Henry Heth Henry " Harry " Heth ( not ; December 16 , 1825 – September 27 , 1899 ) was a career United States Army officer , a Confederate general in the American Civil War , and a cousin of George Pickett . Heth worked closely with Robert E . Lee , who made him a divisional commander . He is generally blamed for accidentally starting the Battle of Gettysburg before Lee was ready . Against orders , he sent forward a reconnaissance force that collided with Union troops and was beaten back . Heth insisted that he had wanted to capture a local shoe - factory , to equip Lee ’ s barefoot army , but historians doubt this claim . Early life . Heth was born at Black Heath in Chesterfield County , Virginia , son of United States Navy Captain John Heth , and Margaret L . Pickett . He was a cousin of George Pickett . He usually went by " Harry , " the name also preferred by his grandfather , American Revolutionary War Colonel Henry Heth , who had established the Heth family in the coal business in the Virginia Colony after emigrating from England about 1759 . He was one of the few generals whom Robert E . Lee called by his first name . Heth graduated from the United States Military Academy at the bottom of his class in 1847 ; he was wounded at West Point in 1846 with a bayonet stab to his leg . He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment . His antebellum career was served primarily in western posts , some as a quartermaster . He was serving as a first lieutenant in the 6th Infantry when John C . Symmes III refused a captaincy in the new 10th Infantry on March 3 , 1855 , and Heth was appointed in his place . He played a prominent role in the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow leading a company of mounted infantry against the Lakota . In 1858 , he created the first marksmanship manual for the Army . Civil War . After the war began at Fort Sumter , Heth resigned from the U . S . Army and joined the Confederate States Army . He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and served for a brief time as Robert E . Lee ' s quartermaster in the Virginia Provisional Army , but that time was influential for his career , because Lee looked out for Harry for the rest of the war . He spent the remainder of 1861 in the Kanawha Valley in western Virginia in the 5th and 45th Virginia Infantry regiments . He was promoted to brigadier general on January 6 , 1862 , and sent west to the Department of East Tennessee , to serve under Kirby Smith . During the Kentucky Campaign , he was sent by Smith to take a division north from Lexington , Kentucky , to make a demonstration on Cincinnati ; although this caused a great commotion in the city ' s defenses , only a few skirmishes occurred . In March 1863 , Lee brought Heth back into his command , the Army of Northern Virginia , as a brigade commander in Maj . Gen . A . P . Hill ' s division . He fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville , showing aggressive , but misguided , qualities in his first large - scale combat , attacking without reserves against a Union force emerging from the Wilderness . He assumed temporary command of the division when Hill was wounded . Following the death of Thomas J . " Stonewall " Jackson , Lee reorganized his army into three corps , promoting Hill to the Third Corps . Heth retained his division command and was promoted to major general on May 24 , 1863 . Heth ' s division made history by inadvertently starting the Battle of Gettysburg . Marching east from Cashtown on July 1 , 1863 , Heth sent two brigades ahead in a reconnaissance in force . His memoirs referred to sending them in a search of shoes in Gettysburg , but some historians consider this an apocryphal story ; they say Heth knew that Jubal A . Early had been in Gettysburg a few days earlier and any available shoes would have been taken at that time . They also consider sending two brigades on such a mission would have been wasteful . The brigades made contact with Union cavalry under Brig . Gen . John Buford and spread out into battle formation . Lee had ordered A . P . Hill to avoid a general engagement with the enemy before he could assemble his full army , but Heth ' s actions had now rendered that order moot . They were engaged and Union reinforcements started arriving quickly . Heth ' s decision to deploy his two brigades before the arrival of the rest of his division was an error as well ; they were repulsed in hard fighting against an elite division of the Army of the Potomac ' s I Corps , including the famously tenacious Iron Brigade . After a lull in fighting , Heth brought two more brigades into the fray in the afternoon and the Union forces were driven back to Seminary Ridge , but principally because the XI Corps ' right flank was crushed by Richard S . Ewell ' s corps coming in from the north . Finally , Heth attacked again in conjunction with the division of Maj . Gen . Robert E . Rodes and the Union corps were routed , retreating back through town to Cemetery Hill . But Confederate losses were severe ; Heth should have better coordinated his attack with the division of Maj . Gen . Dorsey Pender . Heth was wounded during the attack when a bullet struck him in the head . Fortunately for him , he was wearing a hat that was too large and stuffed with papers to make it fit . The papers probably deflected the bullet to avoid a fatal wound , but Heth was knocked unconscious and effectively out of the battle . Parts of his division , under the command of Brig . Gen . Johnston Pettigrew , saw more action two days later in Pickett ' s Charge and he recovered enough to command during the retreat back to Virginia and the minor engagements of the fall of 1863 . Harry Heth commanded his division through the 1864 Overland Campaign , the Siege of Petersburg . Following the death of Gen . A . P . Hill on April 2 , 1865 , Heth briefly took over command of the Third Corps . Heth ' s troops , now led by Gen . John R . Cooke , were pushed back at the Battle of Sutherland ' s Station . Heth led the remainder of his troops in the retreat of the Appomattox Campaign to Appomattox Court House , where he surrendered with Lee on April 9 , 1865 . Postbellum years . After the war , Heth worked in the insurance business and later served the government as a surveyor and in the Office of Indian Affairs . He died in Washington , D . C . , and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond , Virginia . Heth served as the first Commander of the Centennial Legion of Historic Military Commands when it was founded in 1876 . In popular media . Heth was portrayed by Warren Burton in the 1993 film " Gettysburg " , based on Michael Shaara ' s novel , " The Killer Angels " .