“When [Northern] artillery opened on Pettigrew’s division, the fire was so devastating that, as [General Isaac] Trimble observed, Pettigrew’s division “seemed to sink into the earth under the tempest of fire.” Responding lustily to the stirring command, “Three cheers for the Old North State,” Pettigrew’s North Carolinians halted, coolly returned the enemy’s fire, and then, giving a wild yell, dashed forward once again into the flame.
The North Carolinians sullenly withdrew from the field only after Pickett’s division was almost destroyed…The desperate onslaught of the North Carolinians in this battle is fully attested by their opponents, who by their own admission were on the verge of retreat; and the Confederate records attest the feats of valor under devastating fire of the five North Carolina regiments in Pettigrew’s division which lost nearly as many men in killed and wounded as the fifteen regiments in Pickett’s division.” MORE.
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
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