Episode Details

Colonel Jeff McCausland recounts how, on July 3, Robert E. Lee initiates a bold assault aimed at the Union center on Cemetery Ridge, though faulty assumptions regarding troop strength and coordination plague the plan. A massive two-hour artillery barrage—the largest in North American history—precedes the infantry advance but proves largely ineffective due to defective fuses and heavy smoke obscuring the targets. Under General Longstreet's direction, approximately 12,500 men under Pickett, Trimble, and Pettigrew march over a mile across open fields into concentrated Union fire. While General Lewis Armistead's brigade briefly breaches the Union line at "the angle," the Confederatesare ultimately repulsed with devastating losses, leaving Pickett's division nearly destroyed. In the aftermath, a grieving Lee takes full responsibility for the failure, while General Meade, exhausted and hindered by poor weather, declines to pursue the retreating Confederate army toward the Potomac. (3)
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