Speaking of anniversaries, today is the 139th anniversary of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, which was the high-water mark for the Confederate cause.

In the words of Faulkner:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet…”

Lee’s army retreated that evening, and Grant took Vicksburg the next day, sundering the would-be nation in half, on the Fourth of July. A little less than two years later, Lee would surrender to him at Appomattox Courthouse.