Lewis Armistead

Lewis Addison Armistead (February 18, 1817 – July 5, 1863) was a career United States Army officer who became a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. On July 3, 1863, as part of Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg, Armistead led his brigade to the farthest point reached by Confederate forces during the charge, a point now referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. However, he and his men were overwhelmed, and he was wounded and captured by Union troops. He died in a field hospital two days later. Early life Armistead, known to friends as "Lo" (for Lothario), was born in the home of his great-grandfather, John Wright Stanly, in New Bern, North Carolina, to Walker Keith Armistead and Elizabeth Stanly. He came from an esteemed military family. Armistead was of entirely English descent, and all of his ancestry had been in Virginia since the early 1600s. The first of his ancestors to emigrate to North America was William Armistead from Yorkshire, England. Armistead's father was one of five brothers who fought in the War of 1812; another was Major George Armistead, the commander of Fort McHenry during the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which would later become the national anthem of the United States. On his mother's side, his grandfather John Stanly was a U.S. Congressman, and his uncle Edward Stanly served as military governor of eastern North Carolina during the Civil War. Armistead attended the United States Military Academy, joining in 1833 but resigning the same year. He rejoined in 1834 but was found deficient and had to repeat his class once more. In 1836 he resigned again following an incident in which he broke a plate over the head of fellow cadet (and future Confederate general) Jubal Early. He was also having academic difficulties, however, particularly in French (a subject of difficulty for many West Point cadets of that era), and some historians cite academic failure as his true reason for leaving the academy. His influential father managed to obtain for his son a second lieutenant's commission in the 6th U.S. Infantry on July 10, 1839, at roughly the time his classmates graduated. He was promoted to first lieutenant on March 30, 1844. Armistead's first marriage was to Cecelia Lee Love, a distant cousin of Robert E. Lee, in 1844. They had two children: Walker Keith Armistead and Flora Lee Armistead.