two days of heavy fighting, general robert e. lee's army of northern virginia, which had initially driven the union army of the potomac to the high ground south of gettysburg, had been unable to dislodge the union soldiers from their position. lee's plan for july 3 called for a massive assault on the center of the union lines on cemetery ridge, calculating that meade had concentrated his forces to protect his flanks while leaving his center weak. lee directed general longstreet to assemble a force of three divisions for the attack—two divisions from the corps of lieutenant general a. p. hill, under the temporary command of j. johnston pettigrew and major general isaac r. trimble, which had both seen action on july 1, and pickett's fresh division from longstreet's own corps. the center was occupied by the union ii corps, commanded by major general winfield scott hancock. longstreet was technically in command, not pickett. nevertheless, the attack became known as "pickett's charge". in addition, much of the mythology of the charge arose from newspaper reports. as pickett was the only major general from virginia to participate in the charge, the virginia newspapers both played up their native son's role and made the assault a more "glamorous" event.
george pickett
virginian newspapers praised pickett's virginia division as making the most progress during the charge, and the papers used pickett's comparative success as a means of criticizing the actions of the other states' troops during the charge. it was this publicity that played a significant factor in selecting the name pickett's charge. pickett's military career was never the same after the charge, and he was displeased about having his name attached to the repulsed charge. in particular north carolinians have long taken exception to the characterizations and point to the poor performance of brockenbrough's virginians in the advance as a major causative factor of failure. some historians have questioned the primacy of pickett's role in the battle. w. r. bond wrote in 1888, "no body of troops during the last war made as much reputation on so little fighting."
pickett's charge