Carolyn and I walked the path of the Pickett-Trimble-Pettigrew Charge of July 3, 1863 in Gettysburg. The path is about one mile of open farmland. There are a few swales where a man could find some respite if he were to lay down. Otherwise, there is a clear view of Little Round Top, from which Union artillery pounded the Confederate flanks, and straight ahead where the artillery belched fire and death right at them. And behind the low stone wall, men in blue with their heads down and their muskets primed, waited for the order to come up and fire into the faces of the butternut-uniformed men. I can feel it here, as I cross the Emmitsburg Road. I can feel that this land, this very piece of ground on which I stand, was trodden and bloodied, and horrors I cannot imagine took place here where now I walk in peace on this sunny Spring day. I cross the Angle, where the Virginians broke through, where General Armistead met his fate with his sword held high and his hat on the tip, shouting “on you Virginians!”
I walk to the cannons silently keeping vigil where the air turned pink from the point-blank double-cannister fire. I feel it here, too, the memories of those who came here in war and bloodlust, and never left this field. As I return on the path of the defeated army, back to West Confederate Avenue, I feel the bewilderment of those survivors who could still walk, not understanding how General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the invincible army, could have suffered this devastating defeat. I can almost hear General Lee, his hat in hand, peering at his men, saying, “It is all my fault.” I must respect the men who could have born such horrors and kept marching forward as hundreds fell around them in gruesome deaths. And finally I hear General Pickett, after General Lee told him to rally his division for defense from a counterattack, saying, “Sir, I have no division.”
We're All Mad Here 