Hancock Avenue/
High Water Mark
The battle of Gettysburg reached a bloody climax along Cemetery Ridge on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. Hoping to smash the center of the Union line, Robert E. Lee came up with a daring plan to launch a frontal infantry attack with 11 brigades. The attack began shortly after 1 pm with an artillery assault, most of which sailed over the Union lines. Around 3 pm, more than 12,500 Southern soldiers began storming across more than a mile of open field toward a copse of trees near an angle in a stone wall that Union forces were waiting behind.
Very few Southern troops reached the wall, and more than half were killed or wounded trying. The assault, commonly (and mistakenly) named Pickett’s Charge, was a pretty much a failure. As the remains of the Army of Northern Virginia staggered back to Seminary Ridge, General Lee was waiting to apologize. The next day, Lee ordered a retreat and, although there would be nearly two more years of fighting, the tide had turned in the Civil War. The copse of trees is today known as the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.
A word of caution about visting the Hancock Avenue area: water drainage ditches run along both sides of the road, so you have to be careful when you're crossing the street. If you're looking at cannons or monuments instead of where you're going, it's real easy to trip and give yourself a nasty scrape on the knee. But if this does happen, limp over to the Cyclorama building and get help from the nice people behind the counter. They have a very good first aid kit and they seem to be used to tourists with bloody knees.
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Near the Angle |
High Water marker, behind the copse of trees |
High Water marker |
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The Angle |
Union commander George Meade |
The Electric Map presentation in the Visitors Center |
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The Pennsylvania State memorial (extra-large for the home team), pre-restoration |
Pennsylvania memorial, June 2002. Note mummy-like effect on statues |
Memorial Day 2003. Mummies are liberated, monument is not |
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The Minnesota memorial |
Pennsylvania 72 memorial |
New York's Tammany Regiment memorial |
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Scene from the Cyclorama |
Schoolkids recreating Pickett's Charge (easier with no one shooting at them) |
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