26 Facts About Lewis Armistead

Lewis Addison Armistead was a career United States Army officer who became a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Lewis Armistead died in a field hospital two days later.

Lewis Armistead, known to friends as "Lo", was born in the home of his great-grandfather, John Wright Stanly, in New Bern, North Carolina, to Walker Keith Lewis Armistead and Elizabeth Stanly.

Lewis Armistead was of entirely English descent, and all of his ancestry had been in Virginia since the early 1600s.

Lewis Armistead's father was one of five brothers who fought in the War of 1812; another was Major George Lewis Armistead, the commander of Fort McHenry during the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which would later become the national anthem of the United States.

Lewis Armistead attended the United States Military Academy, joining in 1833 but resigning the same year.

Lewis Armistead rejoined in 1834 but was found deficient and had to repeat his class once more.

Lewis Armistead was having academic difficulties particularly in French, and some historians cite academic failure as his true reason for leaving the academy.

Lewis Armistead was promoted to first lieutenant on March 30,1844.

Lewis Armistead then served in Fort Towson, Oklahoma and Fort Washita near the Oklahoma border.

Lewis Armistead continued in the Army after the Mexican War, assigned in 1849 to recruiting duty in Kentucky, where he was diagnosed with a severe case of erysipelas, but he later recovered.

Lewis Armistead was posted to Fort Dodge, but in the winter he had to take his wife Cecelia to Mobile, Alabama, where she died December 12,1850, from an unknown cause.

Lewis Armistead took leave in October 1852 to go home and help his family.

The new Lewis Armistead family traveled from post to post in Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas.

Lewis Armistead was promoted to captain on March 3,1855.

Between 1855 and 1858 Lewis Armistead served at posts on the Smoky Hill River in Kansas Territory, Bent's Fort, Pole Creek, Laramie River, and Republican Fork of the Kansas River in Nebraska Territory.

Captain Lewis Armistead was left with two infantry companies and the column's artillery to garrison Hoffman's encampment at Beale's Crossing on the east bank of the Colorado River, Camp Colorado.

Lewis Armistead was a close friend of Winfield Scott Hancock, serving with him as a quartermaster in Los Angeles, before the Civil War.

Lewis Armistead served in the western part of Virginia, but soon returned to the east and the Army of Northern Virginia.

Lewis Armistead fought as a brigade commander at Seven Pines, and then under General Robert E Lee in the Seven Days Battles, and Second Bull Run.

Lewis Armistead was mortally wounded the next day while leading his brigade towards the center of the Union line in Pickett's Charge.

Lewis Armistead led his brigade from the front, waving his hat from the tip of his saber, and reached the stone wall at The Angle, which served as the charge's objective.

Lewis Armistead was shot three times just after crossing the wall.

Lewis Armistead's wounds were not believed to be mortal; he had been shot in the fleshy part of the arm and below the knee, and according to the surgeon who tended him, none of the wounds caused bone, artery, or nerve damage.

Lewis Armistead was then taken to a Union field hospital at the George Spangler Farm where he died two days later.

Lewis Armistead is buried next to his uncle, Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, commander of the garrison of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, at the Old Saint Paul's Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.