Major General Winfield Scott Hancock was one of the most respected officers in the Union Army. His arrival on the battlefield July 1 helped solidify the Federal line stretching from Culp's Hill, over Cemetery Hill, and along Cemetery Ridge. During the massive artillery bombardment of the Union lines on Day 3 of the Battle, Union Major General Hancock road slowly along the lines, greatly inspiring his men as shot and shell rained all around. After conferring with General Stannard, a searing pain shot through Hancock's leg. Although painfully wounded in the upper right thigh with debris, possibly from his saddle, lodging itself eight inches into his flesh, he refused to be borne from the field until he knew that Pickett's Charge was repulsed. Hancock would later say, "I was myself wounded, but was enabled to remain on the field until the action was entirely over, when I transferred the command to Brigadier-General Caldwell." [9] The wound would never completely heal and would effect him for the remainder of his life.

Major General Hancock would later offer his version of the events of that day. "...this corps sustained its well-earned reputation on many fields, and that the boast of its gallant first commander, the late Maj. Gen. E. V. Sumner, that the Second Corps had "never given to the enemy a gun or color," holds good now as it did under the command of my predecessor, Major-General Couch. To attest to its good conduct and the perils through which it has passed, it may be stated that its losses in battle have been greater than those of any other corps in the Army of the Potomac, or probably in the service, notwithstanding it has usually been numerically weakest." [5]