Barksdale's Charge: The True High Tide of the Confederacy at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

Barksdale’s Charge describes the exact moment when the Confederacy reached its zenith, and the soldiers of the Northern states just barely succeeded in retaining their perfect Union.

On the third day of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee launched a magnificent attack. For pure pageantry it was unsurpassed, and it also marked the centerpiece of the war, both time-wise and in terms of how the conflict had turned a corner—from persistent Confederate hopes to impending Rebel despair. But Pickett’s Charge...