The climactic 3rd day battle at Gettyburg, on the afternoon of July 3rd, which would culminate in "The Angle" and "High Water Mark" being forever memorialized on Cemetary Ridge, started near this location on Seminary Ridge. Here, the Virginia forces under command of Maj General George E Pickett launched a most courageous bid to collapse the center of the Union line, located across the Emmittsburg Rd, and the better part of a mile away, on Cemetary Ridge. Confederate forces under General Lewis Armistead would temporarily breach the Union line, however, that line would ultimately hold, and Pickett's division had to retreat back to Seminary Ridge with horrendous loss of life.