Captain Robert A. Bright served on General George Pickett’s staff when the general’s division launched the famous assault at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. According to his account, the division from Virginia included roughly 4,700 enlisted men and officers, making a force of about 5,000, which advanced nearly two miles to the battlefield from its previous bivouac. On the morning of the assault, an order arrived from army headquarters.
Colonel E. P. Alexander was placed in command of all artillery engaged that day, while Brigadier General Pendleton was assigned to oversee the army’s reserve artillery ammunition. Pickett was then notified from Longstreet’s headquarters that Alexander would issue the signal for the infantry to advance.
Several hours passed before the batteries on both sides opened fire. If the bombardment had occurred after dark, Bright reflected, the spectacle would have surpassed any fireworks display ever seen. Three times Pickett sent word to Alexander asking if the moment to attack had arrived. The final courier returned with the answer: the artillery had reportedly silenced eight of the enemy’s cannon, and the time to advance was now.
Pickett directed members of his staff to carry orders to Generals Armistead, Garnett, and Kemper, and to Dearing’s artillery battalion, which had been instructed to support the assault. Bright was dispatched to General Kemper with instructions that he, his staff, and all field officers were to proceed on foot, aligning their formation on Garnett and directing their advance toward a red barn as the objective. During the attack, Bright noticed that Kemper’s and Garnett’s lines appeared to be drifting too far to the left. He attributed this to the red barn being positioned excessively to Kemper’s left flank.
Pickett would have corrected the alignment, but his left side became unprotected when Pettigrew’s command withdrew, leaving the division to cover that vulnerable flank. When Bright reached Kemper, the general rose and took a handkerchief from beneath his hat, which he had been using to shield his face from dirt and stones thrown up by the intense cannon fire. As the order was delivered, Robert McKendree Jones, a friend and former schoolmate of Bright’s, shouted, “Bob, just turn us loose and we’ll take them. ”
Colonel Lewis Williams of the First Virginia Regiment then approached Bright and asked permission to ride his mare forward.
Bright reminded him that the order was to advance on foot. Williams replied that he was quite unwell that day and added, “Besides, remember Williamsburg. ” Bright, whose hometown was Williamsburg, recalled that the colonel had been shot through the shoulder in that earlier battle and left at Miss Judge Tucker’s house on the courthouse green. Bright answered, “Mount your mare, and I will make an excuse for you.
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General Garnett, who had been injured by a horse’s kick while moving through a wagon train at night, had already been granted permission to ride. Colonel Hunton of the same brigade also rode because he was unable to walk. He later fell on one side of the red barn, and General Kemper on the other. All told, eight officers on horseback, counting Pickett and his staff, participated in the charge mounted.
Colonel Williams was killed earlier in the engagement. His mare continued without a rider almost to the stone wall and was later recovered while wandering back by Captain William C. Marshall of Dearing’s battalion. Marshall, whose own horse named Lee had been killed, rode Williams’s mare following the battle.
When Bright returned to Pickett after delivering the order to Kemper, the other staff officers were already with the general, as their orders had required shorter distances. Kemper was positioned on the far right, with Armistead in echelon rather than in the front line. The command had moved forward about fifty yards when the attack began, with Pickett and his staff roughly twenty yards behind the main column. After advancing about 400 yards, the general remarked to Bright, “Captain, you have lost your spurs today instead of earning them.
” Bright glanced at his left boot and saw that the shank of his spur had been bent completely around, likely from a shell fragment, though he had been entirely unaware of it until that moment. After the column had advanced roughly 750 yards, with about 500 more to cover before reaching the stone wall, Pettigrew’s brigade completely disintegrated and quit the field in a rapid orderly retreat. At that stage, the assaulting force was subjected primarily to a violent cannonade; the most severe rifle fire would come later. Pettigrew commanded a division that day, and his brigade was under Colonel Marshall, who was struck from his horse by a piece of shell just as his men broke.
Marshall helped himself back into the saddle, and when his men would not follow him forward, he asked that his horse be turned toward the enemy. He then rode ahead until he was killed. Bright noted that if all the men on Pickett’s left had pressed on like Marshall, history would have recorded a different outcome. Pickett dispatched two captains to rally the retreating troops.
They did everything courageous officers could do, Bright said, but were powerless to halt the rout. Pickett then instructed Bright to ride to General Longstreet and report that the position he had been ordered to assault would be taken, but that he could not hold it without immediate reinforcements. On the ride back, Bright passed a small group from Pettigrew’s command moving to the rear, then a much larger cluster. He halted them and asked if they would go forward to aid the brave men charging behind them, adding, “What are you running for?
” One of the men looked up with surprise and said, “Why, good gracious, Captain, ain’t you running yourself? ” Bright later admitted that he had never answered that question until now, acknowledging that appearances were certainly against him. Bright found Longstreet seated alone on a fence that ran parallel to the axis of the charge. Pickett’s column had already crossed the hill on their side of the Emmitsburg Road and was out of sight.
Bright relayed Pickett’s message verbatim. Longstreet asked where the troops placed on the flank were, and Bright replied, “Look over your shoulder and you will see them. ” Longstreet looked and saw the shattered remnants. Just then an officer rode up, reined in his horse before the general, and said that General Lee had sent him to witness the magnificent charge.
Longstreet answered, “The charge is all over, Colonel Fremantle. Captain Bright, tell General Pickett what you have just heard me say. ” At that moment, the men were close but had not yet reached the Emmitsburg Road. As Bright set off, Longstreet called him back with a further instruction: “Tell General Pickett that Wilcox’s brigade is positioned in that peach orchard and he may order it to his support.
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Bright noted that certain accounts have claimed Wilcox was committed to the assault from its beginning, including a statement by General Gordon, but he maintained this was an error. When Bright located Pickett, the general was at least 100 yards behind his division, having been delayed in a spot from which he could observe and protect his left flank. Pickett immediately sent one captain to Wilcox with a command to advance, then another with the identical order, and finally said, “Captain Bright, you go. ” Bright followed the second messenger by about the same interval that had separated him from the first.
The fire was so terrible at that juncture, Bright believed, that Pickett thought no more than one of the three messengers would successfully reach Wilcox. When Bright rode up to Wilcox, the general was standing with both hands raised, gesturing and saying, “I know, I know. ” Bright insisted, “But General, I must deliver my message. ” After doing so, he rode out toward the peach orchard to rejoin Pickett.
Looking in that direction, Bright observed a substantial enemy force formed at the head of a column, meeting no opposition, moving out from their battle line and advancing around the flank. He believed that had the left flank not abandoned them, these troops would have hesitated to advance before a fighting column. When Bright regained Pickett, the general was too far down toward the Emmitsburg Road to observe the flanking soldiers and asked their number. Bright answered 7,000, though he later admitted this proved an overestimation.
Some of the men had been turned to confront the new threat, weakening the momentum of the charge on the left. Bright counseled the general to withdraw his command before the enemy troops could wheel into line, sweep around the flank, and cut them off. Pickett said he had been watching his left, expecting this, but replied that it was provided for. He ordered Bright to ride to Dearing’s battalion, which had orders to support the charge and keep its caissons full, and to order them to open with every gun and shatter the enemy column.
The first officer Bright saw upon reaching the battalion was Captain William C. Marshall. Bright gave him the order with instructions to relay it to the other three batteries. Marshall replied, “The battalion has no ammunition.
I possess only three solid shot. ” Bright asked why the orders to keep the caissons filled had not been obeyed. Marshall said the caissons had been absent for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and there was a rumor that General Pendleton had sent the reserve artillery ammunition more than a mile to the rear of the field. Bright directed him to fire the solid shot, but he knew all hope of stopping the column was gone, because solid shot cannot halt advancing columns.
The second shot struck the head of the column, the other two missed, and the guns fell silent. Bright found Pickett in front, roughly 300 yards ahead of the artillery position and about 200 yards behind the command, which was then at the stone wall. Some of the men were crossing over it, specifically the 53rd regiment, part of Armistead’s brigade, led by Colonel Rally Martin, who fell beside the gallant General Armistead. They had reached the enemy’s guns and seized them.
All along the stone wall as far as it extended, Kemper’s and Garnett’s men were fighting with very few officers remaining. Bright informed the general that no assistance was to be expected from the artillery, that the enemy was encircling them, and nothing could now rescue his command. At that moment, the left of Pickett’s division began to dissolve, and soon all that remained came slowly back. About 5,000 strong in the morning, only 1,600 were placed in camp that night; 3,400 were killed, wounded, or missing.
As they withdrew, when Pickett and Bright were about 300 yards from the position from which the charge had begun, General Robert E. Lee, alone on Traveler, rode up and said, “General Pickett, place your division behind this hill and be prepared to repel the enemy’s advance should they pursue their advantage. ” Bright noted that he had never heard General Lee call them “the enemy” before; it was always “those” or “these people. ”
Pickett, with his head bowed, said, “General Lee, I have no division now.
Armistead is down. Garnett is down. And Kemper is mortally wounded. ” Lee then said, “Come, General Pickett.
This has been my fight, and upon my shoulders rest the blame. The men and officers of your command have written the name of Virginia as high today as it ever has been written before. ”
Turning to Bright, Lee asked, “Captain, what officer is that they are bearing off? ” Bright answered, “General Kemper.
” Lee said, “I must speak to him,” and moved Traveler toward the litter. Bright guided his horse alongside, but Pickett did not accompany them. The men carrying the stretcher, seeing it was General Lee, stopped. General Kemper, sensing the halt, opened his eyes.
Lee said, “General Kemper, I trust your wound is not too severe. ” Kemper replied, “I am struck in the groin and the bullet has traveled upward. They informed me the wound is mortal. ” Lee said, “I pray it will not be as grave as that.
Is there anything I can do for you, General Kemper? ”
The answer came after Kemper, with apparent great pain, raised himself on one elbow: “Yes, General. See that full justice is done to this division for what it accomplished today. ” Lee inclined his head and said, “I shall.
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Bright added a final note from Captain William Clapton, later a judge in Manchester, who related after the war that while Pickett was endeavoring to protect his left, he observed 27 battle flags, each with its standard complement of men, advance on the right flank. Bright said he did not witness this himself, as all his attention was fixed upon the left.