The peak of the battle

This memorial marks the place where General Lewis Armistead fell mortally wounded. A lot of people were mortally wounded in the Civil War... infection had not yet been diagnosed as a serious problem and there were no drugs to treat it. Many soldiers died from wounds months or even years after they were injured. At any rate, Armistead led his troops from the woods in the far distance clear up to the ridge where I took the photo; his signature gig was to carry his hat on the tip of his sword during a charge as a beacon to his troops. He fell at the farthest point Confederate troops reached in their attempt to break the Union lines.

One of Armistead's closest friends, Winfield Scott Hancock, was a general on the Union side, leading troops in the same sector! Though they never saw each other during the battle, Hancock was apparently only several hundred yards from his friend at the climax of the fighting. Hancock and Armistead became friends when they were at West Point decades before the war...such relationships were common between Union and Confederate officers.