Pickett's Charge [Paperback]

I think it valuable to read Stewart's account together with Carol Reardon's study, "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory" (1997) and Earl J. Hess' study "Pickett's Charge-- The Last Attack at Gettysburg" (2001). These three books offer differing perspectives on Pickett's charge and will be invaluable to the student in comparing approaches to the event and to historical writing.

Reardon's book includes little about the Charge itself. She concentrates on the way it has been interpreted over the years (a matter which Stewart also addresses) and on the difficulty of separating fact from memory in determining what happened on the battlefield. The latter point is important to remember in reading Stewart. Some of his sources seem to cross that difficult line between history and recollection in memory.

Hess' account, like Stewart's is a history of the charge which, Hess tells the reader, uses sources and files unavailable to Stewart. Hess, writing 40 years after Stewart adopts a more critical stance towards the sources and reaches some different conclusions.

Stewart's account is still to be prized for its simplicity and clarity and for the author's zest and empathy for his subject. The book is written in short sections which cover in detail the deliberations of the Confederate leadership on the morning of the attack, the Union defense, the cannonade, the details of the assault by the combined troops of Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble, and the Union's stalwart,heroic defense. The fighting at the "Angle" -- the High Water Mark -- is given in dramatic detail and there is a moving picture of the repulse of the Charge and its aftermath. For better or worse, Stewart lets the sources mostly speak for themselves with less of the skepticism that is to be found in Reardon or Hess.

I found good elementary detail in the book on matters that Hess doesn't cover and that have little relevance to Reardon's story. In particular, Stewart gives a good account of weaponry, its uses, and its limitations, during Pickett's charge. This is an important matter and sometimes overlooked. The reader needs some understanding of the range and uses of the various types of artillery and infantry weapons to understand what happened during the Charge and during the Union defense. Stewart covers this well.

Stewart emphasizes the heroism exhibited during the charge and the seesawing nature of the combat. He seems to me to take the quest for glory and victory exhibited by the troops more at their word than other recent writers who emphasize, rightly enough, the futility, destruction, sheer horror and loss of life resulting from this attack. Stewart sees Pickett's Charge is the actual, not merely the metaphorical, "High-Water Mark" of the Confederate War effort. He believes that if the assault force had, in fact, taken the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge during the attack, the War would have ended with a Southern victory. He also believes that the failure of the assault doomed the Confederate cause. Many other students of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War would disagree with these conclusions. Stewart also states that General Pickett was responsible for the command of the entire assault force -- including the Pettigrew and Trimble troops on Pickett's left. Most students of the Battle reject this conclusion and point to the lack of coordination of the assault as one of the many reasons for its failure.

Stewart tries to be meticulously fair to all participants. He avoids hero worship and "Lost Cause" mythology while still showing his admiration for the participants on both sides in the assault and the valor they displayed. His study may not be the last or most accurate historical study on the events of July 3. But in its simplicity, humor, compassion, and understanding of the troops, Stewart's book taught me a great deal about the final day at Gettysburg.