Fixed bayonets was part of Confederate Gen. Lafayette McLaws’s order for the attacking troops. So those who still had their bayonets fitted them to the barrels of their Enfields and Springfields in preparation for the assault on Fort Sanders.

More than a few of the men in the Mississippi and Georgia regiments of the initial assault had long before thrown their bayonets away, since the “pig stickers” were seldom used and, in their heavy leather scabbards, were just extra weight on the march.

Indeed, their unloaded rifles were probably better use as clubs for bashing skulls. Since at least one Confederate surgeon had concluded that Minie ball bullets were much more effective devices for wounding or crippling than the fearsome bayonet.