Character Analysis
Armistead is yet another tragic Southern general. The big Pickett's Charge chapter focuses on his perspective, since he's the one Confederate officer whose troops make it the farthest. They actually manage to get over the stone wall on the top of Cemetery Ridge, from which the Union troops are firing. But that's where it ends, and that's where the Confederacy itself seals its doom. Armistead himself croaks pretty hard in the process.
In an instance of reality being stranger than fiction—or, at least, just as dramatic—Armistead is forced (by fate?) to violate a promise he'd made to his best friend Winfield Scott Hancock, a Union general: "'Win, so help me, if I ever lift a hand against you, may God strike me dead'" (3.5.220). The Civil War was, well, a civil war: brothers fought brothers, and friends fought friends.
While it's true that Armistead doesn't literally lift a hand against Hancock—he's not personally firing shots directly at him, he does end up leading his troops right into Hancock's troops, which is effectively the same thing as attacking Hancock individually. Irony, anyone?
So, in keeping with the vow he just broke, Armistead gets shot and dies. As he lies on the field, mortally wounded, he asks a Union soldier how Hancock is doing. It turns out that Hancock's been injured too—though unbeknownst to Armistead, Hancock is actually going to survive both the battle and the war. Before dying, Armistead tells the soldier to send his apologies to Hancock: "'Will you tell General Hancock, please, that General Armistead sends his regrets. Will you tell him… how very sorry I am…" (4.4.112).