They were away from their troops when Union forces attacked. Pickett had not delegated command in his absence. Also, they were sitting in an “acoustic shadow,” where the sounds of the battle were dissipated. Pickett return to his division too late to prevent its collapse.
Yes sir, that is correct. It’s funny how acoustic shadow works. There were times on deployments we couldn’t hear artillery firing from less than 5 â 10 kilometers away, but we could see their impact.