Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo Page A

head … as to the wisdom of such a move.” Wilcox rode over toRichard Garnett and muttered “in the hearing of” several officers “that he considered Cemetery Ridge” impossible to take, that he “had lost between 4[00] and 500 men there the day before in some 15 or 20 minutes, without making the slightest impression.” Porter Alexander found the observer’s perch he needed near Ambrose Wright, and the disgruntled Georgian lost no time in telling Alexander “that the difficulty was not so much in
reaching
Cemetery Hill, or taking it—that his brigade had carried it the afternoon before—but that the trouble was to hold it.” In Pettigrew’s division, a sergeant in the 14th Tennessee,Junius Kimble, strolled forward to take a look. He saw “an open plain, with a slight incline to the front of Cemetery Ridge … with no obstructions … except threefences, two worm or rail fences and one slab fence, nearest to the enemy’s front.” He shivered, and asked “aloud the question, ‘June Kimble, are you going to do your duty today?’ ” Kimble summoned up the resolve to say, “I’ll do it, so help me God.” But when he returned to the lines of the 14th Tennessee and was asked how things looked, he could only mumble, “Boys, if we have to go, it will be hot for us.” 11
    And yet, few of them seem to have seen the task as outright suicide. “Come on, boys,” cried one of the 11th Virginia’s privates, “let’s go and drive away those infernal Yankees.” It was plain to Wilcox’s Alabamians that “many, very many, would go down under the storm of shot and shell … but it never occurred to them that disaster would come” on Cemetery Ridge.James Crocker, a lieutenant in the 9th Virginia and, oddly enough, a graduate of Pennsylvania College, thought that “all fully saw and appreciated thecost and the fearful magnitude of the assault, yet all were firmly resolved, if possible, to pluck victory from the very jaws of death itself.” George Pickett, in particular, saw nothing but victory and glory ahead (although privately, he urgedRichard Garnett to get his brigade “across those fields as quick as you can, for in my opinion you are going to catch hell”). At least for the benefit of his division, Pickett appeared “entirely sanguine of success, and was doing nothing but congratulating himself on the opportunity.” 12
    There were a few last-minute arrangements.Isaac Trimble rode up and down the lines of his two brigades, “halted at different regiments and made us little speeches, saying he was a stranger to us and had been sent to command us in the absence of our wounded general, and would lead us upon Cemetery Hill.” Lee, Longstreet, and Powell Hill met in front of Pettigrew’s division for a final consultation, and the men in the ranks “voluntarily arose and lifted in reverent adoration their caps to their beloved commander.” In the 14th Virginia, one captain marked out three or four men who were “habitual play-outs” and advised the sergeants who would be forming the rear line of file closers “to take them into that fight or kill them” if they had to, and “he would be responsible.” Staff officers and couriers “began to move about briskly,” wroteBirkett Fry. “General Pettigrew rode up and informed me that after a heavycannonade we would assault the position in our front,” and Fry in turn met with Pickett and then Richard Garnett, who “agreed that he would dress on my command” as “the directing brigade of the line of battle.” 13
    Finally, it was done. Longstreet sent off a courier with a handwritten order forJames Walton:
    Headquarters, in the Field, July 3d, 1863.
    Colonel
: Let the batteries open. Order great care and precision in firing. If the batteries at the peach orchard cannot be used against the point we intend attacking, let them open upon the rocky hill. Most respectfully,
    J. Longstreet
, Lieutenant-General Commanding.
To Colonel
Walton
.
    But