One Final Charge!

On July, 2, 1863, late in the afternoon, during the pivotal second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Mississippi's Confederate General William Barksdale was extremely annoyed and frustrated. The July day was smoldering, not only from a broiling sun in a cloudless sky, but from the incessant shelling raining down on his brigade from a Union artillery battery not too far in the distance. The lateness of the hour was of a concern, and the delay of an aggressive response by his superior officers was maddening.

BJ Jordan is a doctoral student (ABD) in the International

Development Program at the University of Southern Mississippi specializing in International Relations. He received both his B.A. (2003) and M.A. (2004) in Political Science from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is a retired Miami-Dade, Florida, Sheriff's Department Sergeant (1981-2001). He is a six-year U.S. Navy cryptology veteran, having served in the Viet Nam War. His publications include a co-authored chapter with Dr. Bob Pauly on "The Centrality of Egypt to the Future of the Greater Middle East," Strategic Interests in the Middle East: Opposition or Support for U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), Ashgate Publishing, edited by Jack Covarrubias and Tom Lansford.