Blooded Egg-Heads

Describing the makeup of the Union line at Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg, upon which Confederate forces led in part by Major General George Pickett would charge:

“The 151st [Pennsylvanian] was an interesting regiment, containing several companies that had been recruited from academics. More than a hundred schoolteachers had enlisted in it, and its commander had been a principal. To the honor of all egg-heads be it known that this schoolmaster colonel took 466 of his unblooded regiment into the first day’s battle. He himself fell wounded, and the schoolboys fought so desperately that next morning they mustered only 121, under a captain.”

- Pickett’s Charge: A microhistory of the final attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, Part II, Section 6, by George R. Stewart