On the morning of July 3, members of the 16th regiment were stationed as pickets forward of Cemetery Hill. In the afternoon, after a two-hour artillery duel, Confederate General Robert E. Lee launched what has become known Pickett's Charge. The Vermont pickets were withdrawn, and as the Confederates approached Cemetery Hill, the three Vermont regiments flanked the Confederate troops first flanking Pickett's division by wheeling two units to the right and then doing the same to two detached Confederate brigades by wheeling two regiments to the left.[http://www.civilwarhome.com/stannardgettysburgor.htm] Stannard's brigade inflicted severe casualties on the advancing Confederate regiments and forcing some of Pickett's men to redeploy covering their right flank. History recalls this battle as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. Three years later, at St. Albans, Vermont, General George G. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, said "there was no individual body of men who rendered greater service at a critical moment than the comparatively raw troops commanded by General Stannard."