Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, Day 1, Part 1 of 3

[Applause] august 22nd 2020 gettysburg pennsylvania you'd think we're in hohenfels germany but as such today's battle walk is the iron brigade at gettysburg day one with well welcome back to the channel and today we're going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart and that is the iron brigade during the gettysburg campaign commander solomon meredith from indiana had the nickname long saul as he stood six feet seven inches tall a farmer from wayne county indiana which is in the eastern part of the state along the ohio border near richmond indiana he was involved in politics which is kind of obvious if you think about that when the civil war began he received a commission as a colonel and took command of the 19th indiana he took over the command of the brigade after the battle of antietam when john gibbon took over uh division and this was much to uh gibbons uh chagrin he didn't have much faith in longsaul as a military leader well during the battle of gettysburg he was wounded on the first day and ended up ending the war on administrative duty uh then after the war meredith returned to farming and he died in 1875 and he is buried in cambridge city indiana which is in wake county well during the gettysburg campaign the iron brigade had five regiments as you can see the 19th which was my meredith was the first commander three from wisconsin and then one from michigan with just over 1800 men maybe you are asking yourself how a bunch of roughneck westerners earned the moniker of the iron brigade well it is not clear the name was given or how it's stuck and if one believes general mcclellan which is a suspect proposition then it was a comment he shouted watching the unit's assault at turner's gap during the antietam campaign perhaps it was general hooker's comment about the men fighting like iron during the same fight well whatever the attribution no discussion of the unit is complete without examining general gibbon's contribution to making it the elite fighting force of the king gibbon assumed command of the brigade in may of 62 uh he was a regular army officer and he had taught artillery at west point and while he was there he wrote the artillerist manual uh so let me tell you this if you suffer from insomnia i recommend downloading the pdf of the manual and you should soon experience the efficacy of it bringing on a peaceful slumber he was a southerner indeed he had three brothers two brothers in law and a first cousin by the name of johnson pettigrew who we'll learn about uh more shortly that fought for the confederacy gibbon is also a great example of a regular army officer working well with a unit of volunteers initially the the men resented his tough nearly constant drilling but he was fair and led by example which inevitably gains the respect of the men he continued the effort started by lysander cutler uh who commanded the sixth wisconsin of issuing the 1858 black regular army hat called the hardy hat worn by the reenactor and i've also seen it referred to as the jeff davis hat uh issued a nine-button frock coat and much of the dismay of the enlisted men he also had issued at the soldier's expense white leggings and believe it or not white gloves i mean nothing like being on campaign in virginia maryland or pennsylvania wearing white gloves i would be willing to bet that during the gettysburg campaign few gloves were worn and possibly few leggings at any rate under gibbon's leadership the brigade distinguished itself at the battle of broner's farm where it stood toe-to-toe with the stonewall brigade uh the aforementioned attack at turner's gap and the famous fight in the cornfield at antietam the brigade only played minor roles at fredericksburg and chancellorsville and on a final note about gibbon he commanded the unit the so-called montana column that stumbled onto custer's and reno's commands at the little big horn no review of a battle by me would be complete without a review of the order of battle that is simply part of my dna now the men of the iron brigade were proud to say they were the first brigade of the first division of the first corps the division commander james wadsworth was a new yorker who graduated from both harvard and yale he was another political general he actually ran for governor of the state of new york in 1862 but he refused to leave the field and lost to the anti-war democrat horatio seymour john reynolds the core commander uh had a more substantial resume he was regular army and had achieved distinction in the mexican-american war commanding artillery uh like hancock uh he was a close acquaintance of lewis armistead now you probably don't know this but he was captured during the seven days fighting in june of 1862 by troops uh under his old friend daniel harvey hill uh supposedly uh reynolds had fallen asleep after two days of continuous action and was mistakenly uh left behind by his troops well now haven't we all well the confederacy released him that august uh and he performed admirably at the second battle of bull run after antietam which he missed because he was drilling pennsylvania militiamen uh he took command of the first corps indeed one of his subordinates george mead achieved the only meaningful success at the battle of fredericksburg and i think it's noteworthy that had reynolds received clear orders uh he might have been able to reinforce the success that meat achieved and perhaps there would have been union victory one of those counterfactuals to ponder uh it's also worth noting that president lincoln had offered him the command of the army of the potomac in early june of 63 uh but reynolds declined because of his views on the political interference in the running of the army the potomac so uh you know finally the the commander of the second brigade cutler is the lysander cutler the former commander of the sixth wisconsin uh mentioned before okay quick note on sources i've got about 30 books on the battle of gettysburg uh for the purposes of this exercise i used quite a bit uh fancies gettysburg the first date i think it's it's the best of the lot another couple of my favorites overall are the gettysburg campaign and losses and numbers by petruzzi and uh stanley it great resource lots of colored maps facts and figures on casualties and so forth and it um uh if you ever see me wandering around the battlefield i will have in my hand this this reference and then the other great one is uh philip lino's gettysburg campaign atlas uh this has tremendous detail uh for all aspects of the battle in in the campaign so this is uh hands down one of the most comprehensive resources that's easy to use and then uh yeah some people ask about uh about the hat oh this is the worst looking hat i ever saw well you buy a hat like this i'll let you get a free bowl of soup huh i mean it's your okay what's standard army okay first armor division hat and then i have on the side here second battalion 70th armor so that was a tank battalion i was in in ferris barracks an erlang in germany for the first armored division and that's the unit i went to uh desert storm with as a support platoon leader which by the way is the toughest job in the army and if anybody disputes that they've never been a support platoon leader especially in in combat operations or any kind of deployment so well with this exception of being a general's eight maybe being a general's aide unless you want to become a general of course which i have honestly no idea why but the interesting thing about it is iron brigade so the second brigade of the first armored division uh that was headquartered at ferris brakes as well uh is you know the modern-day iron brigade i still i believe they still are uh interestingly enough the commander of the brigade during during the before desert storm and uh and during it was colonel montgomery makes who retired as a four star his great great grand uncle was also named montgomery mix and he was the quartermaster of the union army so a little bit of uh sidebar there but uh that that explains the hat and probably my fascination with the yarn brigade this map shows the deployment of forces on the night of june 30th reynolds is in command of the left wing of the army the potomac consisting of his first corps howard's 11th corps and sickle's third quarter uh reynolds himself is just across the maryland pennsylvania border and i only want to point out a few things first notice how well screened the army of the potomac is with cavalry versus lee's army of northern virginia second pickets division was assigned to guard the wagon trains around the chambersburg area until immidence cavalry coming up from the shenandoah valley could relieve him this duty prevented him being with the rest of long street's core for the fighting on the second date lastly observe how yule's core is spread out ewell is with rhodes early is to the east and on the west side of the mountains is allegheny johnson now johnson uh as he tries to move to gettysburg is going to become a bit entangled uh with long streets forces as they both try to pass through the cash town gap this delays johnson's arrival on the first day preventing him from being on the field at a time that could have proven decisive so reynolds spent the night of june 30 at the moritz tavern uh this is at the modern day intersection of highway 15 and business highway 15 or one could say the emmitsburg road or even say steinberg avenue uh roughly six miles south west of gettysburg so wadsworth division was encamped along both banks of marsh creek with the 19th indiana posted on picket duty probably in the area around the green mountain it was the only regiment in the iron brigade that marched that day with loaded rifles the other regiments had to double time into line of battle loading on the run so at 4 am major william riddle an aide to general reynolds arrives at the tavern and delivers a message from general need with orders for july 1st reynolds commanding the left wing was to move the first quarter to gettysburg the 11th quarter gettysburg or within supporting distance and the third quarter emmitsburg so reynolds confirmed it major general abner doubleday the acting commander of the first corps and after discussing the situation had the troops on the road by 8 a.m now reynolds conferred with buford about the time the confederates started deploying on harris ridge he asked buford to hold on his position and any promise different to reinforcements so writing back to wadsworth's division he would have first encountered cutler's brigade followed by all second main battery the iron brigade was following cutler's advance guard by a mile to a mile and a half cutler's men tore down the fences along the emmitsburg road and moved cross slots uh toward the north from near the vicinity of the kaduri farm towards the vicinity of the lutheran seminary when the iron brigade arrived it would have turned off the road at the same point a quick note on times uh they are approximate very approximate as i don't want to become bogged down in that sort of minutia at least not on this form i have put a link in the description below to another video that can help sort that out for you should you be so inclined so i'm in this low ground between uh seminary ridge so the lutheran seminary is right back there and i turn to the west so here's mcpherson's ridge uh you can see the the christians barn there you come over here uh mcpherson's woods well fans calls it's mcpherson's woods it's technically herbst woods because uh it was owned by the farm farmer herbs we'll get a chance to look at that farmstead here in a minute uh you might be able to see the uh after double day memorial and uh where those two walkers are uh there was a two gun section uh from calif's uh uh battery so caleb had four guns north of herbst woods and two guns to the south here so we'll look around and show how the iron brigade came in this is looking north on reynolds avenue that's herbst woods looking along willow bee run towards hare's ridge and there's the herb farmstead over the corn at the time of the battle this was a uh a wheat field as i understand as the iron brigade arrives in the field reynolds has placed hall's battery north of the mcpherson farm cutler's brigade is in support of hall with two regiments north of the railroad with 147th new york moving to join them a demi brigade of two regiments under colonel fowler is in position on the farm itself meanwhile buford's cavalry is falling back slowly south of the chambersburg pike this would have been the men of gamble's brigade the rebel forces on this portion of the field would be from archer's brigade of harry he's division preceded by skirmishers of the fifth alabama battalion so the iron brigade was ordered to move into line in attack the second wisconsin in the lead was first into the fight its commander colonel fairchild ordered the regiment forward in the line and so would have moved from a column of fours into a two-ranked line of battle that would have measured about a hundred yards across a formula the line it loaded its rifles as a double click towards and into herbst woods well there's quite a bit going on here first of all as reynolds urges to secure wisconsin forward into the woods he is shot and killed fance gives the time as about 10 15 a.m the second received a deadly volley from uh the seventh endor the 14th tennessee and that first volley uh wounded or killed about 20 to 30 percent of the men well undaunted it's going to press in to the woods and about 50 yards in colonel fairchild is wounded in the left arm and he has to relinquish command to major john mansfield well archer's brigade as the right wing stumbles across willoughby run it's drawn towards the second and seventh wisconsin well this allows the 19th indiana and the 24th michigan advancing and echelon to catch those two regiments from archer's brigade and the flank and as we will see this leads to the total collapse of archer's brigade also note that fowler's demi brigade right here on the mcpherson farmstead is beginning to reposition to the north side of herbst woods and face to the north towards the chambersburg pike as a new threat is emerging from that direction this new threat brings us to the sixth wisconsin which double day has ordered in the reserve in that low ground between the seminary and mcpherson's [Music] ridge we see here that archer's brigade has been flanked and being pushed back across willoughby's run in total disorder as a second wisconsin advances across the run private patrick mahoney races into a group of confederates and physically restrains the brigade commander general archer forcing his surrender mahoney was killed later in the fight that day in herbst woods now the iron brigade attack culminated on the west bank of the run and it reformed its lines sending skirmishers out almost as far west as the harmon farm buildings which would today be along country club lane so before concluding this first video of the iron brigades actions i want to point out that next time we will start by talking about the growing menace to the north joe davis's brigade well in the meantime let's have a look at the ground along willow the run we're going to leave the combat reconnaissance vehicular uh behind and walk down to willowby run okay move down this trail that runs parallel to this uh this fence line on the on the north side of the woods and here's one of the quarries on the old rock quarries here and what's interesting is the woods are are thick now uh overgrown with with underbrush but at the time they were not because of cattle moving around here uh the sources do say that along the banks of willowby run i'll get a go move and get a look here that there was thick vegetation along along the run and so archer's men would have advanced from this direction right to left across the creek up engaged in brigade they get flanked and i would imagine general archer was captured somewhere in this area here so i'm standing in the run itself into the iron brigade pushed across and went up to uh what is described as a as a ledge on the west bank here uh where they stopped and archer's men fell back towards hares ridge what ended up happening is once they reformed they moved to the south along a line of the harmon farm facing east southeast we'll go over there and get on country club lane park and where the old harmon farm was and where the the gettysburg country club was you can walk in this direction so this afternoon we will endeavor to have a look from that direction uh but once the situation stabilized on the west bank of willoughby run they fell back uh into into the woods and back up to where the the modern road and the monuments are and and reformed and awaited further orders you

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Keywords: Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, Gettysburg, Iron Brigade, Herbst Woods, General Reynolds, Civil War, Lutheran Seminary, Rufus Dawes, lysander Cutler, Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, iron brigade, battle of gettysburg, american civil war, gettysburg battlefield, the iron brigade, rufus dawes, mcpherson ridge, battle walk, 24th michigan, 6th wisconsin gettysburg, gettysburg national military park, railroad cut

Id: RWI7Kch6obo

Length: 22min 19sec (1339 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020