George Edward Pickett was appointed to West Point by Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln. Despite the large number of bayonet charges shown in the movie, there was actually no documented bayonet wound during the battle. Most of the hand to hand fighting was done with clubbed muskets. In his work Pickett's Charge, George R. Stewart states that most of the Confederate soldiers did not have a bayonet since they had thrown it away (a not uncommon practice by both sides). The bullet that causes Winfield Scott Hancock's wound actually never hits him. Instead it dislodges a ten penny nail from his horse's saddle which strikes the II Corps commander in the groin. Hancock, misunderstanding the source of the nail, uses it as part of his argument with Meade to pursue the Confederate army. "They must be damn low on ammunition if they're down to shooting nails." Chamberlain's heroic efforts were not rewarded with the Congressional Medal of Honor until 1894. The intensity of musket fire at and in front of the Angle was such that where Archer's brigade crossed the fences along one road, a single board, measuring fourteen inches wide and sixteen feet long showed 836 bullet holes. The only documented stab wound was in the shoulder of a Union soldier who received it from the color bearer of the 13th Alabama who had attached a lance point to the end of his regiment's color staff. Stewart estimates that Confederates in Pickett's Charge withstood 500 rounds of canister fire. If each canister contained 30 balls, the number of projectiles would be 15,000. By contrast at the beginning of the assault about 5300 Union muskets were available, eventually reduced to about 4000 at the end of the engagement. Allowing an average of 5000 muskets firing throughout the assault, it is possible to estimate the number of musket balls. Assuming an average of 30 rounds per man yields a total of 150,000 rounds — or ten times that of canister. While it was traditional for officers to carry swords, Lieutenant Stephen Brown of the 13th Vermont did not. He had been relieved of command on the night of July 1 for leaving ranks to fill the canteens of his men, and forced to surrender his sword. The next morning he was released from arrest but by this time his sword had been sent to the rear. As a symbol of command all he could find was a simple hatchet. At the start of the third day he was still armed that way and met the approaching Confederates like an Indian brave brandishing a tomahawk. According to contemporary records, the Union line and the Confederate forces were on different times, their watches set about twenty three minutes apart from one another. Union sources state that the "Cannonade" started at 1:07 PM, while Confederate records are universal in claiming 1:30 PM as the time of the signal shot. Among the men of the 14th Connecticut was Private Joseph L. Pierce, who, pigtail and all, was the only Chinese in the Army of the Potomac. After he was wounded Lewis Armistead was heard, during a lull in the musketry, calling for assistance as "the son of a widow." It is assumed that this was the code for some secret society as several men of the 72nd Pennsylvania requested permission of an officer to go to his aid. Back to Cry Havoc #10 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com