Last Words
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...." Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick at Spotsylvania (1864)
The plaque reads:
- Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, commander of the Sixth Corps, was one of the most popular senior officers in the Army of the Potomac. On the morning of May 9, 1864, Sedgwick arrived here to direct some minor redeployment of his troops. Ignoring warnings from his chief-of-staff, Sedgwick stalked about admonishing his men to cease worrying about the occasional fire of Confederate sharpshooters concealed in the woodline far to your front. "I am ashamed of you dodging that way, " scoffed Sedgwick. "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Shortly thereafter, a bullet slammed into the general's face, killing him almost instantly.
- The shot that killed John Sedgwick, the highest-ranking Northern officer to die on a Civil War battlefield, came from a Whitworth rifle at a distance of more than 500 yards. The identity of the marksman who fired the fatal shot remains a mystery, although at least five Confederate soldiers later claimed responsibility.
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