Against All Odds

Pickett's Charge was led by three Confederate generals—George Pickett, J. Johnston Pettigrew, and Isaac R. Trimble. The twelve thousand Confederate soldiers involved in the assault emerged from the woods a mile to the front, with Pickett's five thousand five hundred Virginians on the left and the divisions of Pettigrew and Trimble on the right. Their battle line, stretching over a mile, advanced toward the Union position on Cemetery Ridge. Union guns hammered the determined Confederates, and Lieutenant Tully McCrae of First U.S. Artillery reported that "the slaughter was dreadful." Against all odds, they continued forward.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania · United States