Pickett's Charge Was the Beginning of the End

Pickett's charge, brilliant, heroic, was nevertheless the beginning of the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the north, and he knew it. The south was doomed. Few generals in all history had had the courage and character to admit that. As Pickett's beaten and bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate lines, Robert E. Lee rode out to meet them all alone. All this has been my fault, he confessed. I, and I alone, have lost this battle.