Inside Lee's Gettysburg HQ | History Traveler Episode 128

[Music] well right now i am on the western edge of the town of gettysburg and on july first 1863 uh the scene here would have been quite chaotic uh union troops would have been performing a delaying action on this road behind me along the chambersburg pike to try and delay confederate forces from getting into gettysburg until the army of the potomac could all gather their forces up here in this area well in the afternoon on july 1st confederate forces finally broke through this position right on the edge of town and observing this action was the commander of the army of northern virginia robert e lee and once he got here well the view would have been a little bit different than what it is today uh for one you you could see all across the battlefield from these heights and he decided to make this spot right here his headquarters we are on the western edge of gettysburg at the headquarters of robert e lee and today we are exploring one of the greatest battlefield preservation stories that i've ever come across [Music] so i've stepped away from the house here for for just a moment because i want to emphasize the point that even though this property is now known as the lee headquarters before it was a headquarters it was a straight-up battlefield like there would have been some fierce fighting that took place right here in this very spot the matter of fact where we're standing right now is where the union artillery would have been positioned on that first day of the battle so you can see the house in the background there here in the foreground obviously are a few cannons showing where the union position would have been so on that day you would have had confederate troops coming in from the north which is to the left of me right now you would have had confederate troops coming in from the west which is behind me and whenever this line collapsed well that's whenever robert e lee came in and set up operations here [Music] all right uh i'm heading back up to the house now and i do want to mention one thing real quick whenever you're watching these videos you're only getting like surface level stuff in a lot of cases if you really want to get in depth into these different actions and the movements and uh the the different key players the the american battlefield trust is a great resource to to reference all right head up here to the house [Music] so as i mentioned there is a battlefield preservation success story here that is just simply amazing the site that you are seeing now is pretty close to what it would have looked like in 1863 but a few years ago that was not the case so joining me to help me kind of understand what has happened here is tom with the american battlefield trust uh i don't know a whole lot about the the restoration efforts here but he does and and he's going to uh to kind of walk us through what happened here so what we have here is a property that we purchased in 2014 from an individual group who owned a restaurant a hotel a gift store and a museum the whole complex was about six acres there's a photograph of it here taken in the middle of the 20th century it shows a huge complex of buildings parking lots and even a swimming pool that was here when we bought the property from the owners who decided to sell it in 2014 and with the gracious help of thousands of donors to the civil war trust then now we're the american battlefield trust but the civil war trust in 2014 took over the property and we destroyed everything that was not part of the 1863 landscape so what you're seeing today is what would have existed here in 1863 when robert e lee and the confederate army came to gettysburg this square stone structure that you see behind me is the actual barn foundation for the neighbor's barn to marry thompson this was the casper henry dustman family barn right behind me it would have been built up on above it you know like any other pennsylvania barn it's a square stone foundation that later on in the 19th century the hotel owners turned into a hotel space they had some sort of maintenance garage inside the stone foundation and then on top they built a structure where they had actually two or three hotel rooms that could be rented out to make money for the hotel guests in 2014 when we bought the property we had to remove all that we took down the maintenance shed that was underneath inside the foundation walls we took down what the hotel people had put on top for hotel room space and what you see is what was here in 1863 without the barn on top so here we are looking at the headquarters of robert e lee now in 1863 uh this would have been occupied by a widow named mary thompson uh here's what's kind of ironic about this place is that mary thompson did not own this home the home was actually owned by thaddeus stevens who was allowing the widow to uh to live in in this dwelling and had the confederates known that they probably would have completely flipped out but anyway this provided a pretty good vantage point of the battlefield from the western side so this is where robert e lee set up camp all right uh so walking now into i guess what would be the the front parlor of uh the widow thompson's home which of course was converted to lee's headquarters and uh i've got to say the restoration work that they've done here is crazy if you would have been in here um eight to ten years ago maybe uh this would have all been like a little gift shop a museum and everything like that so they've restored it back to as close to the original as as what they possibly can all right i want to do just a quick walk through the house here so as you move through they have different things giving you information about the first day of the battle and some context with the home itself so here you can see where the thompson house is in between the chambersburg pike and the railroad cut and they also have some pictures that were taken by matthew brady of the home so he stood here on this property after the battle and snapped some some shots now there there aren't any original furniture pieces in here obviously it was a gift shop at one point but they do have you know like a few pieces in here to kind of give you a feel for for what it might have looked like uh and then here we have a map looking at of course the first day of the battle so looking at how the confederates would have been advancing right through here and would have swept right through the thompson property and then whenever you go in here well they have like this set of maps laid out on the table to give you uh a feel for the planning and maneuvering and maybe some of the the arguments or disagreements that might have taken place right here in this house gosh i love what they have done here so they have this uh set of pictures here showing some then and now shots so here is what the property looked like before and here is what it looks like now taken from the same angle tell me that that doesn't look a lot better than that and then here's here's a shot of where the barn was which would have been next door to the property this is what it looked like then and then of course here's what it looks like now so whenever you're trying to get people immersed in history it's obviously best to have it as close to the original as possible and they have done a remarkable job here oh something else if you're wondering what happened to mary thompson in the middle of all this we don't really know it's hypothesized that she may have relocated across the street with her son and daughter-in-law by the way who had just had a baby the day before all right well that was the historic location of general robert e lee's headquarters right here in gettysburg pennsylvania uh man i i love what they have done here just to kind of see the story of how history had had kind of been lost or compromised a little bit and then reclaimed uh is is pretty inspiring so yeah definitely go check out the american battlefield trust and the resources that they have to offer and the ways that you can get involved and helping to preserve these historic places very cool [Music] foreign

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 157,291

Rating: 4.9649873 out of 5

Keywords: history, civil war, travel, gettysburg, battle of gettysburg, army of the potomac, army of northern virginia, robert e lee, seminary ridge, battle of gettysburg documentary, gettysburg movie, history traveler, history underground, american battlefield trust, general lee, lee's headquarters

Id: 1Qwy5PeVGBA

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021