Debate about Pickett's Charge: War Department

let's go i'm doug allman with the civil war trust war department sitting here in gettysburg pennsylvania at the angle of pickets charge i'm joined by tim smith a licensed battlefield guide here in gettysburg for over 20 years and by sam smith and gary adelman of the civil war trust we're going to talk about pickett's charge its importance for the civil war and what really happened here [Music] at one pm lee bombards the union defenses hoping to soften them up meade responds and together they create the largest artillery barrage in the western hemisphere ultimately lee's bombardment fails nevertheless pickett's attack commences at 3pm 12 000 men emerge from seminary rich they must cross one mile of open ground what do you think's going through robert e lee's mind when he's looking at this field and saying i'm going to send 14 000 men across miles of open ground do you have any prayer that this is actually going to work [Music] if i'm robbery lee i've got to be thinking well i've made some gains the last two days you know maybe my artillery bombardment that just took place maybe it helped drive some of the enemy away you know for the last year or so i've been successful in a lot of what i've done and that's that same army that i've beaten time and time again and i think you know robert e lee goes into a battle every time wanting to win and to him winning is to destroy the enemy army not just to push them away or something like that he needs bold strokes to do it and i think that robert e lee despite some waffling that day is ready to win you know making these attacks paid big dividends early in the war when the troops were not as well disciplined and uh inexperienced but here the union army of the potomac is very experienced and these are battle hardened veterans on this ridge that day these are many pennsylvanians on their home soil and they're going to fight a little bit harder than they might in virginia there's been a tendency to point to the fact that what happened here was not robert e lee's plan that somehow there was another aspect of the plan that didn't come into play as it was supposed to you know like pettigrew not supporting pickett as he should the fabrication that jeb stewart was ordered to break through the rear of the union line at the same point the southerners were attacking the union center or the bombardment was not as successful as lee would have liked or supporting troops of long street from a clause or richard anderson's division should have been uh in a better position to make the attack and that these things would have helped the success of the attack the problem is when we look back at what happened you know some of these things are not as well documented as we'd like we'd like and it seems to me that what happened is kind of what lee wanted to happen it just didn't work out meade orders more than 20 000 reinforcements to converge upon the center ohio new york and vermont troops position themselves upon the flank of the confederate advance the confederates are moving into a great pincer of yankees how close was it in the fighting here at the angle i like to always talk about how you know you have 12 000 southerners making the attack but maybe a few hundred actually cross the wall or get to where we sit right now and actually get behind by the time the southerners actually reach this point they have pushed some of the union soldiers away they do see success on the horizon they have in a way split the union army in two but then they are confronted by thousands if not several thousands of union troops converging upon them and that's where these casualties come is that a lot of them suffered on the way up and a lot suffered on the way back it was robert e lee's greatest defeat by far which had been preceded by a moment of great hope i don't think it's that close i think that over the years just for the purpose of drama we have tended to make it appear as if the southern army is almost breaking through the union line and oh they're just driven back the last moment no it was not even close this charge was a disaster from the beginning the heavy losses coming across that open field only a few of them reached the area it was not close but psychologically speaking i mean robert e lee he did want to destroy the union army every chance he got but oftentimes he wouldn't even break a union line but he would deal with an army and more importantly perhaps army commanders that would run away from him if he would strike a hard enough blow as tens of thousands of union reinforcements arrive the confederate attackers dwindle [Applause] [Music] [Applause] those who cross the stone wall are either killed or captured scarcely half of the men who made the attack return to seminary ridge when you look at the battle of gettysburg we are constantly talking about why it is that the south lost a battle and we don't dwell on the fact that the northern army did a very good job that general mead created a very good defensive position and general mead had reinforcements in position to be sent into the union center and he did that he did a really good job yet and yet we still think of mead as this sort of curmudgeonly small figure in the shadow of grant why isn't gettysburg sort of vault him into the pantheon of union generals because he didn't write a book about himself that's a good point the impression whether it's real or not the impression about his pursuit after gettysburg lee's so-called escape into virginia which i just don't buy nobody could really beat robert e lee handily before and suddenly you know somebody beats him and because you don't bag the confederate army 50 000 men under robert e lee you don't bag the confederate army very easily it was hard when they were starving in twenty thousand and they were outnumbered six to one at the end so i think it's an unfair characterization but i'll also go on record saying that mead was fortunate to have grant as the overall commander later mead did not put the pieces together the way that us grant could and i thought mead was in the perfect position throughout the rest of the war and so was grant it's a huge percentage of people i take on the tour that believe that mead was fired after the battle and i'm sure that impression today is given people because of the popularity of the pbs series the ken burns series kind of you know makes it appear as if me doesn't play a role in the war after the battle of gettysburg but he does command the army of the potomac for the rest of the war he is the first man to ever decisively defeat robert e lee in combat now obviously people also on tours have a tendency if they've heard about mead to over emphasize the fact that he was unable to force lee to surrender after the battle and i usually try to make two points when people ring this up and one of them is the fact that general mead had just lost more men than any other american army had ever lost in any bat on any war in american history and he won and the second point is that robert e lee doesn't want to surrender how can you force lee to surrender how long did it take after grant was put in command for leader surrender how come granton force you know lead a surrender the first day he took command or the second or the first year but but let's bring it back but let's bring it back here talking about turning points you know the very next day july 4 63 is the day that that u.s grant captures vicksburg uh you know we we tend to now think of that as far more important gettysburg lives on as this a as this iconic moment this turning point in the civil war you know wha what's going on here well i would by no means say that people think that vicksburg is more important than gettysburg i still think the popular among americans they would say gettysburg is the turning point of the civil war among history but certainly and historians are i think still divided on it you know and i never call gettysburg the turning point of the civil war i'm not one who says it's unimportant like some historians i think it's very important especially for what it prevented rather than what how it changed the existing thing i think historians that fight the other way tend to leave that out but i don't even think it's a close fight uh close analysis in terms of comparing gettysburg to vicksburg i don't think gettysburg can claim to result in the loss of uh tens of if not hundreds of thousands of miles of square miles of territory for the confederacy gettysburg could not have disrupted the confederate effort the way that vicksburg did vicksburg suddenly lost most of their access to salt and beef and all these key supplies it cut the confederacy in two very viably um i i can't i don't even see them in the same ballpark in terms of importance but i still call gettysburg a very solid turning point in in what it prevented in what gettysburg could have been had not the union army and george gordon meade acted the way they did and also on july 4th 1863 you've got braxton bragg evacuating middle tennessee opening up oh here we go again with his unknown battles but i would say that maybe even evacuating middle tennessee is more important [Laughter] no than vicksburg in uh actually affecting the direction of the war effort i mean mississippi was all it was always going to be lost to the confederacy it was too far away they can't throw their lines out that far i think the confederacy still has a fighting shot without vicksburg more so than they have a fighting shot without chattanooga interesting i just agree but very interesting so there you have it a half-baked idea from robert e lee followed up by some hard fighting from john gibbons union division that sums up the turning point of the civil war for me gentlemen what do you think perfect sam disagrees but whether you whether you agree with us or not guys i want to thank you for being here today and thank you all for watching [Music] you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 269,137

Rating: 4.8875237 out of 5

Keywords: Braxton Bragg, American Battlefield Trust, American Revolution, historic preservation, JEB Stuart, Robert E. Lee, Pickett's Charge, War of 1812, George Meade, Battle of Gettysburg, JJ Pettigrew, Civil War Trust

Id: EbqsncMGgBY

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 25 2017