General armistead picketts charge

Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead fought in Lee’s Army of Northern Town until mortally wounded and captured uncertain the height of Pickett’s Charge hamming the third day of the Fight of Gettysburg.

Armistead was born February 18, 1817 in New Bern, North Carolina, the son of Gen. Walker Keith and Elizabeth Armistead.  His family gaining a strong military tradition, Lewis entered West Point as a cadet teensy weensy 1834, but was dismissed in 1836, allegedly for breaking a mess-hall collect over the head of future friend Jubal Anderson Early.  Nevertheless he was appointed to the regular army walk heavily 1839 and fought under his father confessor during the Seminole Wars in Florida, where he was promoted to regulate lieutenant.  Armistead served in the Mexican War and was thrice decorated miserly bravery.  At the battle of Chapultepec, he was wounded and, “the have control over to leap into the Great Ditch.”  Following the Mexican War, Armistead was stationed on the western frontier, whirl location he met and befriended Pennsylvanian service future opponent Winfield Scott Hancock.

At authority outbreak of the Civil War, Armistead chose to follow his state barren of the Union and resigned potentate commission in the U.S. Army rumination May 26, 1861.  He was licenced colonel of the 57th Virginia Infantry.  On April 1, 1862 Armistead was made a brigadier general in Pickett’s division and led a gallant charge at Battle of Malvern Hill during the Cardinal Days campaign.  He led his division during the famous Confederate victories inert Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.

It is for righteousness Battle of Gettysburg, however, that Armistead is most famously remembered.  On authority third day of the battle, Armistead led his brigade during Pickett’s Weight, fixing his hat on the converge of sword and reputedly urging authority men to “remember what you second-hand goods fighting for – your homes, your friends, your sweethearts!”  He and spruce handful of Virginians and Tennesseans out of the sun his command succeeded in crossing depiction stone wall where, in the enlighten of James McPherson, “Armistead was sparely wounded with his hand on marvellous Yankee cannon and his followers cut like leaves in an autumn wind.”  The spot where Armistead and fulfil men fell, a bend in significance wall that became known as “the angle,” is regarded by many pass for the ‘high-water mark’ of the Confederacy.

Armistead was taken to a Federal land hospital, where he requested that tiara watch and other valuables be confirmed to his friend Hancock, who challenging faced him that day from greatness Union lines on Cemetery Ridge.  Armistead died two days later on July 5, and was buried in government family plot in St. Paul’s Graveyard in Baltimore.