Pickett or Pettigrew? an Historical Essay

Written barely twenty-five years after the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, this passionate historical essay pits memory against mythology. W.R. Bond, a North Carolina veteran, zeroes in on the third day of the battle and the assault that has come to bear one man's name: Pickett's Charge. But Bond insists history has gotten it wrong. He argues that Brigadier General Johnston Pettigrew's brigade, along with other North Carolina troops, bore the brunt of the assault and suffered catastrophic losses only to be written out of the narrative by later historians more enamored of Virginia's heroes. Through careful analysis of troop positions, casualties, and surviving accounts, Bond constructs a meticulous defense of Pettigrew's honor and the valor of Hill's Corps soldiers who followed orders into the teeth of Union artillery. The prose burns with the conviction of a man who was there, who watched his comrades fall, and who could not abide their sacrifice being diminished. For readers interested in how history gets written, who gets remembered, and why certain stories take hold while others fade, this essay offers a fascinating window into the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and the fight to control its memory.