After two days of inconclusive fighting against the Union flanks at Gettysburg, General Lee ordered an attack against the center on July 3, known to history as “Pickett’s Charge.” C.S.A. colonel Edward P. Alexander’s artillery barrage tried to weaken the Union defenses, after which the infantry, under command of Lieutenant General James Longstreet, charged the Union center. Longstreet asked Alexander to advise Pickett whether or not to make the charge based on his artillery’s effectiveness against the enemy, and Alexander’s postwar scrapbook included Longstreet’s original battlefield notes and his own replies. Pickett’s Charge was a disaster for the Confederates.