The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 | Page 5

honor and my conscience clear; Thus
may I calmly meet my end, Thus to the grave in peace descend."
* * * * *

PICKETT'S CHARGE.
BY CHARLES A. PATCH, MASS., VOLS.
In all great wars involving the destinies of nations, it is neither the
number of battles, nor the names, nor the loss of life, that remain fixed
in the mind of the masses; but simply the one decisive struggle which
either in its immediate or remote sequence closes the conflict. Of the
hundred battles of the great Napoleon, Waterloo alone lingers in the
memory. The Franco-Prussian War, so fraught with changes to Europe,
presents but one name that will never fade,--Sedan. Even in our own
country, how few battles of the Revolution can we enumerate; but is
there a child who does not know that Bunker Hill sounded the
death-knell of English rule in the land? And now, but twenty years
since the greatest conflict of modern times was closed at Appomattox,
how few can we readily recall of the scores of blood-stained
battle-fields on which our friends and neighbors fought and fell; but is
there one, old or young, cultured or ignorant, of the North or of the
South, that cannot speak of Gettysburg? But what is Gettysburg either
in its first day's Federal defeat, or its second day's terrible slaughter
around Little Round Top, without the third day's immortal charge by
Pickett and his brave Virginians. In it we have the culmination of the
Rebellion. It took long years after to drain all the life-blood from the
foe, but never again did the wave of Rebellion rise so gallantly high as
when it beat upon the crest of Cemetery Ridge.
The storming of the heights of Inkerman, the charge of the noble Six
Hundred, the fearful onslaught of the Guards at Waterloo, the scaling of
Lookout Mountain,--have all been sung in story, and perhaps always
will be; but they all pale beside the glory that will ever enshroud the
heroes who, with perhaps not literally "cannon to right of them" and

"cannon to left of them," but with a hundred cannon belching forth
death in front of them, hurled themselves into the centre of a great army
and had victory almost within their grasp.
To describe this charge, we will go back to the evening of the 2nd of
July, and recall upon what basis the cautious Lee could undertake so
fearful a responsibility. The victorious Southrons fresh from their
triumphs at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had entered the North
carrying consternation and dismay to every hamlet, with none to
oppose; their forward march was one of spoil, and it was not till the 1st
of July that they met their old foemen, the Army of the Potomac, in the
streets of Gettysburg, and after a fierce conflict drove them back. The
second day's conflict was a terrible slaughter, and at its close the
Federal Army, although holding its position, was to a certain extent
disheartened. Many of our best generals and commanding officers were
killed or wounded, scores of regiments and batteries were nearly wiped
out, Sickles' line was broken and driven in and its position was held by
Longstreet. Little Round Top, the key of the position, was held only at
a frightful loss of life, and Ewell upon the right had gained a footing
upon the Ridge. The Rebel army was joyful and expectant of victory.
The morning of the 3rd of July opened clear and bright, and one
hundred thousand men faced each other awaiting the signal of conflict;
but, except the pushing of Ewell from his position, the hours passed on
relieved only by the rumbling of artillery carriages as they were massed
by Lee upon Seminary Ridge, and by Meade upon Cemetery Ridge. At
twelve o'clock Lee ascended the cupola of the Pennsylvania College, in
quiet surveyed the Union lines, and decided to strike for Hancock's
Centre. Meanwhile, Pickett with his three Virginia brigades had arrived
from Chambersburg and taken cover in the woods of Seminary Ridge.
What Lee's feelings must have been, as he looked at the hundred
death-dealing cannon massed on Cemetery Hill, and the fifty thousand
men waiting patiently in front and behind them, men whose valor he
knew well in many a bitter struggle--and then looked at his handful of
brave Virginians, three, small, decimated brigades which he was about
to hurl into that vortex of death,--no one will ever know. The blunder
that sent the Light Brigade to death at Balaklava was bad enough, but
here were five thousand men waiting to seek victory where, only the

day before ten thousand had lost their lives or their limbs in the same
futile endeavor. Leaving the college, Lee called a council of his
generals at Longstreet's headquarters, and