Pickett's Charge: Revised and Updated: A New Look at Gettysburg's Final Attack

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

Overview

"The book is most interesting for the bright nuggets of information Tucker presents as he unfolds the attack minute by minute, foot by foot.... The account is a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.” —The New York Times Book Review

"[Pickett's Charge] contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts." —Kirkus Reviews

"Takes issue with many long-held assumptions and analysis of the famous attack and seeks to revise many of the long-held misconceptions about Lee's plans, the course of the attack, and the ultimate reasons for its failure.... Overall, the author does a workmanlike job." —New York Journal of Books

The Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War’s turning point, produced over 57,000 casualties, the largest number from the entire war that was itself America’s bloodiest conflict. On the third day of fierce fighting, Robert E. Lee’s attempt to invade the North came to a head in Pickett’s Charge. The infantry assault, consisting of nine brigades of soldiers in a line that stretched for over a mile, resulted in casualties of over 50 percent for the Confederates and a huge psychological blow to Southern morale.

Pickett’s Charge is a detailed analysis of one of the most iconic and defining events in American history. This book presents a much-needed fresh look, including the unvarnished truths and ugly realities, about the unforgettable story. With the luxury of hindsight, historians have long denounced the folly of Lee’s attack, but this work reveals the tactical brilliance of a master plan that went awry. Special emphasis is placed on the common soldiers on both sides, especially the non-Virginia attackers outside of Pickett’s Virginia Division. These fighters’ moments of cowardice, failure, and triumph are explored using their own words from primary and unpublished sources. Without romance and glorification, the complexities and contradictions of the dramatic story of Pickett's Charge have been revealed in full to reveal this most pivotal moment in the nation’s life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510755734
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	11/24/2020
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Phillip Thomas Tucker, PhD, is a writer and historian who has edited and authored more than two dozen books and written over sixty scholarly articles. After earning his PhD in 1990, he took a position as civilian historian with the Department of Defense and specialized in air force history. His previous books include George Washington’s Surprise Attack, Exodus from the Alamo, and Father of the Tuskegee Airmen, John C. Robinson. He lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
 

Table of Contents

Gettysburg Time Line: Leading up to Pickett's Charge xi

Introduction xxi

Chapter I Genesis of Pickett's Charge: Evolution of a Brilliant Tactical Plan 1

Chapter II The War's Greatest Artillery Bombardment 48

Chapter III Orchestrating the War's Most Magnificent Charge 83

Chapter IV A Carefully Calculated Case of Going for Broke 109

Chapter V Running the Artillery Gauntlet 171

Chapter VI The Terrible "Vortex of Fire" along the Emmitsburg Road 205

Chapter VII Overrunning the Angle 252

Chapter VIII Capturing Additional Union Cannon 314

Chapter IX Requiem for an American Tragedy 348

Epilogue 368

Appendix: Women Warriors in Pickett's Charge 376

About the Author 378

Notes 379

Index 458

Editorial Reviews

“What new could there be to say about the afternoon of the third day of the fight of Gettysburg, the most scrutinized battle in American history? Plenty, if it is examined with a microscope, as Phillip Thomas Tucker does impressively in Pickett's Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack… The book is most interesting for the bright nuggets of information Tucker presents as he unfolds the attack minute by minute, foot by foot… The account is a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.” – The New York Times Book Review

"[Pickett's Charge] contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts." —Kirkus

"Takes issue with many long-held assumptions and analysis of the famous attack and seeks to revise many of the long-held misconceptions about Lee's plans, the course of the attack, and the ultimate reasons for its failure... Overall, the author does a workman like job." -New York Journal of Books

"In his almost minute-by-minute account of the most famous infantry charge in history, Phillip Thomas Tucker provides a thoughtful and challenging new look at the great assault at Gettysburg, from planning to aftermath. Not afraid to lay blame where he thinks it belongs, Tucker is fresh and bold in his analysis and use of sources. Even though any reader knows in advance the outcome, still Pickett's Charge maintains suspense to the sound of the last gun." -William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—The War they Fought, the Peace they Forged

"No action in the Civil War is more iconic than the misnamed 'Pickett’s Charge,' and yet few episodes of this most-studied of wars is in need of more enlightened and enlightening reexamination. Phillip Thomas Tucker’s magisterial Pickett’s Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack replaces 150-plus years of uninterrogated mythology with meticulously researched history to give us a new and long-overdue understanding of what tradition dismisses as Robert E. Lee’s most tragic error in pursuit of a 'Lost Cause.' Tucker persuasively argues that Pickett’s Charge, though failed in its execution, actually reveals Lee at his most masterful. This book is one of a handful essential to gaining a full strategic and tactical appreciation of both Gettysburg and the war in which it was the turning point." —Alan Axelrod, author of The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission and The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War

"Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts through the myths and misconceptions that surround Pickett's charge to offer a fresh defense of Robert E. Lee and a probing examination of what happened that fateful afternoon. The result is a thought-provoking and eye-opening study of this pivotal moment in American history." —Louis P. Masur, PhD. Distinguished Professor of American studies and History, Rutgers University, and author of The Civil War: A Concise History

"In nearly all recent surveys, Americans list the Battle of Gettysburg as the most recognizable and most important of all battles in our history. And, when asked what they know about Gettysburg, to top of that list is Pickett’s Charge. When pressed a little harder, if they know anything about the charge, most will say it was a disaster, that General Lee didn’t know what he was doing, that there was no way it could have succeeded, and so forth. Relying heavily on the combatants’s first-hand accounts, Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts away the myths and offers a fresh new interpretation that challenges long held views of the story. Rather than seeing Pickett’s Charge as foolhardy, Tucker considers Lee’s plan as a stroke of genius, and that, had a few things gone differently, could well have ended the war in favor of the Confederacy." —Robert K. Sutton, former Chief Historian, National Park Service

From the Publisher

What new could there be to say about the afternoon of the third day of the fight of Gettysburg, the most scrutinized battle in American history? Plenty, if it is examined with a microscope, as Phillip Thomas Tucker does impressively in Pickett's Charge…The book is most interesting for the bright nuggets of information Tucker presents as he unfolds the attack minute by minute, foot by foot…a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.

The New York Times Book Review - Thomas E. Ricks

2016-05-31
A popular historian deconstructs "the greatest assault of the greatest battle of America's greatest war."Judging by the battlefield remains of combatants uncovered in 1996 or the 2014 Medal of Honor President Barack Obama bestowed on an artillery officer who helped thwart the Confederate assault, the real-world aftermath of Pickett's Charge continues to unfold. Certainly, controversy persists among Civil War historians about precisely what happened on July 3, 1863, when Robert E. Lee went for broke and the "high tide of the Rebellion" was repulsed. Tucker (George Washington's Surprise Attack: A New Look at the Battle that Decided the Fate of America, 2014, etc.) tracks the assault from the opening, unprecedented artillery bombardment to the end, where "the foremost attacker of Pickett's Charge was killed near the open crest of so much strategic importance." Determined to spotlight some hidden or neglected truths, he dots this narrative with various pieces of odd information, including, for example, the curious tendency of soldiers armed with bayonets during the intense fighting to eschew their use in favor of clubbing each other with muskets. The author also pauses to add a list and description of soldiers severely wounded in the groin and testicles. He comments on the precise nature of the terrain the attackers traversed, the disproportionate influence of Virginia Military Institute graduates within Pickett's division, the considerable number of Irish and Germans among the Confederates, and the diversity of their backgrounds, facts at odds with the romanticism about "the very flower" of Southern culture and refinement that perished that day. More than anything, Tucker aims to pierce the myth that Lee's plan was doomed. He argues that given the South's need to strike a decisive blow, Lee's tactics, a complex mix of artillery, infantry, and cavalry, were sound, that in spite of subordinate officers' failures of leadership, communication, and execution, the assault came excruciatingly close to succeeding. Blemished by repetitive prose and a needlessly bumptious tone, Tucker's narrative nevertheless contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts.

Kirkus Reviews