Battle of Gettysburg: Pickett's Charge

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Battle of Gettysburg: Pickett's Charge is an oil-on-canvas painting by Peter F. Rothermel from 1870. It shows Pickett's Charge, the climactic moment of the Battle of Gettysburg, when Confederate general George Pickett led a frontal attack on Union lines with disastrous results. The work symbolizes the high-water mark of the Confederacy and is now in the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.

The painting was part of a project to depict key moments from Gettysburg. In 1866, Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtin proposed a set of five panels for display in Harrisburg’s city library. A committee chose Rothermel, who spent years researching the battle, interviewing veterans, and visiting Gettysburg to study the terrain before painting.

The Pickett’s Charge panel is the largest of the five. It measures about 16 feet tall and 32 feet wide (roughly 4.9 by 9.8 meters) and took more than a year and a half to complete. Rothermel even arranged for several veterans to sit for their likenesses, including General George Meade.

Because the panel was too big for the library, it was first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, then in a special hall on Tenth and Chestnut streets. It later toured the country, visiting Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, and was displayed in Memorial Hall during the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. When the state built a new library and State Department building in 1894, the painting was moved to the state capitol. In 1964 it was placed in the Civil War wing of the State Museum of Pennsylvania. It remains the largest single-panel painting by an American artist from the 19th century.

Rothermel faced the challenge of portraying a three-day battle across five paintings. For the main piece, he chose Pickett’s Charge as the dramatic focus and presented the action from the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers rather than concentrating on famous generals. He drew on multiple sources and found Frank A. Haskell’s recollections most aligned with Meade’s account, guiding the composition. Although Meade is pictured in the scene, he later admitted he was not on the field during the repulse. The choice to include Meade helped complete the scene, and contemporary reviewers largely accepted the decision.