Pickett’s Charge

At the Angle, July 3, 1863, 3:15 – 3:40 p.m.

(Selection from Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau, New York, HarperCollins. 2002, p. 495)

“By the time the mile-long files of the Rebel assault reached the Emmitsburg Road, the line had been compressed enough by maneuver and casualties that the soldiers of the Philadelphis Brigade knew they were going to be hit. It may not have occurred to many that they would be at the very focal point of the attack, but they certainly sensed that a life-and-death struggle was only minutes away.”

Cemetery Ridge
In the foreground is the monument to General Armistead at the point at which he fell, leading “Pickett’s Charge,” which has become known as “the high water mark of the Confederacy.” The monument to the California Regiment of the Philadelphia Brigade is in the background.

 

The Angle
The monument to the California Regiment is at the leading edge of “The Angle,”at the point of the Rebel attack.

 

REPORT OF BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER S. WEBB, U.S. Army, commanding Second Brigade, Gettysburg Campaign (excerpt)

HDQRS. SECOND BRIG., SECOND DIV., SECOND ARMY CORPS, Jones’ Cross-Roads, Md. July 12, 1863.

At 3 o’clock the enemy’s line of battle left the woods in our front; moved in perfect order across the Emmitsburg road; formed in the hollow in our immediate front several lines of battle, under a fire of spherical case from Wheeler’s [Cowan’s] battery and Cushing’s gun, and advanced for the assault.

The Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers were advanced to the wall on the right of the Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers. Three of Cushing’s guns were run down to the fence, carrying with them their canister. The Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers were held in reserve under the crest of the hill. The enemy advanced steadily to the fence, driving out a portion of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers. General Armistead passed over the fence with probably over 100 of his command and with several battle-flags. The Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers were ordered up to hold the crest, and advanced to within 40 paces of the enemy’s line.

Colonel Smith, commanding the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, threw two companies of his command behind the stone wall on the right of Cushing’s battery, 50 paces retired from the point of attack. This disposition of his troops was most important. Colonel Smith showed true military intelligence on the field. The Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers and most of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, even after the enemy were in their rear, held their position.

The Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers fought steadily and persistently, but the enemy would probably have succeeded in piercing our lines had not Colonel Hall advanced with several of his regiments to my support. Defeated, routed, the enemy fled in disorder. General Armistead was left, mortally wounded, within my lines, and 42 of the enemy who crossed the fence lay dead.

This brigade captured nearly 1,000 prisoners, 6 battle-flags (4 have been turned in), and picked up 1,400 stand of arms and 903 sets of accouterments. The loss of the brigade on the 2d and 3d was 43 commissioned officers and 482 enlisted men. But 47 enlisted men are missing.

O.R.–SERIES I–VOLUME XXVII/1 [S# 43]
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(Selection from Pickett’s Charge by George R. Stewart; Houghton Mifflin Co., January, 2000)

“For some reason, the Angle was not strongly held, even though it was especially exposed to attack. . . Only 375 infantrymen were spread along 500 feet of front. Their only protection was a low stone wall with some rails on top; it might protect a man’s lower legs, and that was about all; a charging Confederate could go across it anywhere.

“Most badly placed of the three regiments was the 71st Pennsylvania, just rushed forward to the Angle, with nothing on its immediate right at all and its left resting uncertainly on Cushing’s two guns. (p. 207)

“At the moment, the situation was more hopeful on Pickett’s front. In spite of losses the men massed below the Angle can scarcely have numbered fewer than three thousand. At odds, thus, of something like eight to one, they had a chance to overwhelm the three little regiments opposing them on the narrow front. (p. 209)

“Thus, at the moment, the battle hung in balance, and the decision might well go to the side that could first make a new push. The immediate advantage lay with the Confederates-their men think on the slope below the weakly held Angle. There, too, the generals were close at hand-Garnett still at the front on his black horse; Armistead coming up from the rear on foot. (p. 211)

So it hung for a few seconds, while Hancock’s horse took a leap or two, and the rifle fire was a dense crackle, and men dropped on both sides.

“In those seconds, Webb ordered up his only supports-the 72nd with a hundred men of the 106th-forward on the right-oblique from behind the clump of trees, to fill the gap between the Inner Angle and the trees, as a second line behind the 71st.

“Almost as the 72nd began to move, something broke the deadlock for the Confederates. . . All at once they came on at the Angle-Tennesseans, Alabamians, Virginians, all together! On a narrow front, a blunted wedge, they surged up the slope, on the run raising-now for the first time-the high-pitched Rebel yell.

“Looking from behind the wall, the men of the 71st saw themselves far outnumbered. They were holding a new and exposed position, and were a little shaky in discipline and morale. Against them, under the blue and red flags, came a wild swarm of yelling men.

“From the flank Cushing’s gunners fired canister. Some artillerymen ran, and some stayed to fight. Then, as the Rebels rushed the wall the 71st-color-bearers and officers too-broke in wild flight, all but a few of them.

“Those few stayed, firing to the last, and then were killed or surrendered. Among these was Sergeant Major Stockton, with a few men around him. They stuck it out, until the Confederates lapped around them, and then they threw up their hands.”

Also among them, we believe, was Pvt. James Kinsella.

According to the account of Private Charles T. Loehr of the 1st Virginia, in Pickett’s Charge: Eyewitness Accounts, edited by Richard Rollins, published by Rank and File Publications, 1994, (p. 196) as General Armistead’s men rushed across the wall. . . about 150 Federals were captured at the angle and taken off the field.

On July 6, 1863, General Pickett wrote his wife that he had been assigned by General Lee to guard four thousand prisoners across the river back to Winchester. And he added, Well, my darling, I put the prisoners all on their honor and gave them equal liberty with my own soldier boys. My first command to them was to go and enjoy themselves the best they could, and they have obeyed my order.

See Pickett’s Charge: Eyewitness Accounts, p. 358.

As a prisoner, James Kinsella, a recipient of George Pickett’s gallant action after such defeat, was marched under guard by Pickett’s men to a point in the Shenandoah Valley where the prisoners boarded trains to Richmond and Belle Isle Prison Camp.
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For further information on the 71st Pennsylvania Regiment’s participation at Gettysburg and in other battles throughout the Civil War, see “Duty Well Done:” The History of Edward Baker’s California Regiment by Gary G. Lash, published by Butternut and Blue, 2001.