Chaos, Captured and a Dead Chaplain - A Unique Perspective From Above: Gettysburg 158 Live!

hey everybody welcome welcome and i can't believe that i've been to gettysburg lived here for a while too so many times and we continue to gain access to places i've never stood before this is my first time up here at this particular place i'm even going to reserve what place that is for just a second but you're with the american battlefield trust you're on our youtube channel if you haven't subscribed yet we hope you'll click subscribe and that you'll also share this video with your friends propagating more american history and therefore our democracy i'm right away i'm going right all out with that i'm gary edelman that's chris white behind the camera we have other guests up here with us we also have an enormous bell you'll probably get a look at before too long but um we are in gettysburg it's gettysburg 158 and we're gonna start uh with my friend and the director of the adams county historical society andrew dalton take it away andrew thanks gary oh my gosh what an incredible view we have here we got all kinds of friends around and we're going to tell you some stories we are in the chapel cupola the cupola of christ lutheran church in gettysburg on chambersburg street this cupola is high up above town and we can see the seminary we can see the college and tim's going to actually take us around in a few minutes and show us all the different views that we have from here but i wanted to start with one story that's specific to this location and it's really incredible you know the black community here in gettysburg there were about 200 people at the time of the civil war and they lived in fear we're eight miles from the mason-dixon line the line between freedom and slavery many of them have been born here in adams county some came from the south from maryland and virginia but it was a a very diverse community with all kinds of different backgrounds and stories um and many of them worked in the in the homes here in gettysburg washer women as domestic servants some of them were laborers on the farms around gettysburg some were blacksmiths and teachers um and we have one story specific to this this building albertus mccreary who lived on baltimore street had a servant who worked for the family named old liz and he wrote in an account years later we never expected to see old liz again of course there was an exodus of the black community before the battle to get away from the confederates to move north toward harrisburg to safety um so he wrote they never expected to see old liz again but the day after the battle ended old liz came back to the home and walking in exclaimed thank god i'm alive yet we all crowded around her anxious to know how she had got away i wish i could repeat her story as she told it to us that is more than i can undertake but the main fact was this she was marched with the rest down the street they had evidently gathered up african-american residents and marched them down the street she was marched down the street and there was such a crowd that when they were opposite the lutheran church in the confusion she slipped into the church without being seen and climbed up into the belfry she stayed there for two days without anything to eat or drink and then it made it back to the the home of the mercuries on baltimore street after the battle so this is just one example of of the fear felt by the african-american community here in gettysburg living so close to the line between freedom and slavery and of course having an invading confederate army that was not at all sympathetic to the status of free blacks whether or not they had been born here many of them never knew slavery a day in their lives but they were taken large groups were gathered up and marched south uh we know this happened all around here during the gettysburg campaign in the summer of 1863. so now to talk a little bit more about the church i'm going to pass things over to my colleague our historian at the adams county historical society tim smith he'll tell us about the church and a little bit more about what we're looking at here so uh again we're in the cupola of the christ lutheran church which was constructed in 1835 and the church has been renovated a few times since the civil war but it's probably the one church in town that mostly retains its original civil war appearance and uh so this cupola was here at the time now there were some trees between here and seminary ridge along chambersburg street today it's pretty much open but you have an excellent view of the area west and north of the town where the first days fighting occurred and we can actually look out to the lutheran theological seminary just west of the town and if we look across to the north you'll see that large body of woods that we tend to refer to as the wills macpherson woods because it was partly owned by james j wills and edward mcpherson sometimes it's called the railroad woods because it was along the unfinished railroad but farther to the right uh uh beyond gladfelter hall in the college of getty the campus of gettysburg college you can actually see out to the right oak hill where we were earlier today and you can see the eternal light peace memorial above the hill and then of course gettysburg college dominates the area below it and you really can't see the open plain north of the town but it's out in that direction and this is where the first day of the battle was far in the fields north and west of the town and during the afternoon of july first the northern army was outnumbered they were overwhelmed and they were driven through the town and it must have been a spectacle here on the evening of the first day of the battle as thousands of northern soldiers retreated into the town from the west and into the town from the north and here on chambersburg street it was a scene of chaos and confusion one girl in town said that at the height of the retreat she could have walked across the street on the heads of the soldiers the crowd was so great the christ lutheran church early in the fight became a hospital and this became the hospital specifically for the second division of the first army corps john cleveland robinson and robinson's divisions wounded gathered here and a lady across the street mary mcallister actually came over to the church and cared for the wounded throughout the day until the northern army started to retreat through the town and she's got a great account of the first days fighting she said she came out of the church and she wanted to go directly across the street to our house but the force of the soldiers retreating down the street they kept pushing her and she said by the time she crossed the street she was at the corner of the square the crowd was so great and when she got to her house the door was open and her house was filled with wounded soldiers the southern army of course overran the town they captured the town and they held it for two days but here to tell us a little bit about some an incident that occurred in front of this church during a retreat is dug down thanks tim so as we sit here we talked about uh tim mentioned that the 90th pennsylvania from robinson's division would retreat from back up on the ridgeline just behind us and as they would retreat back through town of course this becomes a hospital almost 140 men are treated in this sanctuary downstairs they would conduct amputations on the tops of pews and they would throw the amputated arms and legs outside of the church windows and in fact the 90th the reverend of the 90th pennsylvania was a man named hiroshio stockton howe is a presbyterian minister gone earlier in his life had been a a had been a minister in delaware water gap pennsylvania just along the delaware river a church that my parents belonged to to this day now as he would come through here he would stop to help some of the regimental surgeons take care of a man of the 90th pennsylvania and as he hears the confederates come up the road in fact he even hears a couple of shots he tells one of the orderlies i'm going to go out and see what the ruckus is and as he goes outside he still had his sword and his sash on and one of the confederates yells at him to surrender he throws his hands up before he can tell him that he's a non-combatant the shoulder will shoot a reverend howl and he will topple at the top of the stairs if ever you have the chance to come to gettysburg pennsylvania and you look at where the monument is to reverend howell it sits at the base of the stairs supposedly the point from which the confederate that fired this shot killed him thanks so much doug let's see if i can get far enough away from chris here uh you're with the american battlefield trust it's good to see so many people watching right now uh andy and louie i've seen you on all three of our feeds so far three of the four great to see you a a good old friend and i took my second third and fifth trips to gettysburg with andy so i think that's really cool um we see minnesota massachusetts illinois and others please share this with your friends uh we are high atop gettysburg at uh christ lutheran church and we're talking about the retreat and the first day uh at gettysburg and i'll just open it up do you think is it tim or andrew tim well one thing we want to do is uh thank the congregation of the christ lutheran church for allowing us access to the cupola i personally have never been up here and it you know it's just a privilege to go around town and get access to places which you know were here at the time of the battle in which you have a unique vantage point i should also point out that you know we're one of the reasons we're sharing this video is because this is not a place where the general public can get to we did not take an elevator to this location we literally had to climb up some pretty scary ladders to get to this site and in fact if i made dirty bernie of pismo beach uh the fact that i looked the way i look helped me get up here because if i didn't eat plants and jump around all the time i'd have never fit up here in the first place so thank you dirty birdie tim you keep it going are we going to doug so one of the things that also happens here there's a famous photograph taken here in 1915 the 1915 class of west point right before they graduate they make a trip away from west point they come to visit the battlefield of gettysburg to study gettysburg and use it as a leadership laboratory and one of the famous photos taken is the class of 1915 sitting on the front steps of christ lutheran church this would be known as the class the stars would fall on of the 164 members of the 1915 class of west point 59 of them go on to be generals including two five-star generals dwight david eisenhower and omar bradley they would have two four-star generals they would have eight three-star generals that is crazy and of course they would all be set up in part parcel because of the american civil war one of the side effects of this war is the united states starts to organize on a colossal scale we will start to now be able to organize millions of men in uniform be able to arm them people will travel far from their homes if you were in grants army out in the out in the western theater you joined from wisconsin you go down the mississippi over to atlanta you'd march to the sea in savannah and the war in north carolina go to washington dc for the victory parade pop on a train go to new york city to buffalo over to chicago and you walk home you just saw the entire united states right on the cusp of the industrial revolution we organize on a colossal scale setting the united states up for an american century that would be led by the class the stars fell on good good if crystal panned to his right so we got a few more things just while we're up here i thought we'd show you you know some more structures you can see behind and give you a sense of what the view is like up here behind me you can see the backs of the homes along middle street and high street in gettysburg and you can actually see the cupola of our courthouse 1859 which was another major hospital during the battle and we can see the cupola as well of saint francis catholic church another major hospital during the battle and it was there that the nurse sally myers a 21 year old school teacher came upon the body of a dying soldier named alexander stewart um he was taken to her home on high street and died on july 6th and she ended up marrying his brother who she met a little bit later when the family came to visit and thank her for treating the dying soldier so there's stories like this that are incredible from the town that we have from local families and another thing i like to point out you know gettysburg at the time of the battle had a lot more fences and obstacles and sheds and things that union soldiers as they were retreating through the town had to get around so we have amazing accounts of soldiers getting trapped in backyards in you know stables and in other areas where they felt you know they could hide a lot of them ran down into the cellars and then the confederates came from pretty much every direction as doug and tim mentioned and they were captured in in droves and in pockets all around the town so you can really get a sense of that from looking behind me and then of course if you see in the distance you can also see the uh water tower on east cemetery hill which is the fallback position for the union army on the evening of july first 1863. more from tim so it's interesting you know being up here uh it is kind of noisy on chambersburg street chambersburg street is one of the uh more prominent streets in our town obviously of the ten roads that entered the town at the time of the battle and uh you know along it was along chambersburg street here on june 26th the john b gordon's brigade entered the town and of course it was probably you know along uh you know this street and jupiter early came from the north and then went to the center of the town and uh of course on july 1st as the northern army retreated through the town many of the officers of the first army corps ended up on this street lucio's fair child had his arm amputated at a house on the second block of chambersburg street colonel henry morrow of the 24th michigan ended up in mary mcallister's house which is just across the street that's where he ended up being captured uh it was lieutenant dennis burke daley that was also captioned at a house who had james archer's sword in his possession he actually hid it in mary mcallister's house and eventually came back after the battle and he uh eventually regained possession of the of archer sword but a lot of those things happened right on the street across the street here there was a hotel the eagle hotel and it was an eagle hotel and a few buildings next to it that captain francis ursch actually held up for a time on the evening of the first day of the battle with his men and actually fired at the southerners as they over in the town and his men were trapped there and eventually were forced to surrender and irs would spend some time in southern prison so uh uh you know it's amazing to look into buildings there's a lot of newer buildings in the town that block our view and a lot of the two-story buildings were later expanded into three-story buildings but you can look from the top of the cupola here and you can look at some of the buildings around and some of them still retain their civil war appearance that's great tim i would encourage everybody because we've been all around gettysburg and we keep coming up with new spots but you know we look for our gettysburg 154 155 videos on facebook look for our gettysburg 156 157 videos also on facebook we are high up across the way once for a while too and i want to say that we've got more southerners joining us now alabama kentucky arkansas is here we got the uk we've got wyoming so thanks so much for joining us and for uh you know uh uh your interest in american history and ultimately which will support battlefield preservation so let me ask our distinguished round table around here if we have any more i'll see well tim can talk all day about it last chance no he's saying no so let me tell you chris white behind the camera was literally doing acrobatics up here to bring you those shots and thanks to our intern annie up here um and to andrew and tim i really think i strongly believe that not enough people utilize the resources of the adams county historical society to understand the full story of this america's greatest battlefield you really need to be able to study all the stories and historical society here does a great job and has an unparalleled collection of records especially as concerned the people and the town itself and thanks to doug dowds for everything thank you all for watching and this morning battlefield preservation and education you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 10,868

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Keywords: 158th anniversary of gettysburg, downtown gettysburg during the battle

Id: VwDcliYh1Fg

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 01 2021