Lewis Armistead Facts

Full Name:

• Lewis Addison Armistead

Birth Date:

• February 18, 1817

Birth Location:

• New Bern, North Carolina

Parents:

• Walker Keith Armistead and Elizabeth (Stanly) Armistead

Education:

• United States Military Academy (did not graduate)

Occupation:

• Military officer

Career Summary:

• Captain (USA), Brevet Major (USA),
• Brigadier General (CSA)

Spouses:

• Cecelia Lee Love (1844),
• Cornelia Taliaferro Jamison (1853)

Nickname(s):

• Lo

Place of Death:

• Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Date of Death:

• July 5, 1863

Place of Burial:

• Old Saint Paul’s Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Significance:

• Armistead’s grandfather, John Stanly, was a U.S. Congressman.
• Armistead’s uncle, Edward Stanly, served as military governor of eastern North Carolina during the Civil War.
• Armistead’s father and his five brothers served in the War of 1812.
• Armistead’s uncle, George, commanded Fort McHenry during the British attack that inspired The Star Spangled Banner during the War of 1812.
• Armistead entered the United States Military Academy in 1833, but resigned in 1835 due to academic deficiencies and poor conduct.
• Armistead resigned from the United States Military Academy after an incident in which he broke a plate over the head of fellow cadet Jubal Early.
• Despite the fact that Armistead did not graduate from West Point, his father was able to obtain a second lieutenant’s commission in the United States Army for his son on July 10, 1839.
• Armistead was promoted to first lieutenant on March 30, 1844.
• Armistead’s married Cecelia Lee Love, a distant cousin of Robert E. Lee, in 1844.
• Armistead served in the Mexican-American War (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848), during which he was promoted to brevet captain and then to brevet major.
• Armistead was wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec (September 1847) during the Mexican-American War (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848).
• Between the Mexican-American War (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) and the American Civil War, Armistead served at numerous posts in the American West.
• Armistead’s wife, Cecelia, died on December 12, 1850.
• Armistead married his second wife, the widow Cornelia Taliaferro Jamison, in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 17, 1853.
• Armistead’s second wife, Cornelia, died during a cholera epidemic, on August 2, 1855.
• Armistead was promoted to captain in 1855.
• When the American Civil War began, resigned his commission on May 26, 1861, left his post in San Diego, California and joined the Confederate Army.
• Armistead was commissioned into the Confederate Army as a major on September 15, 1861.
• Armistead was promoted to the rank of colonel on September 23, 1861.
• Armistead was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on April 1, 1862.
• Armistead served with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Seven Pines (May 31 – June 1, 1862), the Seven Days Battles (June 25 – July 1, 1862), the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 28 – 30, 1862), the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), and the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 11 – 15, 1862).
• Armistead was assigned to duty as provost marshal of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on September 6, 1862.
• During the Battle of Gettysburg, Armistead was shot three times while leading his brigade during Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863.
• During Pickett’s Charge, Armistead’s brigade got further than any Confederate troops, reaching their objective before being driven back by a Union counterattack. Some historians refer to Armistead’s advance as the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.
• Although doctors did not believe Armistead’s Gettysburg wounds to be serious at first, he died in a Union field hospital two days later, on July 5, 1863.
• Armistead is buried in Old Saint Paul’s Cemetery, at Baltimore, Maryland.
• Armistead was a principal character in Michael Shaara’s popular 1974 novel, The Killer Angels, which was adapted as a feature film, Gettysburg, released in 1993.
• Armistead’s nickname was “Lo,” short for Lothario, indicating a handsome and seductive ladies’ man. The nickname was a lighthearted allusion to the fact that Armistead’s personality was the opposite.