Gettysburg

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. ...

 May 1863, after successful victories over the Army of the Potomac in Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee decides to end the war by invading Pennsylvania, destroying support infrastructure for the Union army, and thus sapping the will of the Northern States to continue their efforts to subdue the rebellion.  His troops move unopposed and undetected through the Shenandoah Valley.  Gen. Hooker, as always, is slow to respond, but finally begins moving Union troops to head off the invasion.  He is relieved of command by President Lincoln.  On June 30, 1863 Union Calvary General Buford, riding well in advance of the main Union forces, runs into elements of Confederate forces scavenging around Gettysburg for supplies and engages in brief skirmish.   Early the next morning, July 1, Confederate Gen. Pettigrew decides to engage Buford troops to determine their size and strength.  Buford men, reinforced by Reynolds troops, are slowly driven out of Gettyburg, but occupy and hold the large rolling hills including Culp's Hill southeast of the town.  Throughout the day and into the night both Confederate and Union troops send hurried word to their main armies to move quickly before the other can gain the decisive advantage. Lee decides this is the place he can finish off the Union army and engages all his forces.  General Hancock, the de facto commanding general in the field, decides this is the place the Union army must hold or perish.  So suddenly, unexpectedly, the two armies are fully engaged.  

Observation Tower from Confederate lines looking at Round Tops.  We used it to watch for the Goates.

On the morning of July 2, Confederate forces form a large arc coming from the northwest, while Union troops form a fishhook with Culp's Hill most northern position, and occupy Cemetery Ridge in the the center of the fishhook.  Union Gen. Warren surveys the area,  recognizes the vulnerability of the Union flank, sends a regiment to hold at all c occupy Little Round Top at their southern most flank.  Confederate forces under Longstreet  sweep through Devil's Den and the wheatfields at the lower slopes of the Round Tops and nearly completely surround the Union flanks at Little Round Top, but at the end of the day, the Union troops still possess the high ground thanks to the 20th Maine and Josh Chamberlain desperate bayonet counter charge.   Thousands of men lie dead strewn everywhere on the battlefield. 

ME looking out over Devil's Den from the crest of Big Round Top, the labyrinth of rocks that slowed the Confederate advance , but cost many lives to defend.

 

 

Another view from Big Round Top

Gen. Warren statue

Deep into the night, the Confederate generals decide on their strategy.  Against the advice of Longstreet, Lee decides he will engage in an all-out frontal assault of the Union center.  His plan is to overwhelm and destroy the Army of the Potomac.  The copse of trees at the center of Cemetery Ridge will be the reference point for the attack.  Union Gen. Hancock's men defend the center.  His dear friend, Confederate Gen. Armistead under the command of Gen. Pickett leads the charge against Union center,.  Against devastating cannon and musket fire, the confederate troops advance, losing men with every step.  For a brief moment, Armistead and a small group of men break through, but they arequickly shot down or captured.  The battle is over. 

The Angle, point of the Confederate breakthrough.

The copse of trees.  Landmark used for Confederate advance.

The open fields through which Pickett's men charged.

The Pennsylvania Monument to Union Troops who defended the center line.

23,000 Union troops are dead, wounded, or captured.  About the same number of Confederate troops are casualties.   As the Confederate troops retreat, the Union troops follow and the town of Gettysburg is left to bury the dead.  The stench of death is everywhere.  Many of the dead can not by identified.  Confederate dead thrown together in large burial trench.  

Some of headstones for Union Troops

Several months later, the town ask President Lincoln to attend a ceremony honoring the buried dead and a newly erected memorial to these dead.  He speaks briefly.  His words will be remembered for eternity.

The monument Lincoln came to dedicate.

I highly recommend the Museum for those 12 and over.  Its a bit pricey to do the film, cyclorama, and museum, but we've been to lots of Civil War museums and few invest in telling the story of the conflict, not just the single battle, in the great detail of this one.

The girls sit with Abe.

Photo of the cyclorama depicting Pickett's Charge.

The museum had a large section detailing the political debate and actions that finally resulted in the armed rebellion by Southerns against their federal government.  It is hard not to hear echos of the sentiments of the political debate today in the violent rhetoric and hyperbole thrown at Lincoln and arguing for succession.  There are those who would claim that the federal government seeks to enslave them, to trample on their rights, and who threaten open rebellion against the federal government.  To those that espouse this rhetoric, I beg of them to come to Gettysburg, to let its spirit distill into them and to come away resolved that these honored dead shall not have died in vain and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. 

It is worth remembering Lincoln's earlier words:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."