Pickett's Charge

1106 Pickett's Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg July 3, 1863, by George R. Stewart (read 11 Mar 1971) While this book has some detail that is of little interest to me, it also has some extremely interesting. Pickett's charge, the author indicates, resulted in casualties of

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54%, compared to 37% casualties in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Even now I cannot understand the order: "Advance slowly....No cheering, no firing, no breaking from common to quick step. Dress on the center." Why wouldn't they want to get there as quickly as possible? And yet, it was a near thing!:
"But can we even, any longer, think in terms of brigades?...Between the time when Armistead went over the wall and the time when the chance had been lost, probably less than two minutes ticked away. Historians write of the 100 Days of Napoleon; so we might write of these 100 seconds of the Confederacy. Then--almost literally--the road lay open to Washington."

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