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Cadmus Wilcox' brigade was part of Richard Anderson's division in A. P. Hill's III Corps. The brigade consisted of five Alabama regiments--8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 14th--Arriving at Gettysburg on 1 July, Wilcox' brigade was posted about a mile south of the Chambersburg Pike, near Black Horse Tavern. On the morning of 2 July, Wilcox moved to Seminary Ridge and from there it was posted in Pitzer's Woods. While there it was involved in heavy skirmishing with about 100 of Hiram Berdan's sharpshooters accompanied by about 200 men of the 3d Maine, both units from Daniel Sickles' III Corps, who were ordered to reconnoiter and find the end of the Confederate lines. This skirmish, though not in itself important, had major implications for each side in the battle to come. For the Confederates, it led Robert E. Lee to conclude that that the Federal left was in Pitzer's Woods, when in fact they were not. For the Union, it helped convince Sickles that he was about to be attacked and, with the departure of John Buford's cavalry, that he should extend his lines forward to the Emmitsburg Road.
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