General Hood's Charge at Gettysburg: A Walking Tour from West Confederate Ave to Devil's Den

all right everybody welcome back hope you had a good sleep hope you enjoyed yesterday this is Gettysburg 155 Facebook live I'm Gary Adelman with American Battlefield trust that is Chris White behind the camera over there trust me he's there Connor Townsend joining us as our normal social media guru we got death Lieutenant Dan donation dan behind the cameras well Connor might try to steal some of that moniker from him today and you're on the Gettysburg battlefield we're on the south end of the battlefield here sorry that we're going live a little bit late today but there's connectivity issues on the south end of the field we'd rather go live later and make sure you can get a better product as we go along so hit us with your questions we'll do our best to answer them as we go along and let's really engage is we take the toughest hike of this particular live and probably one of the toughest pieces of terrain over which either Army had to go during the Battle of Gettysburg so let's just start this out real quick let's bring up our good friend Doug Downs licensed battlefield guide US Marine Corps US Army War College what's going on around here Doug okay great so good morning we are now on the morning of July 2nd the Union fishhook line is started to take its shape at 8:00 well at 6 o'clock in the morning Confederates a robert e lee is gonna send his engineer santa Johnson's gonna go down here to the southern end of the field he's gonna figure out where the southern end of the Union line is and what they're gonna do is they're gonna start marching the longest creased core behind this ridge line with the idea that they get beyond the end of the Union line and they attack up seminary Ridge now or Cemetery Ridge now what's gonna happen is they're gonna come out of this tree line at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon they're gonna find out that the Union Army is not back where they thought it was but it's 500 yards away they're gonna have to change their plan and so what they do is they extend their battle line down this road where we're looking today almost a mile further to the south and what they're gonna launch is what we call in an echelon attack now you can think of this a couple ways you can think about this like a wave hitting the beach on an angle or I like to think about it as dominoes falling from south to north and what they're gonna do is this is team we're fighting in 1863 men that attack from the south are gonna try and flank the Union line if they don't what they're gonna do is by a reaction that the Union will pull troops from some other part of their line and as the Confederates continue to launch these dominoes eventually a domino will hit a piece of the Union line from where they've pulled those Union true great excellent Doug thank you so much so we're talking about that robert e lee is going to have a puss division the claws division and maybe elements of another division under a guy named anderson so maybe 16,000 troops are going to make this attack general come on up here we've got general robert e lee here with us today generally AKA frank orlando come on up here a little bit closer I want to know generally what are your chances for today as we are on July 2nd well when you consider what transpired yesterday our chances are very good most definitely and of course we we had a situation and I'll be honest with you had Stuart been here you know instead of not arriving until tonight this whole situation must have been might have been quite different he's supposed to be the eyes and ears of the infantry and here he is I mean he one of the things he's supposed to tell us about is the topography and he's not here we have no idea about the terrain here ok go but nonetheless you've come up with a plan and for what I know I want to put words in your mouth but you're supposed you want your troops to attack up the Emmitsburg Road are all your commanders mainly your main one James Longstreet on board with this let me put it this way June 1st 1863 when Jefferson Davis appointed me to command what was to become the Army of Northern Virginia there was one man who thought otherwise he thought he should have been appointed to command the army in Northern Virginia and from that point you know he's like a little kid you know he didn't get what he wanted so he was gonna take his football go home all right so my leadership style is one of discretionary all right so you surround yourself with quality leaders and then have them and act my battle plan all right utilize the strengths of the battle plan he knew that we could do this I don't understand what he was thinking he dragged his heels the fact he dragged his heels up to 1864 oh man Lee I wish you'd tell us how you really felt no I don't want to go there and normally I don't criticize my men in public but you know for something situations that that man the greatest crime any military man can commit is insubordination plain and simple and he was insubordinate on the second day and the third day okay let's let's talk to you gave me the perfect transition I'd like to bring up Mary Turk Mena here Mary took me been a guide up at Gettysburg for years here remember it's fifty years in women and guiding so it's just great to have one of the seventeen female licensed battlefield guides here today so what we're talking about in not following orders I think when we really talk about someone who didn't want to go up the Emmitsburg Road we are talking about hoods division so what's going on with this division Mary if I may all right so hoods division again hood is we've got General Lee here I am NOT John Bell hood he is 6 foot tall blonde a ladies man so we have a lady guide for this hood brings his bring his division here when he brings his division here he's one of the Rising Stars of the Army of Northern Virginia he's ready to go he's from Kentucky but when Kentucky decides not to secede Don Bell hood goes with Texas he served with robert e lee out in the west early 't early on as a cavalry commander before the Civil War joins up for the civil war with Texas brings his brigade here or his division here he's ready to go but when he gets here and he sees what's just been described he doesn't like it at all and he asks Longstreet multiple times how many times general I don't want to go there let me go around to the right hood will as we'll see not be allowed to do that by the third or fourth time he asks the orders are clear go attack and hood will do his job do it well he'll be wounded here as we'll see he'll be wounded later in the war again and ends up having a rather unsuccessful last couple of years during the Civil War that's great thanks Marian let me say that you know we're along the line of the Texas Brigade here and you've got Texans and our Kansans we'll talk about them in a second as we're coming up but you know so it's the Texas brigade that is coming up here and they supposedly over here general hood somebody remembered this much later saying very well when I get under fire I will have a digression in other words for all the discussion about whether Longstreet went up the Emmitsburg Road or somewhere else or anything like that hoods division or that part thereof actually ended up doing something pretty close to what hood had proposed anyway hood said this is the only time he ever you know disputed in order or protested an order in his military career Longstreet sort of agreed with but in a slightly different way let me bring Tim Smith on up here because here we do have in the Emmitsburg Road and we'll show you this terrain eventually but you know it's sunny over there right now you wouldn't be able to see it too well you know we have the Emmitsburg Road we know that Robertson's Brigade straddle the Emmitsburg Road so can you lay out sort of the brigades and hoods division here and where we sure and show a division at Gettysburg consists of four brigades and the plan basically as we believe it was laid out and when I say that it's not like there's a lot of documentation about the planning of this attack on July 2nd but there's four brigades of about 1500 men each and we're talking about two brigades in front and two brigades to the rear so the two brigades in the front of his division are going to be Lowell's Alabama M of a brigade evander law and then of course we have hoods Texas Brigade with the or Kansans and then behind them are two brigades of Georgians under the command of Henry banning and George Anderson and basically these attacks that two front brigades will head across the open fields soften up the Union line and theoretically the two rear brigades will follow behind them one of the interesting things I was going to point out is that hood is probably the best division commander in the Confederate Army and hoods division are ready to go but at the very outset of the fight general hood is wounded and the plan of the attack doesn't really come off the way we believe it was supposed to occur in other words initially benning's brigade is supposed to follow laws brigade but because of the wounding of hood and because of the confusion a battle benning's brigade will actually shift northward and follow anderson I should say follow hoods Texans towards Devil's Den so in a perfect world if this attack could come off as it we believe it was planned benning's brigade would have attacked Little Round Top along with law but he doesn't he attacks Devil's Den and let me just tell you I you might know I'm a big fan of Henri benning's Brigade and wherever that brigade hits that area is going to fall and yeah that's good and just real quick what's Henry benning's middle name no not just nickname Oh rock or rock what's his middle name oh Henry Nell yes come on I thought you loved banning here okay Henry Louis Bening Rock Bening tomorrow I'm gonna do a quiz on generals that have middle names and nicknames and we're gonna be all ready for that but I forgot that book at home um I want to ask Tim one more thing we want to get stepped off we're gonna leave generally where he belongs here on the line when we do but Tim tell us about this monument I'm gonna get ready to maybe to maybe knock on the sides of this with the Arkansas this is the Arkansas Monument I believe it's dedicated in 1964 off the top of my head I don't know but the Arkansas Monument is a kind of an interesting Monument as a state might Estate monuments go there's only one regiment from the state of Arkansas at the battle and that's the third Arkansas infantry of Jerome Robertson's Brigade and sometimes they're referred to as the third Texas because it's primarily a Texas Brigade but the monument was dedicated and it has a little square Confederate cubes on the around the base of the monument and there are made out of aluminum the aluminum because they're producing a lot of aluminum in Arkansas at the time now we're gonna step off for the charge we're going to talk in detail about the charge as we go everybody will just chime in as we go but before we go General Lee any last words to wish us well on our on our attack sir Oh most definitely all right be successful that's all I ask okay all right because I'm tired of hearing people say to me you should have let me go around to the ride and that's pretty interesting in the Gettysburg movie you know go around to the ride they could just roll rocks down on you those are all based in actual quotes they don't exactly say in the right way exactly but it's actually based in a little bit of truth so are you all ready for the attack let me just mention it what I think is interesting about what he said is that you know people over and over again has have suggested that you know they follow hoods plan which you know looking at whatever hood is suggesting I don't think it's a very good idea to try to march around big round top at that point in a day but I guess we know what happened did not work so everything seems like a better idea but hood at Gettysburg is given credit for being this like military genius I mean what did hood do when he had his own independent command what did Longstreet do when he had his own independent keep those things in mind and very few people the view is good from the cheap seats when you're in command when you're the big boss it's a whole different story than being the second or third general thank you for joining us pleasure and let's go all right watch out for the Sun y'all we can't control that thank you sir thank you let me show make you proud I'd be careful going over the wall y'all not only for our safety but we want to protect the historic resource here so Tim we are on the Snyder property is that right is this house here during the battle yes it is Phillip Snyder and the house has been restored and of course I think everyone enjoys the fact that they decided to put an alder house near where an outhouse may have been and I thinking about it this may be the only restored outhouse on the Gettysburg National Military Park that's pretty cool good so licensed guides anybody else we are walking along the attack has begun I like talking about how Dick Childers who was particularly good on the way up here getting rations he had gotten some good Pennsylvania biscuits and dick Childers had him as haversack and during the shelling that preceded this attack and it was a real-deal hour-long bombardment hey shel came in and hit him in the haversack it didn't strike him but it struck to have her sack alone and you know he was rolling around in agony supposedly not necessarily because he was hurt but because he had lost the biscuits he had worked so hard to get along the way later by the way he would not perform so well he would desert to the Union Army and become a galvanized Yankee as far as I know Doug so we've set up with the infantry is but remember they're supported by artillery out here as well so this is Henry's battalion he is also from Kentucky not unlike general hood because he's an adopted Texan you think about what he has he's got four batteries out here but really this attack that we're gonna walk today is supported by two of those artillery batteries at the very end of Confederate line what we'd have is Riley's battery of six guns and it's a mixed battery remember Confederate batteries are not all a uniform like Union batteries tend to be and so in this case you should think about he's got two napoleon's two three-inch rifles and two parent rifles and then from where we are supporting this this is Latham's battery now Lathan's battery's almost right in the middle of this Texas assault so we are at the very northern end of it he's got five pieces of artillery here really he's got three Napoleon's and then a mixed bag he's got a 12 pound howitzer and the only six pound howitzer on the battlefield here at Gettysburg really cool so Mary if you could come on up here so I've never been out in this field with you if you were to lead a tour out here most people don't lead a tour out here what would you be talking about now we're and we're making the attack we're under artillery fire what's going on well we're making the attack and think about the ground that these guys were intended to use on the way up nice open fields all the way up and now what are they in broken ground we call it they'll be rocked there's hi there fields of grain here it's difficult work and these regiments and and brigades because hood goes down will end up fighting essentially by themselves so little coordination as Tim mentioned and it becomes a very strange attack because nobody's really quite sure what the plan is and if you think about it were actually at a great spot because we just talked about hood going down so if we look over at the Bushman farm talks about hood relax from the center of his old Texas brigade and then he's gonna ride to the center of his division and he talks about being in a pea torture now it's while he's there that a shell will explode over his head and he will lose the use of his right arm think about that the division commanders down within the first 10 to 20 minutes of this attack and think about how that ripples down against all the other units that are in this and we're certainly going to see this come to play as brigades will become intermixed in these two fights that we're about to talk about and specific to what Doug said here you've got hood goes down he's the division commander Evander law the next senior brigade commander he's off on his way to big Round Top and we cannot tell that he issues a single order at a division level till the fight is over specifically food will take over the division eventually James L Sheffield will take over the brigade and someone will take over the forty-fourth outlet 48th Alabama from Sheffield I think that's a guy named Lawrence and someone's gonna take over his company see you have all these people doing new jobs during a particularly chaotic event that just can't be good the Union Army on the ridge even when they sustained losses and they didn't sustain as many you are talking about a command that is staying together the brigades are not intermingling a huge advantage for the Union Army ultimately the Confederates will end up bringing five or six hundred more soldiers to the scene than a Confederate than the Union was able to muster and I don't want to spoil the end but that is going to really tell for the Confederates here now let's stop for a second and gather ourselves because we really haven't looked at the terrain around us whether that's Tim or somebody else what are we looking at I was going to point out that of course there is the Bushman farm down there off to our south and that is the farm as Doug mentioned near that John Bell hood is wounded near that farm so that's the Bushman property we have some of the Snyder property that were trialing on if you look back the philip snyder farm that beige sort of house can be seen from Little Round Top and when we get up there you can see her very clearly from Devil's Den also off here a little bit the rose farm in the distance we're getting ready to croak across some of the property of George Rose that guy owns like two hundred and thirty acres of ground and you know depending on how you figure the numbers I know that Liars figure in figures lie but uh something like 19,000 Americans will cross that property during the battle there's something like 9,000 casualties on the rose farm and what used to be part of the rose farm so you know just for a single forum that might be like the bloodiest single farm in American history and then of course if you look north what I think is interesting you can see the peach orchard and the peach orchard is actually where the Union artillery was positioned during the early part of the fight and you know we're not sure exactly who wounded general hood it could have came from Smith's battery Devil's Den or maybe a hazlit spattering a little on top but it could have come from one of the many cannons for position along the Wheatfield Road and at the peach orchard firing across the division with explosive shell in this attack while we're here let's give everyone a chance to talk while we're stopped here for a second I want to make two points number one is that here we are you know about a quarter of the way through the attack and Mary had mentioned the idea that oh it's rugged and everything like that this is nothing okay we haven't even entered what we call the Gettysburg sill that runs diagonally through this battlefield which is why there's rocks on the flanks of the Union fishhook okay there's rocks on the round tops and around that area there's rocks on Culp's Hill but now for the rest of the battlefield we are still outside the Gettysburg so there's going to be a massive terrain change that the Confederate commanders don't even know about that it's coming up the other thing I wanted to point out is for all the terrain pieces we're pointing out here is that I don't think we've actually pointed out specifically to people that don't know what otherwise the large pointy hill with the woods on it that's big round top okay these trees right here and that was a screen of trees probably lower during the battle the park has done a great job with tree clearing and tree retention in this area that is those trees we're here right beyond it is Little Round Top trust me you'll see it soon and right to the left of those trees in the left side in front of Little Round Top is Devil's Den okay we are headed right for that we are on the path of the first Texas approximately maybe the third Arkansas going toward the triangular field around this time you're going to have Anderson's brigade of Georgians still in the woods they're gonna step off when we get a little bit further here we can see laws Brigade over there they're taking heavy fire from two guns at Devil's Den and that's going to cause the Alabama means to rearrange and the Texans themselves are splitting at this point because we are going to have the first in the 3rd the 1st the 3rd Arkansas and the 1st Texas they're trying to go up the Emmitsburg Road in the meantime the 4th and the 5th Texas are sticking with law over there and the Texas Brigade splits by the time the 1st and 3rd go this way they straighten out but there's a gap between them eventually two of Law's regiments 44 and 48th Alabama are going to fill that gap but now both brigades are commingled and both brigades are attacking Devil's Den and both brigades are attacking Little Round Top and that is not a way to go into battle yeah so this makes all the sense in the world think about how this plays out we've talked about this idea of a wave attack from south to north when the soldiers first come out for instance when we talk about laws brigade they actually start on the other side of the woods when they crest seminary Ridge and start into this attack they're now in the open and they say they go at the double quick now it's too far for them to go with a double quick all the way across this ground but effectively what that means is they get well out ahead of where this Texas Brigade is and as they try and catch up now a sudden this exacerbates that split that Gary just talked about and on top of that now to have said drop the division commander so at about the time they're trying to side fall of the Emmitsburg Road or stay connected to their right or who's gonna fill that gap all of those would have been division commander decisions who could have helped kind of manage that chaos as they come across this field good Dan Mary we good anything else yeah what are the things I'd like to add is that for companies from laws Brigade are thrown out as skirmishers now we know that the second United States sharpshooters are out on the federal skirmish line engaging the Confederates but it seems to me Doug throwing out four companies into a skirmish line that's just taking men off the firing line and adding to more of the chaos okay good good Mary yeah the other thing I'd add is remember again how important the fact is that law is all the way over on big Round Top and so there's a tremendous delay in getting anyone in charge over here so it becomes a brigade by Brigade brigade commanders trying to coordinate and it's difficult to do in fire okay good excellent let's keep moving you're watching the American battlefield Trust Gettysburg 155 live we are on Facebook we might be on YouTube a little bit either now or eventually and here we are walking hoods charge at Gettysburg this is the first and you could say most important attack of the day on July 2nd and I didn't expect my feet to be so wet today maybe it'll feel good in a little while as it gets hotter and hotter here but here we go so we are walking along here man remember these troops have been through a lot already I love this story Tim knows a lot of the story of you know a guy on the way up here who you know lost his hat he took a hat off of a Yankee lost that hat at some point and then he was able to you know he could never find his hat and they didn't know his name he was in Company K only later did another guy go and get some water from a river and he thought the river the water tasted weird was afraid there was something foul in there and the river water had gotten into their cooking pot and when they dug into the cooking pot they found quote the well boiled cap of company K water would be a big issue here there is no water that the Confederates had access to a lot of them went into battle on the second hottest day of the summer without any water okay and some of them didn't have their canteens because the closest water was far away so canteen details hadn't even gotten back yet whose idea was this to walk across this field by the way all right who wants to jump in so if you think about it Gary just told a great story about a lieutenant or about a young officer the for Texas the company I had a reputation of all of their junior officers being killed right before they step off on this attack one of their lieutenants gets named the company commander of company I and of course all is supporting messmates step up and go you're a goner now too bad I can't help you because they all are teasing him with the prospect that now he's in command he will not make it through this battle ironically enough through all the fighting that the four Texas does on the 2nd of July he will live and he'll be unscratched in all of this fighting that we see correct you know company I of the 4th Texas is one that goes out on the skirmish line and then doesn't even fall in with its regiment on Little Round Top ends up fighting along with the 1st Texas at Devil's Den so even further commingling and the 1st Texas already has more companies than any other regiment here I think they're the only ones with a company em yeah I think we may have to go through this block over here check this out so soldiers were often confronted with fence lines and whatnot we're gonna see what we come across over here I think I've gone through the middle before as we go speaking of soldiers hardships I think we should mention lawls Alabama Brigade even though we're following the Texans lawls Brigade woke up that morning 2 a.m. they were at a place called new Guilford or closer to at the time called Duffield they by 3 a.m. they were on the road marching to Gettysburg they marched 25 miles that day to get here before getting into line of battle and launching this attack so it's July 2nd you know it must be like 90 degrees and they just walked 25 miles and now they're gonna charge across these fields and charge up these hills across this ground it's hard to imagine this is just look at this tiny water course that can cause all sorts of trouble look at professional Connor manages to keep the camera steady even as she may slip on a slippery rock we hope she's okay yes she's back up I'm all righty then let's uh go offline for a second while we can cross safely here good um so here we are walking this is me this is right on the line of the attack of the first Texas check this out again keep hitting us with your questions um by the way if you're hearing static the good chance is is that it was all of the grass and the dry grass where you're going through it's wet at the bottom dry at the top and I know it makes a lot of noise of course we don't have the luxury of mowing the entire field of hoods attack before we do it I guess we do have the luxury of deciding what in the world we want to do in order to cross fences and we do have a fence coming up so let's see what we can do about that let's go so Dan brought up the idea that there's u.s. sharpshooters out here what we should think about them is think about special operations forces in 1863 these would have been the second u.s. sharpshooters to join the unit you had to volunteer in order to get in you had to put ten shots in a five inch circle at 200 yards they wore green uniforms with rubber buttons that didn't glit in the Sun they use breech-loading sharps rifles so they could hide behind rocks and trees so that gave them an increased volume of fire and the idea that they could hide behind rocks and trees meant that they gave a extra hard fight to these Confederates coming and made their numbers because there's only about 167 of them out here and it makes no numbers seem much larger than the few companies that they have that are harassing them and evidence of their harassment is significant because almost everybody who makes this attack writes about those skirmishers or those US sharpshooters who are out here Jim Smith once made the point that maybe it's the second United States sharpshooters that are really saving the Union attack here are the Confederate attack you know they saving the Union from losing a Little Round Top more than Warren or Vincent or other people like that so there are lots of heroes of Little Round Top again you know here we are woods it's great to be in the shade during the battle it would have been great the Confederates would have at least been out of direct line-of-sight of the Union soldiers shooting at them at this point it still would have been artillery fire at this point we're not quite within small arms range but soon as we burst from these woods I don't know if we're gonna burst we're more gonna like crawl out of the woods here but as we come from these woods suddenly burst upon our view will be the heights that they call Little Round Top and Devil's Den that we haven't seen before most of the Confederates considered it sort of one hill when they first saw it here because it kind of does look like one we'll let you decide when we go we good all right here we go let's go watch yourselves here I think following Doug might move it over here but I can't say it enough getting off the beaten path and coming out and going where the soldiers went not just along the road that's how you connect with a battlefield in a deeper way by all means following the tour route is just great but man if you are able and if this is your sort of thing you know hottest day of the year getting really wet in the morning with difficult equipment then come on and do it if not just follow along with us the American Battlefield trust along this battlefield we'll get through this and we'll be back with more audio in a sec enjoy the rare silence so uh we're getting ready to come across the Timbers farm now most people refer to this as a Timbers farm because James timber lived here at the time they drew the Warren map of the battlefield in 1868 1869 Timbers purchased the farm after the Civil War at the time of the battle it was owned by a guy named George Weikart yes another Weikart and of course we talk a lot about those local families and local names way Curt George WY Kurt his father is George Weikart who has a farm at the base of a Little Round Top and if you come out here and of course you might have come out here in the winter you can find the foundation of the Weikart house and the way kurd born directly in front of us okay good we'll call that camera the main camera so let's make sure we're still talking to camera Jamie and we'll make sure that Conor can get what she can check this out it's like a gladiator here I'm walking through the field this is deep now you don't remember like Apocalypse Now yeah maybe that might be more accurate one day it started raining I don't think that's from Apocalypse Now though um but you know imagine this you know the truth had to walk through something like this I doubt it was all dramatically modified crops and whatnot but it still would have been really hard for them to deal with yes and you know we are crossing the ground on the same day the day would have crossed the ground so I mean although it might be a little bit different now like the conditions must have been very similar yeah let's pause up here once we get a view of the hills in front and rear it looks like we're coming to near the edge of the hill so every good recon comes into play with leadership right here real quick here for a sec it's low here because there's some nasty bushes probably some with thorns lots of ticks but here we are right so we can't exactly see everything around here but finally through the Sun you can probably see the Devil's Den Ridge right there and how it blends into the ridge behind it which is really Little Round Top in actuality between US and Devil's Den that's the triangular field and what do you think y'all are we in right forward in small arms range now from the Union on top of Devil's Den yeah 350 yards would be effective range where they would fire of always at the enemy and no doubt we're in range of the artillery fire of Captain James Smith of the 4th New York independent battery and what's really interesting about that is in his account of the battle he describes how he fires it to Confederate advance until they reach a spot where they start down the hill and they actually go down this to a valley out of range of his guns and of course when the southern army charges up the hill he's not going to be able to have an impact on the fire against them and I think this is really interesting first of all this is obvious but this is not just any Hill he's going down it's that hill it's that Hill right there this is what Smith is talking about and that's what battlefields are all about we're not guessing as to what it was we know where Smith was we know where the Confederates came in that's the valley that we're gonna go down right now and it is a precipitous valley to be sure now let me just set the stage real quick we're right along the line of the first Texas we know where they went and we know on their left was the largest regiment on either side at Devil's Den the third Arkansas they enter rose woods off to the cameras left over there and they start confronting three and a half Union regiments over there we're talking about the 17th Maine at the edge of the Wheatfield the 20th Indiana 99th Pennsylvania 86 New York so really four regimens and and they're all doing that in there it's a big regiment but they cannot go any further they put up a tough fight but they're occupying for Union regiments at this time off on our right the Texans are alone remember they split okay so at this point there's no one on there right there and the Union is strongly posted with something like um you know 1600 soldiers about a foot per man between the Wheatfield and the crest of Devil's Den with four guns upon the top what does anyone else have to add at this point I would say you know think about the idea that Tim just talked about the notion that Smith's guns will go ahead and stop targeting these men because they're unable to depress their artillery barrels to target them if you're an infantryman sitting there you got to be thrilled to death that Smith is pounding these guys as they come across this field and once it gets to the point that he can no longer target them now of a sudden they know this is now an infantryman's fight all that burden falls to them if they're gonna stop this attack and when we think about it in a civil war those small arms are responsible for anywhere between 75% and 91% of all casualties so they knew that burden was on them anyway but it sure was great having Smith's guns hit these men these confederates as they cross these fields and as they come across and I'm going to set him up real quick right here um you have James Smith first of all we said the Texans go down and he no longer had a target but then up comes Anderson and Bening behind him it's probably that very woodlot that made him in the smoking confusion that made him follow Robertson's Brigade that's the hoods Texans instead of Law's brigade over there while this would help tip the scales for the Confederates of Devil's Den imagine thirteen hundred more Georgians attacking Little Round Top could the univ held out I don't know but James Smith is desperate his guns are in a difficult position his command or the Union Army commander said he'd probably lose his guns um when he was up on that position but they thought it was an important position to hold and when he was out of one type of ammunition I'm gonna quizzed him here he was told he was out of it he said give them solid shot give them shell damn them give them anything although he said it was try that again Tim damn them give them anything good all right good what do you got um well you know James Smith is an interesting person there's lots of accounts written by him but it's interesting also to me that up until about 10 years ago we just had to imagine Smith's battery in this attack in this firing in this attack because this area ten years ago was completely and utterly wooded and they just opened it up and now it looks more like it did at the time of the battle oh yeah this is cool we have a terrain change coming watch your step please I had no idea wasn't a bigger thought me either yeah right up to my knees now up to my arm oh my god yeah look at this beautiful view here and I think we have some really rugged terrain here but we're descending that ground that you can now see where Smith could not really fire so low he couldn't depress his barrels low enough to get down in here and what we're doing is we still have a while to go before we reach that apparently lush grassy knoll of the triangular field up there triangular because it's surrounded by stone or fence walls there and it's a landlocked piece of land owned by a guy named Wai Kurt let's continue on anything to add before we do you know once again notice the uphill attack of the Confederates are forced to make they'll do it over and over and over again here at Gettysburg and this is a great view of that uphill attack up the triangular field let's remember these Texans March 6 to 8 miles before they can make their attack the Alabamians over here March 23 ish miles before they could make their attack over here and then on the second how to stay in a summer and it's a very hot day today against steaming hot water inside their canteens if they had any canteens they're gonna have to go over by far the most difficult terrain Gettysburg has to offer and that's what we're doing right now of course we're not climbing big Round Top we didn't stay up all night we didn't march 23 miles over a mountain we have it easy let's go yeah and it's remember this is all James Longstreet fault according to Robert II leave this morning haha you're right he well that's interesting if he was supposed to attack up the Emmitsburg Road where would hoods right have been hood his famously said in the movie and he said in history that if he turned right with Little Round Top over there they would simply be able to roll the loose rocks down upon them where would the Confederate right have been maybe in these woods would it have been further to the west it's pretty interesting thought so it's also interesting to consider you know as we're down in this valley and you think about the idea we said hood goes down now this becomes a brigade commanders fight well that's true if you're a brigade commander and Robertson decides he's going to stay with the 3rd Arkansas in 1st Texas and as he comes this way how much time are you now thinking about with a Union line directly in front of you the opportunity to think about oh we should make some broad sweeping flank attack that the idea of all the intricacies of operational art would pass this there's a union line right in front of them and that's who we have to get if we're going to be successful so once you see the exigencies the immediacy of this fight will soak up all their attention so the idea of some nifty little move or tactic or maneuver were past that point when we get to this place on the battlefield at that time in the day grass here but um we can't even walk through this shoulder-to-shoulder and there's eight of us okay imagine the 7,000 soldiers of hoods division attacking in this area they're trying to maintain shoulder to shoulder but if you come across a big rock you got to go around it there's a thorn bush in front of you you go through it okay so I just can't stress enough how instructive doing this is and I imagine watching in our video doesn't even quite give the full picture of how we're struggling with all sorts of things underfoot here Wow most definitely I'll watch yourself here stone wall here and as Tim said we didn't know a lot of this is here until we plowed through the woods years ago until the food park cleared a lot of it here wow that agriculture is flying off into our faces and no town we walk and we still haven't reached the triangular field this battlefields are like this Pickett's charges the same way you think you've walked for a while and you're not even halfway there we are finally approaching the final descent at the triangular field here ah now we can see the terrain hold on let's set it up real quick we got to keep walking but at this point here are the Texans coming up here for their final advance the 124th New York you might be able to see their Monument on the left right next to the tree line over there is up there waiting for us the guns are about to fall silent at least for the Texans the third Arkansas's in the woods and unbeknownst to the Texans the 44th and 48th Alabama have been detached over in that direction and they are moving in this direction with the sole aim of trying to silence or capture Smith's battery atop Devil's Den I need other observations before we move no so this is a great point if you wonder about the effectiveness of Smith's guns not only as they make this approach but the idea that law is going to take two-fifths of his combat power and send it down here in an effort to silence those guns is proof of his effectiveness during this advance good yeah but keep that in mind only the reserve brigades Anderson and Benning are able to keep any remote sense of brigade semblance after the fighting really begins yeah you can't be in two places at once I always imagined the soldiers trying to walk across this ground and look to the front and try to watch for possible bullets flying in at them you know I'd imagine at this point you just have to just keep going forward and hope that you don't get hit with something that you can possibly avoid and of course we're going to cross over what refer to as Rose run of course this is comes from a spring out of the Rose farm area so what do you think if you're in this attack are you gonna stop and pause and fill your canteen in the midst of this or would you like to stop and fill your canteen in the midst of this or is all your attention focused on the Union soldiers in front of you oh I'm glad you said that because we have one account of this by the commits a guy named William C Ward Ward was going along racing with another private soldier he's in the 4th Alabama a little further to the right but this same water course and he was ordered to keep moving he could not stop so he was said to him or his buddy actually put his gun down in the water as a prophet put his other hand down in the water as I prop and scooped up one mouthful of succulent tasty thirst water and then continue to march which by the way we've tried to do and that is not easy in fact we've never remotely succeeded at it I encourage you all come up to Rose run put one hand in a stick down let's see if you could scoop one thing of water as you go because to stop and drink you're gonna be prodded by the Provo marshal and file closers with bayonets and other things behind you you've got to keep moving stopping is a horrible thing to do at this point we talked about this at Gaines's mill the other day if you do try that the American battlefield Trust is not responsible for any waterborne disease if you catch absolutely we'll be talking about that later at a place called the trough Rock - if we visit it let's get across safely here okay oh man here's the final advance here at least so they thought somebody said no words can express the sublimity with which I surveyed the wild scene the crashing of the rocks against the the crashing of the shells against the rocks the shouts of the combatant the the screaming of the shells and all of their noises as they hit the rocks all blended together into one dread chorus which no power of expression could come pass that's William Flight pirate Perry of the 44th Alabama so here we go we're not quite in the triangular field yet we'll have to talk about the triangular field Tim because a lot of people are thinking what it is but let's hold off on that for a second now this area we're crossing now is very very swampy at the very base of the ridge we came off of in the ridge we are tacking in front of it maybe when we get to the top we can pan down upon our legs and shoes and see the water using out of them here and this is more like Apocalypse Now I think then the gladiator or Monday at the office for the trust all right all the difficulties must be over now I know we have another rule it'll runs across but here we are on a trail here let's pause for a sec let us catch up and Tim tell us what you know about this thing oh cool so we are on a embankment that was created by the Gettysburg Electric Railway in 1893 from 1893 until 1916 there was a trolley that ran around the battlefield on what was then private property adjacent to Battlefield land the trolley stop had several stops there was a restaurant and a saloon at Devil's Den and people would ride around on the trolley and stop at these different locations mrs. Tipton who ran the restaurant said then on a busy day in the summer maybe 3,000 people would stop at Devil's Den and visit it one thing we always like to make a point of we'll make it again there is the commercialism that occurred at Devil's Den after the battle is incredible and it's hard to imagine that possibly on a busy day a hundred years ago more people were at this location they are today I'm gonna show a picture of the trial I really really want to and I'm hoping to close I must be close because I see other trolley pictures oh man there's there's a good hold on I wanted it definitely there it is so there's the electric trolley at Devil's Den that's a little round top in the background and that the photo was taken from Devil's Den the trolleys were named after corps commanders as well and this this one that you're seeing I think is well at least one this photograph there's a Howard we also have a photo of the Sykes was there a sickles Tim I think he did create the park so say what you want about sickles he founded the bill that created two Gettysburg National Military Park so maybe he deserves a trolley and maybe you can look down this path and see that the trolley what his remains of the trolley tracks runs for I think is about 3,000 feet doesn't according to the count from the bend near Devil's Den all the way up towards the peach orchard and today this used by the Boy Scouts as part of their walking trail yeah there's a nice raised bed and by the way it would make a sharp curve over there south of Devil's Den and there was a single track so there was a mechanism warning about trolley cars coming back the mechanism failed a few times you have people bumping in Charlie's bumping into each other people being thrown bodily from it lacerations broken bones no deaths although the trolley did cross Warren Avenue after cars had been invented and smacked into a car and I believe somebody was killed you know was there was guy killed in the town of Gettysburg at some point too when the Tri he fell in front of the trolley tracks and ran over him and we'll cover all this when we get up to Devil's Den a little bit later but we're getting close here we are on the triangular field look there are places for the Texans to get a little bit of cover here I'm not sure what good that did them they gotta get to the top right now that matter the 124th New York 238 soldiers the smallest Regiment at Devil's Den now sees two massive regiments coming this way and probably is unaware of the Confederates that are also coming from the south at this point anybody have anything else for we couldn't commence again all right onward toward the top this is getting intense all right here we go first Texas moving toward the top of the hill it must have looked like a really impressive artillery crown'd height maybe it looked like a mini volcano which is what they called Little Round Top at the time this is rough you have a guy named George Todd next to a soldier named ep Derek Derek is crouched behind a rock it could be one of these right here cuz we know we're on the first Texas's line when an artillery shell comes in and hits hits Derek in the head and splattered his brains among about the face of his company commander as they continued onward in the triangular field right now we've already crossed a low stone wall and here's another wall that apparently I'm having trouble getting over here but let me just say I've never done this attack sort of in real time on a video before and this is fascinating because I keep thinking of everything that's going on at this point here you have the George's coming up behind you here you have the Texans getting ready to silence the guns in fact Smith's guns are probably silent at this point or just about at this point um you have a Georgian coming up at this point trying to save the Texans and he's saying I've got it he gets hit in the rear George is already warning their friends not to come up here it's a deadly place to go I need to stop talking for a second so the Texans if we just look at that moment you were talking about let's say the Texans arrayed here we just crossed over the stub I guess maybe it's the south-eastern stonewall of the triangular-shaped field it would be convenient for them to have stopped the attack at this point it just stayed behind those rocks up behind them the George's have now broken out of the woods and two regiments from Louis Brigade as we said we're actually coming across the open fields over near the slider farm you can see the slider farm clearly and banning must see those two regiments crossing in front a big round top and instinctively instead of a heading up big round top behind laws Brigade bending swings and bending heads towards Devil's Den so the Texas I'll know it but in a few minutes another column is coming behind them as relief and of course perhaps Smith's batteries are firing at them until the Texans get close to the bottom of the hill and then he pulls away from his guns but one final thing Smith who writes about it years later maintains it was not him that left the guns but he maintains his infantry support left the guns and he says that for 40 minutes he stayed on top of the hill with his guns by himself which is absolutely not true but he gives one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard and that ever read in that in that book he says that each one of those 40 minutes contained 60 seconds and each of those seconds was a lifetime that's good stuff it would be great to talk and I'm a big fan but let me let somebody else talk now because I think we're right at the perfect time where the Texans are about to capture the hill and somebody goes up to the colonel 124th New York you can see their monument up there Augustus Van Horne Ellis former sea captain offered command of the Hawaiian Navy went all the way to Hawaii a six-month trip found they didn't have a single ship came back the long way just in time for the Civil War somebody goes up to him and suggests 124th charge into the disorganized Texans the Texans are 50% larger in number then 124th New York who knows that story Doug Tim so I believe it's it's a major cromwell right that's the executive officer who makes the suggestion at first he thinks bad idea but then as he starts to see them faltering out here all of a sudden is this a culmination point can they save their position by attacking and so what they're gonna do is they're gonna come down here and to their horror what they're gonna see is both Cromwell and Manning are gonna be shot while they're down here they're gonna take all kinds of losses and drive those Texans down to that wall that we just walked over before they will finally because the force of numbers be forced to go back and they will carry their commander and lay him on the rock where we see their monument to this day and let's let's talk about this I'm going to put Tim on the spot here anybody else that wants to speak up with it here we go we've got you know Ellis and Cromwell go in on horseback and captain silliman comes up and says you know don't go in that way don't do this and Ellis simply sums up the key you know virtue one of the key virtues of a civil war commander and that as he says the men must see us today summarizing right there how you need to display bravery sometimes reckless bravery as they called it back then recklessly exposing himself that's not what we call it today to be sure if you wrote something like that that is why he did it he would pay with his life so would major Cromwell the Lieutenant Colonel a guy named Cummings would also go down wounded and the 124th New York is left without a field officer they're out in this field and what happens at this point here there they push the Texans back I failed to mention the Texans for reform at the base of the hill over there guys are coming up and right when the 124th New York is down here without a field officer up comes the 44th and 48th Alabama these are laws guys that were coming up to silence the guns over here and all of a sudden 124th New York meets disaster and the smallest Regiment at Devil's Den will lose more kill than any other Regiment for the Union in the whole vicinity so the whole idea that nature abhors a vacuum civil war lines abhor a hole in it and so we talked about how this this Texas Brigade divides as they come across here and so how do they fill it the 44th and 48th conveniently will fill that gap in the line so that is now one continuous line and they have no holes and flanks to be attacked or that they are not vulnerable even as they are out here making this so it happens by by individual brigade commanders making decisions rather than with that coordinated division commander putting place troops into place to go ahead and fix any of the any of the decisions that they have to make as long as they were making contact along the way two seconds think about what we've talked about here we have men coming out of the woods reforming in this area Texas troops here Georgia troops coming in behind it's a vortex of activity right in this area go to the top we might do a somewhat silent March till we can get up there there is a trail that comes up here but why bother at this point we've come all the way across the field so onward here if I had a sword I'd put my hat up on it here your new hat Gary yeah my new hat as a matter of fact I'm sure you're already commenting on it it hasn't come up yet so uh I'm not asking for your opinion this isn't a democracy but I know you're going to give it anyway I feel that's a you know I need a variety of hats especially after I was totally emasculated yesterday by a much cooler speaking of emasculation much cooler Phil's foggy hat so now I think I need to try some new ones and beat these up as well thanks Chris we're looking for hats sponsorship that's Gary Adelman at the American battlefield truck I need a go fund me page for for Gary's hats all right here we are it would have been intense here enjoy the view ah here's the trail just imagine leaving the trying to afield I'm sure some of the people know that Gary and I had co-authored a book about the fighting in Devil's Den and the triangular field was an interesting chapter in our book I remember one of my favorite lines in the book that was written by Gary was that after the fight the triangular field became a virtual carpet of blue and gray and red so here we are we're gonna wrap it up while we're up here but you know the 124th New York is gone Smith's guns one has been removed three sits silent on the top the Texans are coming to take the hill there's George's behind them I'll do it come on get up here all right so if we imagine where we were we talked about oh we've been setting this up for the whole time we've crossed here so now we have these Texans in Arkansas coming through here we have these men from Alabama attacking from the south and now what they're gonna have with this pressure from both the west and the south this position will literally implode and at that point now we would start to see Union soldiers we're treating back across the back side of this down House Ridge and we'll be able to see a better shot of that when we're up on a Little Round Top but you can see how they lose this position it's pressure not just from their front from the West from the direction we came from but also from the south and that's what's gonna be the final end of this position on top of that throw those two more waves or brigades behind that are gonna add the weight to clear all this out no matter how many men come from the northern side they come from the we feel that 99th Pennsylvania the 40th New York all those units that come down here are not enough to stem this weight coming across this field and in essence this attack this plan this wave attack it's working it's drawing Union forces from other side of the Union line down to this part of the field and weakening those places on the northern end of the field and we'll get to those later in the day ultimately Devil's Den will fall but the Union line will hold and a lot of it has to do with the disorganization caused by the southern assault and the during the climax of the fighting at Devils then it was sort of a seesaw battle and at one point during the fighting Confederate artillery is lobbing shells into this area Union artillery is lobbing shells into this area and there's hand-to-hand fighting on the crest of the hill and it's just chaos join the fighting Colonel Jack Jones of the 20th Georgia is hid in the back of the shell with an R til back at the head with an artillery shell and killed in the fighting and of course the Confederate the Confederate Army who is so successful this attack will reach the top of the sail just to say that there is another stronger northern line on the other side of it must have been disheartening and we're gonna pick up later I'm at Devil's Den I want to have bring Merion for our last thing we won't have her on anymore so let's just 20 seconds on why you like being or if you like being a licensed battlefield gotta get it we're gonna so why 20 seconds all right I love being a licensed battlefield guy because you get to do stuff like this you'd never do this off the beaten track and years and years of coming here I've never done it that's what you get to do it's very cool thanks so much for joining us today thank you all for watching thanks to everybody here and thanks for supporting battlefield preservation will reappear in just a few very shortly at Devil's Den you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 69,592

Keywords: Second Day at Gettysburg, American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust Facebook Live, American Battlefield Trust Facebook Live, John Bell Hood, Battle of Gettysburg, historic preservation, Civil War Trust, Battle of Gettysburg Live

Id: 18CUxu-xmbY

Length: 57min 30sec (3450 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018