Barksdale's Charge:
The True High Tide of Confederacy at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863
The True High Tide of Confederacy at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863
Phillip Thomas Tucker
Casemate, 2013, 315 pp., $32.95
Review by Gordon Berg
Tucker has clearly spent substantial
time in the Mississippi Department of History and Archives unearthing
interesting, if not always informative, anecdotes about the 1,600 officers and
men of the 13th, 17th, 18th, and 21st regiments, four of the eleven Mississippi
regiments in the Army of Northern Virginia. Veterans of every major engagement in the east since the war's opening
salvoes, the yeoman farmers and sons of Mississippi's planter elite had
"acquired a reputation for ferocity, combat prowess, and lethality"
at the mouths of Union cannons on Malvern Hill and in the rubble strewn streets
of Fredericksburg.
Conventional Civil War wisdom has it
that Pickett's Charge represents the Confederacy's "high tide" at
Gettysburg. But Phillip Thomas Tucker's
thoroughly researched, if highly over-written, analysis of the attack by
Brigadier General William Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade against Union forces
in the Peach Orchard on the afternoon of July 2 presents substantial evidence
for his claim that Barksdale's attack "came closer to achieving decisive
success and winning it all for the Confederacy than any other assault of the
battle."
They were led by a successful lawyer and
politician with an egalitarian sensibility. Sprung from humble roots, Barksdale's only previous military experience
was as a staff officer during the Mexican War. Nevertheless, he quickly became a successful combat commander and a firm
disciplinarian with a reputation as a soldier friendly officer who could always
be found at the front of his men. At the
end of the Seven Days campaign, Robert E. Lee declared that Barksdale exhibited
"the highest qualities of a soldier."
The sweltering afternoon of July 2 found
Barksdale's Brigade, part of James Longstreet's First Corps, in the cool shade
of Pitzer's Woods facing Joseph and Mary Sherfy's peach orchard. What they saw across a gently rolling field
was a field commander's dream: an entire Union Corps, Daniel Sickles' Third,
thrust out in a salient "hanging in the air," and vulnerable on three
sides. Tucker correctly concludes that
"More than any other Southern unit because it directly faced the Peach
Orchard, the Mississippi Brigade was now in the key position to exploit the
tactical vulnerability of Sickles' salient." After breaking through Sickles' front, Tucker
contends, "the successful assault could be continued east all the way to
Cemetery Ridge and the fulfillment of Confederate dreams."
Tucker insightfully conveys the feelings
of Barksdale and his men as they waited impatiently for the order to
advance. When the order finally came,
Tucker asserts, "it was Barksdale's charge more than any other that would
reap the fruits of victory, or else signal the failure of Confederate
strategy." What happened next and
why has been the subject of debate among old soldiers, historians, and Civil
War enthusiasts ever since. Those questions include whether the honor of achieving the Confederate high water mark. In addition to Pickett's Virginians and
Barksdale's Mississippians, some historians bestow the honor on the Georgia
regiments of Brigadier General Ambrose Wright.
All agree, however, on the bravery of the Mississippians in the face of
superior numbers and overwhelming artillery fire. The Brigade lost about 800 officers and men,
including its commanding general.
Unfortunately, Tucker's scholarship is
often overtaken by his purple prose. He
seems to have never met a cliche he didn't like or an adjective he didn't
use. An editor with an old fashioned red
pencil would have benefited author and reader alike. Nevertheless, this monograph takes a detailed
look at an event in a battle about which so much has been written.
Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org). His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.
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