INSIDE PICKETT'S CHARGE

On 3 July 1863 a Confederate regiment – the 19th Virginia Infantry – marched into the jaws of Hell in one of the most infamous events in American military history

- WORDS RICK BRITTON

It was the afternoon of the third day. Vicious fighting had already consumed the first two days of that hot July, and the fatalities still lay about as grim, blackened reminders of the horrible work at hand. As the artillery fire subsided, 12,000 Confederates in grey and butternut formed quickly under battle flags of crimson and blue. When they advanced, the Confederate regiments marched quietly and confidently, their lines perfectly dressed. "I have never since the war began seen troops enter a fight in such splendid order," wrote correspondent Jonathan Albertson. Then the Federal artillery opened up on them.

Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on 3 July 1863 is arguably the most infamous infantry assault in American military history, the 'high-water mark of the Confederacy'. That afternoon, Confederate Major General George E Pickett's Virginia Division attacked across open fields against a strong Federal position on Cemetery Ridge. In Brigadier General Richard B Garnett's brigade of that division, 426 Confederates traversed that valley of death as the 19th Virginia Infantry. This is their story.

Organised in May 1861, the 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment served in the 'Gamecock Brigade' led by the 46-year-old Garnett, an 1841 West Point graduate who had served in the Seminole War in Florida. Garnett's Gamecocks and two other like-sized brigades comprised Pickett's 6,000-man force. Like Garnett, Pickett had attended West Point, graduating at the bottom of the 1846 class.