Pickett's Charge Reexamined: Faulty Fuses, Hunt's Bluff, Cushing's Gun

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The July 3, 1863 assault at Gettysburg known as Pickett's Charge was largely a slow march across nearly a mile of open ground, under the overall command of James Longstreet, with George Pickett leading three of the 11 brigades. This episode lays out Robert E. Lee's plan to split George Meade's fishhook line in coordination with attacks at Culp's Hill and a cavalry strike by J.E.B. Stuart, both of which failed. It also covers newer scholarship arguing that the 10-foot Copse of Trees was too small to be the target and that Lee was aiming for Ziegler's Grove and the road network beyond it.

Between 150 and 170 Confederate guns opened fire around 1 p.m., but inconsistent fuses sent shells over the Union line into the rear. Henry Hunt let his batteries fall silent one by one, and Edward Porter Alexander took the silence as success. Longstreet, who believed no 15,000 men could take the position, answered Pickett's request to advance with a silent bow. About 12,500 men stepped off, compressed under flanking fire, and many stopped at the Emmitsburg Road. Within an hour the attack had cost roughly 6,555 casualties, and postwar Lost Cause writers built the name and myth around Pickett's Virginians.

• Union troops on Cemetery Ridge chanted Fredericksburg as the Confederate lines advanced.
• 160 men of the 8th Ohio wheeled and fired into the flank of Brockenbrough's brigade, triggering a collapse on the Confederate left.
• Mortally wounded, Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing pushed his last gun to the wall and fired double canister at about 10 yards.
• Lewis Armistead crossed the wall at the Angle with his hat on his sword and was mortally wounded opposite his friend Winfield S. Hancock's troops.
• North Carolina troops suffered more casualties than the Virginians yet were often blamed for the failure in postwar accounts.