Published: Fall 2001

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Copyright (c) 2001 by the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.




Chapter 1
The Last Attack at Gettysburg

Lt. Frank A. Haskell first became aware that Friday, July 3, had arrived when he felt someone pulling on his foot. It was four o'clock in the morning, nearly a half-hour before the sun would rise, and Haskell had managed to get four hours of sleep. If the sky had not been so cloudy, he could have looked up and seen the moon hovering above the sleeping army. The first sound Haskell detected in the dark was the popping of skirmish fire, off to the right front of the Second Corps line. After two days of terrific fighting at Gettysburg, the generals were still not satisfied. Another day of bloodshed was needed to decide a winner and perhaps to settle the fate of the nation.

The man tugging at Haskell's boot was Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, commander of the Second Division of the Second Corps. The two had fallen asleep in the Bryan peach orchard atop Cemetery Ridge, just behind the division line. Haskell found a cup of hot coffee and hastily drank it while getting ready to mount his horse and ride with Gibbon to discover the progress of the skirmishing. The general and his staff officer rode slowly, for neither of them were fully awake. Haskell noticed that most of the division was still asleep on the ridge, even though the skirmishers were only a few hundred yards away. As he looked to the left front, over the battlefield of July 2, he saw wounded horses limping through the growing light of dawn. The "ravages of the conflict were still fearfully visible," Haskell wrote a few months later, "the scattered arms and the ground thickly dotted with the dead."

There was little to fear from the skirmishers; they were simply firing in place rather than pushing or giving way. The skirmish lines remained stable, and only a few men now and then felt the sting of a round. There was time for Gibbon and Haskell to loll about and observe their men waking up with the sun. Soon the normal sounds and sights of a camp coming to life could be detected. "Then ensued the hum of an army . . . chatting in low tones, and running about and jostling among each other, rolling and packing their blankets and tents," wrote Haskell. "But one could not have told by the appearance of the men, that they were in battle yesterday, and were likely to be again to-day. They packed their knapsacks, boiled their coffee, and munched their hard bread, just as usual, . . . and their talk is far more concerning their present employment,—some joke or drollery,—than concerning what they saw or did yesterday."[1]

These were veteran soldiers who knew that taking care of the inner man was the most important preparation for battle. As they readied for the day, the sun rose higher, but it was often obscured by dark clouds all morning. Old soldiers knew that it usually rained right after a major battle, and the fighting on July 1 and 2 had been among the heaviest of the war. But the moon set at 7:29 A.M., and the clouds continued to break apart. There would be no rain today.[2]

To the right front of Gibbon's division a lone regiment was waking up from its bivouac along Emmitsburg Road. The men of the 8th Ohio had been on skirmish duty since the day before. Most of the regiment had slept along the ditch that bordered the west side of the pike while their regimental comrades manned the skirmish line, which was along a rail fence farther west. The skirmishers were only about sixty yards from the Confederate skirmish line, yet the bulk of the Ohio unit had no trouble waking up with the dawn, undisturbed by the racket taking place a short distance west of their ditch. Despite the heat of this early summer, the night of July 2 had been a bit chilly. The sun warmed everyone; it "sent its rays upon unprotected faces and into blinking eyes," wrote Lt. Thomas F. Galwey. The bluecoated soldiers rose with humped shoulders and outstretched limbs, "followed by a curious peering forward to see what the enemy, beginning to stir too, might be about."

Back to the rear, along Cemetery Ridge, Galwey could hear "an angry neighing" from the battery horses. They were tired of carrying the harness "that for more than two days they had constantly worn." The men on the skirmish lines could hardly afford to protest their fate; they spent the first moments of this day quickly building small fires to heat coffee. Galwey looked about and saw "little whiffs of blue smoke" rising into the air from numerous campfires. The sporadic skirmishing that continued on various parts of the line could not prevent these "determined spirits" from restoring their strength and energy with a much-needed dose of caffeine.[3]

Much the same scene was enacted on the opposite side of the field, separated from the Yankees by less than a mile of disputed ground. Col. Edward Porter Alexander was among the first to wake up, despite having spent part of the night tending to the placement of his guns. Alexander commanded an artillery battalion in Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps and had been given temporary charge of several other battalions in the vicious battle the day before. He had visited Longstreet's bivouac at midnight to receive instructions for the morrow and learned that the attack would be renewed. He was to select an advantageous spot for the Washington Artillery, not an easy task in the darkness. Yet the moon shone brightly at that midnight hour, and Alexander surveyed the battlefield, believing he saw a place for the guns that were to reach him at dawn.

Alexander was satisfied and sought a place to sleep at 1:00 A.M. The Sherfy peach orchard was on some of the highest ground along Emmitsburg Road. It had been the scene of particularly hard fighting the evening before when Longstreet's men crushed the Union Third Corps. Now it was a mess, filled with "deep dust & blood, & filth of all kinds," recalled Alexander. The orchard was "trampled and wrecked." He found two fence rails and carefully placed them under a tree, used his saddle as a pillow, and fell asleep surrounded by human corpses and dead horses. He awoke two hours later after a "good sound & needed sleep," having slept no more than two hours the night before as well.

While Gibbon and Haskell still lay and dreamed in their own peach orchard, Alexander began to putter around in the predawn darkness. He had only a dim knowledge of the Union position, but he could see, as the sun began to peek over the horizon, what he thought was the spot where Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson's division had attacked the evening before. He assumed this spot was high ground just in front of the Federal lines and that a Rebel line of battle would appear there once the sun was fully risen. Therefore he directed the Washington Artillery to string out in a line through the Sherfy peach orchard, aiming toward that spot. Only later, when the sun was rising, did he realize his mistake. The high ground was Cemetery Ridge, and it was still held by the Yankees. Alexander scrambled to move his guns, fearing that they would be fatally enfiladed by the Union artillery as soon as the enemy gunners woke up and realized what an advantage Alexander had handed them. "It scared me awfully," he confessed, but Alexander managed to readjust the line before any harm was done.

The entire area around the orchard was "unfavorable ground for us," he reasoned. It was an open bump in the wide valley that separated Cemetery Ridge from Seminary Ridge, and the Yankees could see everything that was happening on it. "I studied the ground carefully for every gun to get the best cover that the gentle slopes, here & there, would permit," Alexander wrote, "but it was generally poor at the best & what there was was often gotten only by scattering commands to some extent." The only thing that saved him was a marked reluctance on the part of the Federals to open fire. Alexander was relieved to see that as the sun rose higher, there were only a few scattered rounds from the Union cannon. One of them wounded some gunners in the Washington Artillery, but Alexander refused to be drawn into a duel. The army had brought limited supplies of artillery ammunition, so he only allowed one or two rounds to be fired in reply, letting the Federals fire the last shot. Thus he could "beguile them into a little artillery truce. It worked excellently, & though, occasionally, during the morning, when we exhibited a particularly tempting mark we would get a few shots we got along very nicely." All of Alexander's arrangements were heartily approved by the army's artillery chief, Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, when he visited the Sherfy peach orchard later that morning.[4]

Plans and Expectations
Longstreet, too, was up before dawn to push forward a favored scheme of his, mounting a flank movement around the Union left. Anchored on Little Round Top and Big Round Top, the Federal left was secure against frontal attack but might be vulnerable to a smartly executed march around the hills. Longstreet had been reluctant to attack the left even on July 2, strongly favoring a less costly tactical plan. His men had fought magnificently in the late evening hours of the second and had come very close to seizing Little Round Top. But the casualties were exhausting, and a partial success was not enough for an invading army in enemy territory with little logistical support from home. Longstreet admitted long after the war that he did not intend for the July 2 assault to be pushed so far. He meant that he regretted so many men were lost for no decisive gain. "The position proving so strong on the 2d, I was less inclined to attack on the 3d, in fact I had no idea of attacking."

With this frame of mind, the corps leader did not even ride to Gen. Robert E. Lee's headquarters on Chambersburg Pike to consult with him on the night of July 2. Instead he sent a report of his assault and received a message from Lee that the attack should be continued the next day. He simply gave Longstreet a broad directive to resume offensive operations as soon as possible. Longstreet wanted to take the offensive but not with a frontal assault. He had dispatched scouts into the countryside to find a way for his command to sidestep the Federal left, then turn and "push it down towards his centre." This, he presumed, could be accomplished with minimal bloodshed if the turning movement was successful. With the first light of dawn, Longstreet rode out to see for himself if a way around the heights could be achieved. His scouts offered encouragement, and Longstreet began to plan how his divisions might execute the maneuver. Lee typically gave the responsibility for planning details of operations to his subordinates, so Longstreet felt there was nothing wrong with choosing a line of attack that he personally favored.

His plan came crashing to a halt when Lee rode up about 4:30 A.M., just after sunrise. He was surprised at Longstreet's proposed line of advance and ordered him to cancel it. The army leader then outlined his own thoughts on the coming offensive. He wanted the entire First Corps to strike the south end of Cemetery Ridge in a frontal assault. Two of Longstreet's divisions, Maj. Gen. John B. Hood's (commanded by Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law) and Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws's, were already in line holding the Confederate right. They had conducted the fierce attack the day before and had lost at least a third of their strength. Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett's division, not yet engaged in the battle, was on the field but not yet in position. It would serve as a support to Law and McLaws. Lee wanted to better Longstreet's chances of success by coordinating an attack on the extreme left, to be conducted by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps against the Federal right. He had anticipated an early start, hoping to see the assault begin at dawn, and was disappointed it had not yet begun. This apparently had been his thinking all along, even the night before. It represented a continuation of the general plan of attack on July 2.

Longstreet was stunned. He had assumed that the results of the previous day's action provided ample proof that frontal assaults were too costly and unlikely to produce results. He spelled out his views in clear language, arguing that "the point had been fully tested the day before, by more men, when all were fresh; that the enemy was there looking for us." If Law and McLaws were withdrawn to attack the center, the Union left would be uncovered, allowing the Federals to advance and curl around Lee's right wing. No less than 30,000 men were needed, with the support of the rest of the army, to bring a chance of success to this assault on the center; Law and McLaws and Pickett combined could muster no more than 13,000.

Instead, Longstreet suggested the army conduct a major shift to the right. Ewell should disengage from his position on the left, march laterally behind Lee's rear, and position himself so as to hold the Union left flank in place on the rocky hills. The rest of the army would move to his rear and curve around to threaten the enemy rear, march five or six miles toward Washington, D.C., and find a strong defensive position. Then the Rebels could wait for the Federals to attack, slaughter them, and have the strategic initiative in hand. Longstreet later admitted in his official report that this proposed maneuver "would have been a slow process, probably, but I think not very difficult." It was a plan that would come to assume almost mythic proportions in the decades after Gettysburg as a glittering alternative to what actually happened on July 3. Untested and therefore open to unrealistic expectations of success, this maneuver to the right became the great "might have been" of Gettysburg for those who wanted Lee to avoid the slaughter that was to come.

Longstreet hoped to tempt Lee with its possibilities. "General, I have had scouts out all night," he told the army commander, "and I find that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to the right of Meade's army and manoeuvre him into attacking us." But Lee did not take the bait. He replied, with "some impatience," that a direct assault on the center was the true course of action. Thrusting his fist toward Cemetery Ridge, he said, "The enemy is there, and I am going to strike him."

Lee based his decision on a considered opinion. He had been impressed by the results of the attack on July 2, when Ewell had hit the extreme right and Longstreet the extreme left of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's line. While Longstreet viewed these limited achievements as proof that something different should be attempted, Lee saw them as one step along the correct line of approach. The results "induced the belief that, with proper concert of action," in Lee's words, a similar movement could be successful on July 3. He believed that there had been too little coordination of effort and that the attack on the third had to be more minutely planned and closely executed. The capture of the Sherfy peach orchard especially encouraged Lee. It occupied the highest ground close to the Yankee line within Confederate reach, and artillery placed there could more readily support an infantry assault than any artillery post had done on July 2. Alexander had already come to the private conclusion that this was a false hope, but Lee grasped at every indication he could find to support his planned offensive. He counted heavily on the artillery to provide the key factor needed to bring success to this venture—artillery plus a well-coordinated tactical plan. Lee foresaw the guns softening the Union position and then moving forward to provide close support for the infantry when it attacked. He also wanted plenty of supporting troops on both sides of the assaulting column to be ready to rush in and exploit any success achieved. True to his command style, Lee did not intend to arrange this himself. He wanted Longstreet to be his right-hand man, as Stonewall Jackson had done on so many battlefields. Jackson had died less than two months earlier as a result of wounds received at Chancellorsville, and Lee was hoping Longstreet would fill his shoes.

Unlike Stonewall, Longstreet balked at the prospect of offensive action against the Yankees. Two other factors intervened to upset Lee's plan. First, the terrain on the southern part of the battlefield was dominated by Little Round Top and Big Round Top. They had almost fallen to Lee's troops the day before and were now held by Meade's Federals in strong force. They could not be easily taken, and to strike the southern end of Cemetery Ridge just north of Little Round Top would expose the attacking column to flanking artillery fire and a possible counterattack. Longstreet argued that Law and McLaws needed to remain in place, fronting this sector of the Union line to anchor the army's right wing. Lee soon agreed and allowed them to remain. He apparently had not fully appreciated the terrain difficulties on this part of the field, partly because Longstreet chose not to report in person on the results of the fighting the night before. The second factor that changed Lee's thinking came from the far left. During the long conversation with Longstreet, which had started just after 4:30 A.M., the sound of artillery fire could be heard to the north. Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson's division of Ewell's corps had attacked and captured some ground on the army's left the evening before, at Culp's Hill, which it held in close proximity to the Federal Twelfth Corps. Now, at early light, the Federals opened an artillery barrage, and a sharp fight ensued, leading Ewell's command to attack without coordinating its movements with Longstreet. Historian William Garrett Piston has suggested that Lee might have implemented his plan anyway by promptly ordering Longstreet to throw Pickett, Law, and McLaws into a frontal attack against the southern end of Cemetery Ridge. Although late, this assault might have come off in time to give Ewell support. But Pickett's division was not yet up and in line, averting any possibility that Lee's desire for a cooperative attack on both flanks might take place that day.

With his first plan now impossible, Lee devised his second plan for operations on July 3. Pickett would still be the key; his fresh division would spearhead an assault to take place much later in the day and hit the center of the Union position. Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill's Third Corps, immediately to Longstreet's left, would provide additional troops. When Longstreet asked how many men would be involved, Lee guessed 15,000. The corps commander was stunned. He had earlier suggested that twice this number was the minimum necessary. "General, I have been a soldier all my life," he remonstrated, speaking more bluntly than ever before to Lee. "I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions and armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." He felt compelled to protest what he felt would be "the sacrifice of my men." After this Lee lost all patience. Longstreet recalled that his chief was tired "of listening, and tired of talking, and nothing was left but to proceed."[5]

Longstreet would brood over the results of this early morning conference for the rest of his life. He was firmly convinced that Lee's plan would fail and cost the lives of irreplaceable men. It was to be one of the most complex and difficult attacks to organize during the entire war, involving elements of two corps, dozens of artillery units, and the thorny problem of coordinating supporting troops. The plan called for one of the most extensive artillery preparations ever to precede an infantry assault. Longstreet had never been given such a tough assignment.

Yet if anyone in the Army of Northern Virginia had the potential to organize it properly, it was Longstreet. Born in South Carolina forty-three years earlier, he had graduated from West Point in 1842. Longstreet was a consummate professional soldier, talented, self-confident, amiable, and almost destined to rise in the army. He had fought bravely in the Mexican War, was badly wounded at the battle of Chapultepec, and had served on the Texas frontier in the 1850s. The Civil War offered him incredible opportunities; he led a brigade at First Manassas that included regiments now serving in Pickett's division and was promoted to division command in October 1861. Personal tragedy intruded on his career the following winter when scarlet fever took the lives of three of his four children. Emotionally devastated, the general threw himself into the war and took solace in his military responsibilities. Longstreet led his division during the Peninsula campaign, participating in the engagement at Williamsburg and the battle of Seven Pines. He came into his own as a talented subordinate of Lee in the Seven Days, mostly by launching a crushing attack at Frayser's Farm, or Glendale, on June 30, that came close to cutting off a large part of the Army of the Potomac on its retreat to Harrison's Landing on the James River. His division of about 10,000 men advanced alongside A. P. Hill's division in a straight forward line of approach through a matted forest. There was no special artillery preparation here; his men fought their way to a hard-won but very limited tactical victory that yielded few strategic gains.

The following day, at Malvern Hill, Longstreet attempted to organize a large concentration of Rebel guns to soften the strong Union position blocking the way to Harrison's Landing, but he failed. The densely packed and well-placed Union guns pounded the Rebel artillery, denying them a chance to achieve superiority on the field. Then a series of uncoordinated and unwise infantry assaults, launched piecemeal by brigades, took place. The result was a terrible slaughter and a tactical defeat. Yet because the Federals retreated to the James, the Seven Days campaign was a major Confederate triumph.

Longstreet launched a decisive assault that tipped the scales in favor of Lee during the Second Manassas campaign, but he did it in a slow, cautious manner. While Jackson's corps had positioned itself along the unfinished railroad grade near Manassas and received the spirited but piecemeal assaults of Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, Longstreet had quietly positioned his corps to Jackson's right and waited. He arrived early enough on August 29 to attack in the early afternoon with 30,000 men, but disturbing reports of an unknown Yankee force to his right and a desire to know every detail of the terrain and the Union forces in his front led Longstreet to advise postponing the attack. Lee reluctantly agreed, even though the advice ran counter to his own inclinations. The delay did not endanger Confederate chances of success. Pope was myopically concerned with Jackson, and the Federal force on Longstreet's right, Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter's Fifth Corps, was determined to remain on the defensive. Everything conspired to allow Longstreet the time and opportunity he craved to be fully prepared. When the attack took place on August 30, it was a crushing success. The Federals were driven from the field in a disaster that eclipsed the first battle at Manassas more than a year earlier.

The successful attack on August 30, in which Longstreet was able to influence Lee's decision-making process, allowed him to feel a heady sense of importance within the command structure of the army. But he later came to appreciate deeply how easily the survival of the army could be threatened. The battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, was one of the most searing days in the history of the army. Heavily outnumbered and fighting on a remarkably open, rolling battlefield, the Confederates were nearly overwhelmed. Longstreet earned the nickname Lee gave him that evening, his old war-horse, by doggedly holding in the center, but the army had barely survived its first invasion of Northern-held territory.

Longstreet later saw the power of the defensive vividly demonstrated at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when little more than two of his brigades were positioned several ranks deep behind a stone retaining wall at the foot of Marye's Heights. The Army of the Potomac foolishly launched repeated assaults up an open, ascending plain into the teeth of massed musketry. The result appalled even the Confederates, for the plain was thickly strewn with dead and dying Yankees by that evening. Longstreet took from Fredericksburg a deep appreciation for the advantages of a strong defensive position, backed by artillery and strengthened by fortifications.

He missed the Chancellorsville campaign, when Lee demonstrated the offensive power of the army by fighting his way out of a trap set by an adroit maneuver of the Army of the Potomac, because he was off on a frustrating campaign against Suffolk, Virginia. The primary purpose of this expedition was to gather much-needed foodstuffs for Lee's army, rather than to regain Union-occupied territory. The place was so heavily fortified that Longstreet could not find a way to pry himself into it. When Longstreet rushed his troops back to Lee immediately after Chancellorsville, Jackson was out of the picture, and he now had to shoulder the responsibility of becoming Lee's right-hand man.[6]

Despite the complexity of the July 3 attack, it was clear that Longstreet had the ability to deal with the situation. He was one of the most able tacticians in the Confederate army, and he had a discerning eye for terrain and a keen appreciation for the role of artillery. He could have dealt with most tactical problems, but the corps leader was severely hampered by a heartfelt conviction that this attack was a dreadful mistake. Longstreet was working out a different relationship with Lee during the Gettysburg campaign. He felt it was necessary to be outspoken on important matters, and often, it was turning out, he did not see eye-to-eye with Lee. The two certainly were not thinking alike about the conception of this campaign on either the strategic or the tactical level. Lee chose to ignore this difference of opinion, losing his patience when Longstreet persisted in arguing for a different approach to the tactical problem. He had grown used to his generals doing the impossible and saw no reason to change his expectations now.

Moreover, Lee had developed extremely high expectations of his enlisted men. Ever since he took command of the Army of Northern Virginia a year earlier, he had seen them conduct juggernaut assaults, stand firm in defensive battles, and display unflappable morale in the face of nearly overwhelming odds. Chancellorsville seemed to epitomize all of this. Outnumbered more than two to one and sandwiched between two powerful Federal forces, they fought the Army of the Potomac to a standstill and then launched a counterattack under Jackson that turned the tables on their opponents. The army's fierce assaults on the morning of May 3, launched through a landscape cluttered with saplings, small trees, and brush and butting against hastily made earthworks, forced the Federal army to retreat from its advantageous position and won the battle for Lee. The Rebel army leader was in awe of his men. While contemplating the reorganization of the corps and assessing the need to promote officers to command them, Lee wrote to Hood that the army would be "invincible if it could be properly organized and officered. There never were such men in an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led." This was Lee's mindset prior to the Gettysburg campaign.

Lee could have referred to himself when commenting on the common soldier's need to be properly officered, for his command style left something to be desired. It seldom resulted in disaster because his subordinates usually made up for any deficiencies by improvising solutions or by unleashing the fighting spirit of their men. The conception of and planning for what came to be known as Pickett's Charge would become the most controversial episode of Lee's and Longstreet's careers because the attack proved to be a bloody failure. To what extent Longstreet's lack of faith in the attack doomed its chances of success became a matter of bitter debate for many Confederates and their partisans. The two commanders would never again have so much difficulty understanding each other's motives or feelings when discussing plans, for they would form a strong, united team in the 1864-65 campaigns in Virginia. But now, on the morning of July 3, they were like two old friends who suddenly felt they had never really known each other.

Longstreet later confessed that Lee "should have put an officer in charge who had more confidence in his plan." He pointed out that slightly more than half of the attacking force came from a different corps, "and there was no reason for putting the assaulting forces under my charge." There is no evidence that he suggested a change of commanders to Lee. His sense of professionalism held him to discharge his duty, even if he felt it was unwise. "Knowing my want of confidence," Longstreet continued in his memoirs, "he should have given the benefit of his presence and his assistance in getting the troops up, posting them, and arranging the batteries: but he gave no orders or suggestions after his early designation of the point for which the column should march." Lee left everything in Longstreet's unwilling hands. This was true to his instinct and consistent with his history of success.[7]

To his credit Longstreet set about to do the best job he could, considering how severely his lack of faith in Lee's plan hampered his ability to organize the attack. His effort to minimize casualties led Longstreet to limit the number of supporting troops to be engaged. This was a deliberate attempt to limit the size of the attack, but there were other areas in which Longstreet failed to prepare the assault fully. There were examples of shortsightedness, lapses of thinking, or failure to see that directives were properly carried out. Whether deliberately or unintentionally, Longstreet did not give all of his considerable talents to making sure the attack had every chance of success.

Longstreet directed Pickett to place his command "under the best cover that he could get from the enemy's batteries." He designated Pickett as the guide for the attack, in accordance with Lee's instructions, but he did not mean to use Hill's troops as a support, in the strictest meaning of the term. Longstreet instructed those troops to align themselves to the left of Pickett and move forward abreast of his division. They would be equal partners in the attack, extending the line to the left. The unit chosen from Hill's corps was Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division, now led by Brig. Gen. James Johnston Pettigrew because Heth had suffered a head wound on July 1. The division had fought hard and lost heavily that day and was just as exhausted as Law's and McLaws's men, but it happened to be the rightmost division of Hill's corps and thus was conveniently placed to join the attack.

Encouraging evidence of Longstreet's care in preparing the assault lay in his instructions to division leaders. He asked them to "go to the crest of the ridge and take a careful view of the field, and to have their officers there to tell their men of it, and to prepare them for the sight that was to burst upon them as they mounted the crest." Longstreet took his own division commander, Pickett, to personally show him the field, but he was depressed by Pickett's reaction. The division leader "seemed to appreciate the severity of the contest upon which he was about to enter, but was quite hopeful of success." Longstreet despaired, still convinced of "the desperate and hopeless nature of the charge and the cruel slaughter it would cause. My heart was heavy when I left Pickett."

Pettigrew received instructions to report to Longstreet, and he did so, learning that Heth's division would take part in the attack and that it would advance in line with Pickett's division, not as its support. He also was told that a massive artillery barrage would precede the attack. But there is no evidence that Longstreet or anyone else took Pettigrew to the crest of Seminary Ridge and offered him advice about the lay of the land. Pettigrew passed on the minimal information he was told to his four brigade leaders. One of them, Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Davis, authored the division report after the battle. He indicated that the only instructions were to dress to the right and come into line with Pickett's command. Longstreet failed to see that his enlightened instructions about informing everyone what they could expect to encounter were carried out. He probably led Pickett to the crest of Seminary Ridge because he personally knew the division leader and wanted to gauge his opinion on the prospects of success, only to have his hopes of finding a gloomy ally dashed by Pickett's optimism.[8]

Longstreet's biggest failure was in not properly arranging for support to either side of the attacking column. Contrary to the assertion of a modern writer, there never was a "second wave" planned for Pickett's Attack. That is, no one contemplated a large force following directly behind the attackers to provide additional weight of numbers at a key point in the assault. Second waves were likely only if the attacking force was expected to engage in a prolonged struggle after it made the initial contact with the defenders, as in twentieth-century amphibious landings, where there was little prospect of sending troops in to right or left of the first wave. Whether a second wave was necessary on July 3 is debatable. Lee simply did not have the reserve manpower to form one; he could not afford to pull units out of his long line and position them to follow up Pickett's Attack without leaving a gaping hole somewhere else. Also, there was little likelihood that a second wave would suffer fewer casualties than the first wave while crossing the open valley between the opposing lines, and therefore it would not add significantly more momentum to the forward drive as it reached Pickett's line. After all, Pickett's own men would be in its way, and it was likely that the two waves simply would blend together and lose their momentum due to exhaustion, losses, and the stubborn resistance of the Federals.[9]

Instead the only support contemplated was the advance of units to right and left of the attacking force. This became one of the most bitter controversies to develop after the attack. Several members of Lee's staff who were at the conference that morning insisted that the army leader wanted Longstreet to use large numbers of troops to either side of Pickett and Pettigrew. Col. Walter H. Taylor, Lee's chief of staff, recalled that all or part of Law's or McLaws's commands were to be sent forward. Col. Armistead L. Long, Lee's military secretary, insisted that Lee's instructions to Longstreet on this point were in the form of orders, not suggestions, and that he and at least one other staff officer heard the army commander give them.[10]

Longstreet had a genuinely different impression of Lee's intentions. He stated flatly after the battle that the general had allowed him to keep Law and McLaws in place to secure the right flank, and Lee reported as much in his official report as well. The army leader noted that Longstreet "deemed it necessary to defend his flank and rear with the divisions of Hood and McLaws. He was, therefore, re-enforced by" troops from Hill's corps. It would have been extremely risky to move any part of those two divisions out of line to have them attack behind or in close support of Pickett; such a move would have dangerously exposed the right flank. It could also have endangered Alexander's artillery concentration at the Sherfy peach orchard, as Alexander himself believed. Lee's staff officers were not clear in their language as to exactly how Law and McLaws were to support Pickett and Pettigrew, whether they were to reposition their units farther toward the center or simply to advance straight ahead. The latter maneuver would have continued to secure the flank and possibly could have helped the attackers if it was pressed hard and at just the right time. But the very hard attack of July 2 on this part of the field had failed at high cost, and the Federals were far better prepared for a repetition of it on July 3. It undoubtedly would have failed to capture the Round Tops unless Pickett and Pettigrew broke through the center across Cemetery Ridge in a very dramatic and decisive way.

As a result Longstreet did not include either Law or McLaws in the planning of the attack. He only arranged for two small brigades of Hill's corps to shield Pickett's right flank. These were a Florida brigade led by Col. David Lang and an Alabama brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox, both of Anderson's division. The two units had been sent to this part of the field the day before and had participated in the battle of July 2, attacking the Union center on Cemetery Ridge nearly in the same area to be hit by Pickett. Lang and Wilcox were instructed to move to the right rear of Pickett's division "to protect it from any force that the enemy might attempt to move against it." In other words, Longstreet did not see Lang and Wilcox as helping Pickett to penetrate the Union line; they were to guard his flank.

McLaws was left completely in the dark, although his division was next in line to Lang and Wilcox. "I was not notified that it was in contemplation even to make any further attacks by either Hood's or my division, nor was I informed that it was the intention to assault the enemy's centre with Pickett's division, with the assistance of troops from other corps." Longstreet stated in his memoir that he instructed Law and McLaws to move forward so they could spring to the attack directly to their front if Pickett and Pettigrew should be successful. But this apparently was not true. McLaws flatly stated, "I was not told to be ready to assist, should the assault be successful, nor instructed what to do should the assault fail and the enemy advance. I contented myself with reconnoitering my ground and vicinity in all the directions necessary for movement in any emergency, and took my position among my troops."

Longstreet did not have an opportunity to use Law and McLaws, for there was little, if anything, they could do to help the attack. The Federals did not transfer troops from the area of the Round Tops to repulse Pickett, and therefore an attack by these two Rebel divisions would not have affected the outcome of the assault. Despite Armistead Long's assertion that Lee bemoaned the fact that the two divisions were not used, there is every reason to assume that Lee knew Law and McLaws were out of the picture. Longstreet was careful to defend himself in this regard. He pointed out that he rode with Lee along the line twice after the early morning conference

to see that everything was arranged according to his wishes. He was told that we had been more particular in giving orders than ever before; that the commanders had been sent for and the point of attack had been carefully designated and that the commanders had been directed to communicate to their subordinates, and through them to every soldier in the command, the work that was before them, so that they should nerve themselves for the attack and fully understand it. After leaving me he again rode over the field once, if not twice, so that there was really no room for misconceptions or misunderstanding of his wishes. He could not have thought of giving any such orders [involve Law and McLaws in the attack.