“Double Canister at Ten Yards”

Most accounts of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg focus on General Robert E. Lee’s reasons for making the attack, its preparation, organization, and ultimate failure. In the gripping study “Double Canister at Ten Yards”: The Federal Artillery and the Repulse of Pickett’s Charge, July 3, 1863, artillery expert David Shultz focuses his examination on the Union long-arm, and explains how and why General Henry Hunt and his gunners were able to beat back the Confederate foot soldiers.

Shultz, who has studied Gettysburg for decades and walked every yard of its hallowed ground, uses official reports, letters, diaries, and other accounts to meticulously explain how Hunt and his officers and men worked tirelessly on the night of July 2 and well into July 3 to organize a lethal package of orchestrated destruction to greet the expected assault. The war witnessed many large scale assaults and artillery bombardments, but no example of defensive gunnery was more destructive than the ring of direct frontal and full-flank enfilading fire Hunt’s batteries unleashed upon Lee’s men.