This marker was first proposed on May 5, 1887 and approved on July 12, 1887. Dedicated in 1888.
Location: Located in the Angle area, West of Cushing’s Battery.
Description: The monument was initially refused by the GBMA because it violated the “Line of Battle Rule.” However, numerous markers to fallen Union commanders had already been placed without regard for the battle line rule; this fact won on appeal and the Armistead marker was erected within the Angle. Marker is a granite shaft designed to simulate an opening scroll with an incised inscription on the face and set on a two foot square smooth cut base. Overall height is 4.6 feet.
About Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead
A career army office, Lewis Addison Armistead was born on February 18, 1817, in New Bern, North Carolina. Armistead attended West Point, but he resigned in 1836 again following an incident in which he broke a plate over the head of fellow cadet (and future Confederate general) Jubal Early. However, his father was able to get Armistead a lieutenant commission. He served with distinction in the Mexican War and later against the Mojave Indians.
Armistead resigned his commission in 1861 and headed east where he was given command of the 57th Virginia Infantry regiment. Armistead’s brigade was eventually assigned to Pickett’s Division. On July 3, he led his brigade in what became known as Pickett’s Charge and against his old friend, Winfield Scott Hancock. Armistead was mortally wounded after crossing the stonewall, near Alonzo Cushing’s guns. He died at the George Spangler Farm on July 5. Armistead was 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.
Armistead’s death is memorialized in the Friend to Friend Masonic Memorial, dedicated in 1994. Another recent marker commemorating his friendship with General Hancock is located at the Spangler Farm.