DAY 3
July 3 - Day 3 Just like the day before, the morning of July 3rd passed silently, with both Confederate and Union armies aligned on ridges about a mile apart. The silence was broken around 1:00 p.m., when the rebel artillery, a hundred guns massed hub to hub, exploded with a thunderous cannonade that lasted almost a hour. The gunfire threw most of its shells over the Union line.
When the cannonade was over, a mass of 15,000 men in brown homespun moved out from the rebel position and began walking toward Cemetery Ridge, across of the Emittsburg Road, far past the carnage of the day before, and up around the slight incline that leads to the Clump of Trees. As they walked, great gaps were torn in their line by Union artillery, shot and killed. At 600 yards out from the Clump of Trees, the rebel line shook and swayed, as the Union defenders let loose bullet after bullet of rifle fire. Then the two sides came together: patches of rebels, led by those of the 26th North Carolina Regiment, overunning the stone wall at the Clump of Trees and grappled with the Union shooters manning the guns behind, killing them, turning the pieces, and working them, until reinforcements swarmed them from the Union backside and drove them back from the guns and over the wall.
The great gray tide swept back in trickles now across the field, the soldiers retreating from the fire. As they walked, they found General Lee astride Traveller waiting by the Emmitsburg Road. "Steady men, steady," he shout. "We need good men just now, it's not your fault." In fifty minutes of almost hand-to-hand combat at the bloody stone wall, ten thousand men had been killed or wounded. The glory of Pickett's Charge was now history. Tons of Confederate soldiers, under the command of General Lee, were sent across the massive field highly uncovered and very exposed to the Union, atop the Cemetery Hill picking each of them off. The Pickett's Charge wasn't only the turning point in the Battle of Gettysburg, however, it was also the turning point of the Civil War.
When the cannonade was over, a mass of 15,000 men in brown homespun moved out from the rebel position and began walking toward Cemetery Ridge, across of the Emittsburg Road, far past the carnage of the day before, and up around the slight incline that leads to the Clump of Trees. As they walked, great gaps were torn in their line by Union artillery, shot and killed. At 600 yards out from the Clump of Trees, the rebel line shook and swayed, as the Union defenders let loose bullet after bullet of rifle fire. Then the two sides came together: patches of rebels, led by those of the 26th North Carolina Regiment, overunning the stone wall at the Clump of Trees and grappled with the Union shooters manning the guns behind, killing them, turning the pieces, and working them, until reinforcements swarmed them from the Union backside and drove them back from the guns and over the wall.
The great gray tide swept back in trickles now across the field, the soldiers retreating from the fire. As they walked, they found General Lee astride Traveller waiting by the Emmitsburg Road. "Steady men, steady," he shout. "We need good men just now, it's not your fault." In fifty minutes of almost hand-to-hand combat at the bloody stone wall, ten thousand men had been killed or wounded. The glory of Pickett's Charge was now history. Tons of Confederate soldiers, under the command of General Lee, were sent across the massive field highly uncovered and very exposed to the Union, atop the Cemetery Hill picking each of them off. The Pickett's Charge wasn't only the turning point in the Battle of Gettysburg, however, it was also the turning point of the Civil War.