mits it. (See Henderson's Lecture, p. 15.)[1] The divisions of McLaws and Hood and Pickett were all to be employed. He was to be reinforced moreover by Heth's division, and by two brigades of Fender's division, to the command of which Major-General Trimble was assigned—and General Hill was ordered to afford General Longstreet further assistance if necessary. Instead of this Longstreet sent forward about 12,000 men-[2] only to assail the whole Federal army. They made the assault, those Virginians and North Carolinians, with magnificent gallantry. They pierced the enemy's center, but where were their supports? where were the divisions of McLaws and Hood? Where the brigades Hill was to put in? The answer is,—idle, looking on, doing nothing! This devoted column of 42 regiments, possibly 12,000 men assaulted nearly the whole Federal army, while 7-9 of the Confederate army looked on without firing a shot. At the moment of their success they looked back vainly for support; "not a single Confederate bayonet, save in the hands of wounded or retreating men, was between them and the ridge from which they had advanced, 1,200 yards in the rear. Fiercely they struggled to maintain their position, but their courage had been thrown away." (Henderson, p. 16.)
Could there be a more conspicuous illustration of the disregard of Napoleon's maxim that in a decisive attack the last man and the last horse should be thrown in?[3]
And now we have a strange incident to record—Colonel Fremantle, the accomplished English officer, who was present with Longstreet's command during the battle, tells us in his
- ↑ "He rode over after sunrise and gave his orders. His plan was to assault the enemy's left centre by a column to be composed of McLaw's and Hood's divisions, reinforced by Pickett's brigades. I thought it would not do."-Longstreet.
- ↑ This is the estimate of Jesse Bowman Young, a Federal writer, in his valuable book, "The Battle of Gettysburg," published in 1913 by Harper Bros., p. p. 306. He points out that Wilcox's brigade took no part in the assault.
- ↑ "The staff, as we have seen, seemed utterly incapable, throughout the battle, of bringing the efforts of the larger units into timely co-operation, and at the most important crisis of the whole engagement their failure to insure combination was conspicuous. In the first place there is no doubt that Lee intended that 30,00 men should have been employed instead of 15,000."-(Henderson, p. 18).
