One Hour in the Footsteps of the Attacks on Culp's Hill: Gettysburg 158 Live!

hey everybody welcome back here we are um at rock creek at gettysburg i'm gary adelman we have some guests with us today and i think we have a pretty epic hike uh planned here maybe two and over corpse hill over to some other areas we'll see what we can get accomplished but you're with the american battlefield trust and we're at one of gettysburg's waterways i already said rock creek okay uh you can see all the rocks and boulders in there and rock creek sort of runs on the east side of the battlefield uh you can also look for willoughby's run or rock creek or or marsh creek wanting on the west side of the battlefield in the middle sometimes you have plum run and stevens run and some other ones but those two big rock and rock creek and willoughby's run sort of might bookend the east and west sides of the battlefield in general now this is going to become the scene of heavy fighting on july 2nd 1863 in these woods confederates are going to splash across this to talk about this attack on the night of july 2nd let's bring in chris white education manager senior education manager american battlefield trust hey everybody i always call call rock creek the moat of gettysburg because it seems to run everywhere we have it on call of sill sector up around barlow's knoll we have it running in a perfect position here along the banks or along the base of culp hill here at gettysburg so how do we get over here and why are we standing along rock creek well uh as the july first battle starts to come to an end more and more confederates and union soldiers will arrive here around gettysburg and on the evening of july 1st richard yule the confederate second corps commander uh has some options in front of him should he take cemetery hills should he take culps hill well eventually and as most people know he does not take either one of the hills on the evening of july 1st but he does on that evening send a reconnaissance mission about about 30 men from the 25th virginia over towards culps hill to find out what's here and quite frankly there's not a lot here there's only the seventh indiana infantry atop the hill colonel ira grover went against orders marched to gettysburg march to the sounds of the guns puts his men in the right place at the right time and he gets court-martialed for it later on but grover is going to send out some men from the seventh indiana and two of them a private and a sergeant bump in to these 30-man squad of the 25th virginia and now the 25th virginia as well as richard yule as well as the high command of the confederates think that that culp seal and other parts of this field are heavily occupied fast forward to july 2nd the confederates will put up a ring basically around the horseshoe or the i'm sorry the uh fishhook shaped uh lined here at gettysburg culps hill will start to become a defensive position that morning uh for the union 12th army corps the 12th army corps seems to be fairly homeless during this time this battle especially alpheus williams division and we can talk a little bit about that on our hike but the 12th coors line here at culp hill will be a living breathing thing in the morning of july 2nd some of the men will be down around little round top some will be on munch hours knoll some along powers hill some will be down off the battlefield along the baltimore pike so they will all come together and it will establish a defensive line across culps hill which is about 630 feet high rolling down over into a saddle to a lower part of the hill known as lower culps hill so we'll have union forces starting to deploy up there that's the union 12th core about 10 000 men strong across rock creek will be uh the u the confederate division of edward allegheny johnson four brigades will start to take up a position uh out of our site in an area known as the benner farm uh they will also be on the daniel lady farm they will take up a position on a reverse slope to give them protection along the hanover road johnson has has uh the old stonewall jackson division who we'll talk about along the way but this is probably the lowest morale division here in the confederate army in northern virginia and it probably has the worst command structure coming into gettysburg most people say that's blasphemous talking about stonewall jackson's old division that way but it's true they were torn apart throughout 1862 both politically and on the battlefield we'll talk about that along our march up the hill and those guys will be deployed out in front of us throughout the day we'll have an artillery bombardment or an artillery duel between joseph latimer and about 20 cannon firing off towards sculpt hill as well as east cemetery hill taking on thomas osborne of the 11th corps as well as charles wainwright's first core guns of the union first corps we'll have that come to crescendo then james longstreet will make an attack and then around dark edward johnson around seven o'clock that night will get the orders to march forward and try to take culps hill and in fact he is going to hit it at exactly the right moment than he needs to because the union will be in flux as i said this will be a living breathing line here along the union lines go chris that was awesome man so we're going to start walking here i'm going to bring on another guest in just a second but just real quick let me uh a second what chris said about allegheny johnson's division man when i when i had more time on my hands i did a study of all the 80-some infantry brigades at gettysburg and none on either side no division on either side had suffered so much before this battle in terms of having new inexperienced commanders as edward allegheny johnson secondly we just walked over an old war department defense you might see these around the battlefield especially when you go off the beaten path the war department of course controlled gettysburg administratively from 1895 to 1933 this is their style of fencing that they proudly showed off in many of their official um you know reports to the u.s government now you might remember i know you know him um our good friend historian doug allman doug right so as we're coming into rock as we're coming away from rock creek it's important to remember that those union troops from the 12th corps are actually having their picket lines in this vicinity along rock creek so when the confederates jump off in their attack they're immediately going to encounter skirmishers from the 12th corps namely the 60th new york and some other members of the 78th new york of green's brigade i don't know if we're ready to get into that yeah so sure what ends up happening is reddington's going to move his men across the the road lieutenant colonel john o.c reddington he's in charge of the 60th today he's the brigade officer of the day he's going to move 177 officers and men across rock creek and he's actually harassing joseph latimer's 20 guns uh the the 25th virginia infantry will be on the confederate skirmish line about half of it the balance of the the rest of the unit will have to come back up onto the skirmish line then the 50th virginia will also have to come up on the skirmish line on this side we'll have the we'll have company k the 145th new york just down from us what two companies of the second massachusetts who become famous the next day for their charge at spangler spring and then we'll have the 28th pennsylvania come down and give a little bit of reinforcement when there's some shuffling along the line so this will be a very active line with the union skirmishers across rock creek engaging with latimer's guns as well as two virginia regiments and later a north carolina regiment right so then when johnson's division finally launches their attack they're going to be encountering those uh does yankee skirmishers except by this point almost the entire 12th core has been moved off of culps hill they are now abandoning they're now abandoning the breast works that they've constructed and i'm sure we'll get into that later and they are moving towards the sound of the fighting on the southern end of the field and all that's left behind are approximately 1 300 men of one brigade of new yorkers under george sears green and those skirmishers the 60th new york and some of the 78th are the ones contesting the advance of johnson's division as they move up the hill okay good we got andy poulton behind the camera i'm going to ask andy to walk side by side with me and film from the side so we can both see forward so none of us will die and we can go at a good clip you're with the american battlefield trust we are marching up from rock creek trying to go all the way up colts hill one of the things we're gonna do as we go up is um to check out some of the great work the national park service here at gettysburg and the gettysburg foundation have been doing on culps hill let's go silent for a second here some of you might now know where we are we are on east confederate avenue some of you might recognize the north carolina regimental memorial 43rd 43rd 43rd 45th i thought it was well we're going to know soon enough um here we are and what we're doing by the way is following the general attack of edward allegheny johnson's division for those of you who don't talk about divisions it is the 43rd it looks like for those who don't talk about division just know that this is the the attack of the confederates on culps hill on july 2nd 1863 we're talking about three brigades chris already mentioned them and we're going to be generally following in the footsteps if i'm correct of a brigade of louisianians chris yeah so as we move up the hill what we're gonna do is uh we would be looking at rock creek in 1863 within a much more imposing waterfront or water course uh there were along the way mill ponds which are going to change the water levels many of the confederates and the union men agree that in any one spot that that water course is anywhere between six and eight feet deep and potentially wounded union and confederate soldiers who are wounded coming across that creek or retreating across it drown uh there are a couple accounts where people think that that happened so what happens throughout the day is james longstreet on the confederate right is going to start attacking into the areas of devil's den the peach orchard the wheat field little round top he's gonna start driving north north uh east along the emmitsburg road driving towards the union center well is this as we call it today the echelon attack uh was it a national honor wasn't it it's up to you to decide he is going to start pushing in towards this direction now on this side of the confederate line we would have richard ewell in his second court at least a portion of it richard ewell is in the worst confederate position on the battlefield at gettysburg because he's going to have men over on seminary ridge he'll have the town of gettysburg to contend with and then he has to deploy onto the east side of gettysburg so he has his core broken up not only because of the town but because of this is the most advantageous ground he can take advantage of a place called benner's hill and it's not all that advantageous so what johnson uh johnson's division is going to face throughout the day is basically exposed throughout july 2nd in a field of fire not a lot of shade guys are going to try to get any sort of food that they can any shelter that they can they expected to attack early on july 2nd that doesn't happen it's going to take until seven o'clock at night because as long streets attack comes in then comes ap hill or at least a little portion of his core and then it will turn over to richard yule to start making his diversion which will then turn into a full-blown attack but johnson who has four brigades only has three going into action this night because some union horsemen have shown up on the flank and the famed stonewall brigade has to go out there to contend with them and what it's gonna we're gonna find is johnson johnson's brigade's gonna come up one brigade too short or johnson's division will be one brigade too short on the union side more shuffling is taking place we have john white gary who will talk about as we march along and alpheus williams the two division commanders of the 12th corps neither one of the west point graduates but both of them are very competent commanders williams division who seems to be the homeless division of the union union 12th corps throughout this entire battle will march all over the place and eventually on the evening of july 2nd be called over to the union left as will the bulk of john white gary's division so they're going to go try to contend with uh what's happening with james longstreet weakening the union right flank which is going to expose potentially the baltimore pike which is about 400 yards where we're standing and that is the key pike because that is your communication line as well as our supply line between baltimore and washington the baltimore pike falls the union uh position here at gettysburg will be untenuous and they want to pull back towards washington good good so now what i'd like to do is um you know we're going to enter the woods here eventually we'll have the national park service and the gettysburg foundation creating a trail where you can walk safely from the east confederate avenue up the hill here and you know we'll get there eventually and what we're doing now is following an existing trail we'll go cross country a little bit because the trail is not all the way built yet um but it'll be great and what we're talking about this project is a massive tree clearing project for those who have been here before just look already we can see you know it looks like about a hundred yards already and soon we'll start to see some stuff you recognize it's not all that far between rock creek and the summit of culp's hill so we're gonna go silent for a bit i hope you enjoy the waffle like doug go in front and we'll veer off the trail soon i think i wanted to cut in a little bit earlier but before we do um let's just say that we're going to end up going across some of this we'll do our best to keep the camera steady but we have a lot more to do other than going across this and showing you some things that we can't wait to show you but um you know we're going to be going up against the top but this whole time think about it you're talking about three confederate brigades fighting one union brigade but the union has something going for them not only do they have a brigade of new yorkers but they're outnumbered three to one or or more chris what's one of the things that's going to work in the union's favor to not meet with disaster so so the union army is going to be atop culps hill along the military crest which is about a third of the way uh forward uh of the main crest of a hill the military crest is basically you go forward so you don't silhouette yourself up against the skyline and you can fall back to the crest of the hill if you're pushed back and along that military crest roughly along it the union forces on in the 12th corps will place um breast works breast works are roughly about chest high robert crookshank of the 123rd new york leaves us a great account of what these these uh trenches would look like uh with headlogs uh headlogs will protect your head a firing portal and then they could fire out from or they could have protection from their feet up to their chest some of these might be a little been a little bit lower some might have been a little bit higher but it's a controversial call within the 12th court at least some of the officers uh john white gary is going to attend washington and jefferson college at the time it was called jefferson college which is in canonsburg pennsylvania and he is uh actually going to have to drop out come back to college long story short he comes to the army but doesn't believe in trenches he thinks they make them unfit for open-field fighting making men unfit for fighting in the open but they worked well at chancellor's bill so he said i'm not gonna order your men to build them i'm not gonna not order them to not build them so it's up to the officers to build trenches or earthworks or not so eventually it's going to come down to the brigade level and george sears green 62 years young west point graduate of the class of 1823 decides we are going to build these breast works and that is going to give us an advantage especially because the 12th core is the numerically smallest infantry core here on the battlefield for the arm at the potomac so that's what ends up happening here they're going to start to see these uh breast works being built we're going to fell trees we'll we'll use those to build our earthen works we'll also use the dirt we'll use anything we can to scrape up earth it can be pet pots pans we can use bayonets we can use shovels and we will create a scrape out a line of works which will be abutted by felt trees and then we will clear our fields of fire out in front that is how we're going to set up this defensive line here down along rock creek we are going to have um you know john oc reddington's 60th new york we're going to use that uh eventually as a moat readington will start fighting on the far side of benner's hill around seven o'clock the confederates will spring to life start marching forward redington will fall back to an area near where we're standing and at this point he decides he wants to try to contest the crossing as best that he can with his 177 men he looks to the 28th pennsylvania for support they're not there they've been called off to the union left flank as we talked about earlier and now he is going to get some help from the 78th new york that doug pointed out coming down here and all we have about 375 odd men on the union skirmish line all being commanded roughly by bugle calls you could hear the bugle calls screaming out through these woods and as they fall back towards or go forward or fall back readington's men are going to try to put up their defensive line now to make up for our our uh shifting of our line and sending forward the 78th new york we're going to start to spread our men out to be about three to four paces apart along the union lines it'll be like a heavy skirmish line but this doesn't happen throughout the entire union line so think about it we have our men's shoulder to shoulder down on our right side or my right side we have some men who are more scatter shot behind these breast works three or four feet apart so this is gonna be a haphazard hodgepodge line of about 1400 men and the union soldiers said they waited till the the confederates were about 15 rods in front of them before they fired because remember we had to let our skirmishers come back through here 50 a rod is 5.5 yards so you can do the math of just about how far out these union soldiers will start to fire out here good good yeah excellent chris so we're going to have a moment as and for sec so you can enjoy some of the walk but before we do uh three things one for those who are getting confused by this division brigade stuff start to memorize your order of battle by brigade okay so and start with geary's division geary's division has three brigades candy cane and green candy cane and green there you've memorized one of the many divisions at gettysburg two uh geary is famous for a lot of things but because he's the first mayor of san francisco uh geary street in san francisco is named after him in three and chris come on back on here because as tim smith said george sears green wanted no part of no other century what year is he born uh 1801 and what year does he die 1899 all right good now as we walk here good job chris you're going to see we're going to walk through some of the dumps that are on the battlefield you know these were not always owned by the park service you have dumps on the battlefield but also on cops here we have burial trenches we're going to pick our way across so we're walking across the right one but just know when you're walking on this hillside there were confederate burial trenches here and very few people know which is which i'm hoping you can see the difference here it is you know springtime right and soon it'll be thick summer and you'll still be able to see for a while in culps hill this is some of the area that has been recently cleared out by the park service funded by a generous donor will keep his name anonymous but it's very he's a good friend of the trust and the gettysburg foundation and to the foundation for this work uh doug this is doug allman behind the camera now i'm not sure if you can see the uh forbes rock right there we're gonna get up closer and talk about this rock but you had zero hope of seeing this from here even in the winter until right now until this project that has taken place over the last few months chris anything to add before we walk on yeah as we move up here um we're gonna be following the footsteps of some louisianans we have uh three brigades of confederates here uh each one of them will be commanded we'll have virginians in them i'm sorry uh we'll have virginians starting out on the confederate right we have louisianans in the center and then we'll have a mixed brigade on the left which will be marylanders north carolinians and virginians so that's what we're starting to see the confederates is a push across rock creek many of them will stop on the banks of rock creek on this side of the lines on the union side they will reform their lines and they will start attacking kulp's hill the way they will start to make contact with cops hill will be from the camera's right over to its left the brigade of john marshall jones john m jones nicknamed rum jones you can think about why they call him rum jones he is going to strike the most uh the highest part of colps hill and his men are going to talk about needing scaling ladders to get up there it's so precipitous into this area roughly we're going to be mixed in with some louisianans this is called nichols brigade but it's actually commanded by a guy named jesse williams because frank nichols has been wounded three times during the war he loses his left hand his left foot and his left eye when he runs for for office after the war his men said we'll we will vote for whatever is left of uh frank nichols then we'll have george marilyn stewart think why they call him marilyn stewart eastern maryland he is going to be commanding that mixed brigade of north carolinians virginians and marylanders the virginians and north carolinians don't get along very well at all so what does he do between the two units he places his marylanders keep the children separated so that's what we're going to look at coming up here towards culp hill we are the confederates union side we're facing off right in front of us the 102nd new york we'll also have skirmishers of the 78th and 60th new york following falling back in front of us come over this way guys uh we're trying to look for ways through they've done so much clearing here and the park is trying to block the social trails that might harm the resource so we're gonna work our way around here now doug if we can stop here real quick we're going to flash up a picture in a second of a an immediate post-war drawing later later turned into a beautiful water piece uh watercolor colored piece of art by edwin forbes he was known to have been here right at the end of the battle july 3rd 4th and 5th and i calculate it's hard to tell exactly that he might have been on this boulder here when he went off and looked in this direction and sketched this piece of art it's a famous piece of art here and it helped to drive what the park is doing here we have accounts of what this canopy looked like this was an open woodlot you'd be able to see through it just like you can right now even with the leaves on the trees here so we'll flash up this piece of art and i think you can get a good view of the forbes boulder it is well documented it's called the forbes boulder because of this artist it's also called the confederate sharpshooter boulder because you can see it's one of the best places for cover you get behind that thing there's an overhang behind it we'll talk about that when we get a little closer anything chris no we can make our way up doug you have anything all right so i really i just can't believe this i never thought i would see it this way but look at this you can see the top of the hill that is slocum avenue that's the union position right there and the forbes boulder that we're coming right up to you used to if it was remotely spring summer or fall you'd have to hack your way down mosquitoes nasty trails and everything like that it wasn't even official and now we can we can go right up to the boulder and you can imagine the confederates louisiana's in this case you know how they could advance and then that's as far as they're going to get roughly and how they can get pinned down onto this hill yeah so so um just standing here for just for one moment just to give you an idea of what we're looking at just to bring everything together because we talk fast we have confederates marching up into this direction we have them hitting almost like a wave up against an uneven shore so behind the camera while virginians hitting the earthworks off to its right then we will have louisianans hitting almost directly behind me and then we will have because the way the contours go a mixed brigade of stewart george marilyn stewart no relation to jeb moving into the union right flank what they're running into below us is that half of that oversized brigade of about 2 100 men are striking the right of the union line but then the other remaining three or so regiments have nothing in front of them and they're looking for an enemy the reason they have nothing in front of them is because lower culps hill has been abandoned by one of the union 12th corps divisions and greens brigade of about 13 to 1400 new yorkers cannot extend far enough to occupy the entire union 12th corps line one brigade of 1400 men can't do what a core of 10 000 men can do so they're making the best that they can with it so keep that in mind when we get up there we'll talk a little bit about those union guys and let's we'll pause when we get to the boulder here you can see we're reaching the park services as far as they are right now with the trail that will be laid here and marked and interpreted doug so as chris mentioned you know 1400 men from new york cannot do the work of a 10 000 man infantry corps yet um we stand here knowing that the confederates did not win the battle they did not take culps hill and maybe i'm jumping ahead but if you really want to understand how these 13 to 400 men of greens brigade could stop this this magnificent advance of johnson's division come stand here with at the bor at the forbes rock and see you've got union troops over there union troops over there union troops over there and union troops over there all protected by these chest high breast works that they've built all afternoon and with this field we are well within killing range of the rifled musket of eight of the 1860s and that is why these confederates are not able to come up over the hill they've got the numerical advantage they've struck at exactly the right time but they are in just the wrong place good i like that and i'll point out it's not just the forbes rock by the way now let's look at the boulder on the union line you can see how close together the large boulders are from the union line and the confederate sort of advanced position william frasonito in his gettysburg journey in time talked about these boulders and talked about how the scenes they witnessed that warm summer evening are forever locked within and i think that's one of the things that draws people to these boulders like even now as we walk up i'm going to kind of tuck myself under that forbes boulder because that is how forbes depicted the confederates under that overhang so as you guys walk up i'll catch up to you but maybe you could flash on over to me imitating a louisianian even if poorly well we need the creole accent if you're going to do that and i do a lot of accidents i have no shame but i don't even know where to start with that one all right so so as we're walking up here gary's going off towards the forbes rock um if you walk along this trail we do encourage you to do so if you're able what you'll start to notice is the rock if you want to pan over andy we'll give you some cover and concealment so you will see men coming in behind here loading and firing you'll see wounded drug behind rocks down here because this is a very very steep hill and we're also running into a crossfire kill zone off to my right jutting forward will be a portion of the 149th new york behind me will be portions of the 102nd new york and then to the north we'll have more uh union troops who are able to fire into a crossfire here because they're following the natural contours of land and these earthworks these trenches do not or do follow the contours of the land which are not straight and even good good i just never dreamed i would come here and be able to see the confederate sharpshooters boulder the union um you know breastworks boulder because it was worked into the breastworks and to be able to see andy um you know you might be able to see the huge witness tree stump called the veteran of 1863 off in the distance you can see it's the thickest trunk over there but it stops about 20 feet up because it fell over about five or six years ago or so i never thought i'd be able to see these features from one place so thanks to the park the foundation and the anonymous donor here with the american battlefield trust we're walking along the slopes of coughs hill following here at gettysburg for the 158th anniversary of the battle andy polson's behind the camera doug olman gary edelman sprinting ahead and we are heading up culps hill and this is it this is why you come to battlefields we're walking in the footsteps of soldiers and there's no doubt that you understand a little bit better you know what they went through nobody's shooting at us it's not quite you know 85 degrees it's not dark you know we hadn't walked up here from virginia but nonetheless doing these things always benefits your understanding of history and keep in mind if you're a confederate coming up this hill not only is it now dark on july 2nd 1863 it's probably now around 8 p.m you have been laying in the hot sun all day then you've got to march forward engage with a hostile skirmish line and then cross through rock creek which is anywhere between six and eight feet deep at points you're soaking wet you're probably pretty ticked off and your shoes are going to be very slippery some of the men would stop to take their shoes off many did not because they had to keep pushing forward to get those pesky skirmishers out of the way and as we start to cross over what would have been the breast works of greens brigade we have accounts from the men in 102 new york who are basically yelling at their friends from the 60th and the 78th to get out of the way as they are getting ready to unload a volley of fire on those confederates so you have union troops jumping over the breastworks amongst their friends trying to get out of the way before this deadly volley is unleashed on those attacking confederates oh could you imagine that's really good now i want to we're not going to get into it yet but i want to note that cults hill not only sees this ferocious attack on july 2nd but here are the louisianians still on the hillside on july 3rd when heavily reinforced the confederates actually you know launch a new attack but the union has a lot of reinforcements too more as a matter of fact and that's the story of the battle of gettysburg before we move on i want to say that if you look around at places historic photos post-war stuff at gaines's mill and john brown's fort at harpers ferry and here at gettysburg on little round top and cult hill you can often see unfortunately desecration of the battlefield you can see paintings for liver pills here and hoofland's german bitters right on the uh the union breastworks rock back there in 1867. you know what that photo was called desecration of the gettysburg battlefield this is why we need to preserve these battlefields you cannot protect things like that until you buy it or buy an interest in it and we don't need to sell this to you members of the american battlefield trust to help us do just that let's walk a little further we'll pick it up and isn't hoofland german bitters the official bidders of gary edelman's civil war page i believe i think it as a matter of fact it is there have been some other competitors really vying for that spot but i will say that hoofland's german bitters was claimed to cure constant imaginings of evil and oppression of spirit so who wouldn't want hoofland's german bitters so as walk along let's talk for a minute about some of the commanders up here i mentioned that that um we have some command and control issues with the confederates earlier what we're running into are four brigades uh of confederates a little more than six thousand men all of these brigades are commanded by new commanders coming out of the chancellor's bill campaign the division has a new commander his nickname his name is edward johnson uh west point graduate of class of 1838 mexican-american war veteran was wounded at the battle of mcdowell uh now has to walk with a cane so his men call him either old hickory or old clubby because he would smack you on the back of the head with his with his uh walking stick if you were going along mary chestnut has a fantastic uh account of what edward allegheny johnson looked like especially a large uh rooster with a very pointed head johnson is going to be commanding john marshall jones west point graduate as well jones is known as a drinker his nickname is john john marshall jones is rum jones and whenever he is promoted robert e lee is going to promise to confederate president jefferson davis that i will not allow him to drink on duty or something to that extent and marshall jones fights very well at gettysburg though he's wounded here very early in the action he'll fight it battle mind run where a lot of members help to save that land and he's killed in action on may 5th 1864 in the wilderness by all accounts he did his duty then you'll have jesse williams who has been in and out of brigade command since 1862 taking over for the wounded and cut almost cut in half frank nichols then below us we will have george marilyn stewart who is a stern disciplinarian west point graduate too who is going to be in command of that brigade below us but these are all brand new brigade commanders we're not talking about the fourth and final brigade the stonewall brigade who were still hanging out at a place called brinkerhoff's ridge who was commanded by uh james walker nicknamed stonewall jim stonewall jim's his nickname because he threatened to have a duel with stonewall jackson at bmi he challenged him to that duel and he lost they didn't duel but walker's kicked out of the virginia military institute and now ironically he's in command of the old stonewall jackson brigade so that's what we're looking at on this side of the confederates talk about the union a little bit here yeah that's cool so first of all let me just give you an idea of what we're looking at here because we're standing right near the location of a matthew brady photo that was taken right here with two uh photographic assistants or friends sitting on a sloped rock right behind me in fact doug almond posed as and i posed as those people back in around 2011 or something like that while we're on the battlefield i'll see if i can muster that photo up that would be cool but you can get an idea of how in this area this was you know where the union would be protected up to their breasts and you're talking about earth log and stones so these were some really nice breast works and look what andy's showing you here one question would you rather be up here or would you rather be down there trying to take this and i think that teaches us everything i'd rather be in harrisburg that's where i would rather be so i already told you uh you know candy cane and green those are some of some of the guys but george sears greens new yorkers are really the only ones up here and i don't want to say anything else because we have our own doug allman who loves greens brigade here so what are these units and how do you characterize these tough new yorkers here i think i think this brigade is probably one of the most underrated brigades in the union army this is a brigade that fought at cedar mountain in their some of the first action that they were ever in was on the far left flank of the union army at cedar mountain where they got severely uh severely whipped and then uh fighting at antietam this is the brigade that's part of this brigade is what's going to seize the dunker church ridge and march over the muma fields uh farm for a little bit of time so it's a strong it's a strong unit they're not engaged at uh fredericksburg because none of the 12th corps is but they are engaged to chancellorsville and as they are in the earth works uh at chancellorsville they find they're about to be flanked and one of their officers captain louis stegman is going to walk away it's going to be seen walking away from his troops saying where this is stupid to be here he's about to get flanked he's looking for his commanding officers colonel james lane at 102nd new york and lane is nowhere to be found um so as we come over here we're at the the monument to the 78th and 102nd new york uh the 78th and 102nd will consolidate with one another in 1864 during the atlanta campaign and then what i want to point out on this monument is not only if you've been here before you've seen the lion you know the lion in the breastworks whose face can sort of be seen there amongst the rocks uh but what i like to point out is the names of the two commanders on this on this monument and that is colonel james crandall lane and lewis r stegman so he's the he was the captain commanding company e and uh when lane is wounded stegman will take over command um these two guys have a bit of a feud going on back and forth that i've been trying to uncover over the years name a lot of it's springing from uh the battle of antietam where lane is uh supposedly cowering behind a rock and then at chancellorsville where lane brings up stegman on charges for having run away from the battle which is not which is not true so far as we can tell because no one knows where elaine was um but there is always this question of cowardice surrounding lane um and he then will resign due to illness in 1864 and then stegman will take over permanent command of the regiment for a day in 1864 but we're getting ahead of ourselves here and that is because this brigade of new yorkers has more than just these regiments in it there's the 149th and the 137th these are also newer regiments whose first combat taste was in uh the chancellor spill campaign so they're going to see their first action only a couple months before the battle of gettysburg and then these units are going to go out west uh in in october of 1863 and fight at lookout mountain and missionary ridge and then in the atlanta campaign so this is a very sturdy brigade of very uh veteran combat troops who do not get the respect they deserve man i thought doug was going to break into song for a second there he's obviously talking about some units that he likes i think this is great um let me show you one thing and then i'm going to give andy another camera break here but just in case it's not obvious to everybody because people don't necessarily know this you can see these earthworks here andy if you can note that that on the other side of them it goes down so where you see this sort of growth here it goes all the way up the hill to the top and it goes all the way down this hill and then down up and down lower culps hill as well so you can kind of see them curving but trust me when you come to coast hill you should know about this so this is cool stuff you're with the american battlefield trust we still it's still time to share this with your friends because we got a while to go we're going to go talk about finish up july 2nd talk about july 3rd and we're going to show you some of the property you just helped us preserve so let me grab this from you andy [Music] all right as we walk along a lot of people are going to ask you know where are the earthworks uh well the earthworks are this low mound uh why are they just this low mound that's a very common question not only here but places like spots of any courthouse the wilderness mind run well these were not earth protected these were not weather protected they were thrown up as quickly as possible within 10 years of this battle john badger batchelder will write a guide to gettysburg come out what to see and what to do when you're here he says come to cult seal and he already said that the mother earth was or mother nature was taking back the earthworks they were already collapsing 10 years after the battle so what we have left are the low mounds that have collapsed in and amongst themselves as we walk along here we're in the footsteps of john white gary who will talk about in a little bit john is not here during the battle unfortunately for called still on july 2nd but many of his men are this is a monument to the 149th new york on here you'll see william lilly who is there a color bearer he is putting together putting back together the flag of the 149th new york it was shot in half he's going to grab some knapsack straps as well as some wood slap those together and put that flag back together if i remember correctly because i'm not doing this with notes he is killed during the atlanta campaign of 1864. wahachi the battle will hatch you sorry 1863. thanks doug also in command of the 149th new york is a guy named henry barnum henry barnum has one of the most famous pictures of the civil war he actually puts a rod through his through his wound at the battle of malvern hill you can see he was wounded at melbourne hill heels and he can actually put a long rod through it in honor of that battle he names one of his sons malvern hill barnum as we walk our way down through here we'll see some other monuments to units who did not fight here on july 2nd but may have fought here on july 3rd or may have been stationed here on july 3rd as we start making our way past the 137th new york's monument they did fight here this is commanded by colonel david ireland ireland has about 330 odd men he will lose easy enough to remember 137 men in this battle down through here we have the seventh ohio who are not here on the evening of july 2nd but they're my favorite unit to talk about their colonel william creighton will jump on top of a rock and crow like a rooster because that's the nickname of the unit the 7th ohio we talked about them at kessler's cross lanes and i think chris is going to imitate that crowing right now not not exactly behind gary we have john white gary uh who was a pennsylvania native as gary mentioned earlier gary edelman that is he was first mayor of san francisco he is a uh governor of kansas during bleeding kansas uh he will go on to become governor of pennsylvania he's so popular after the mexican-american war where he's wounded five times the battle of chipotle that 66 companies try to join his regiment the 28th pennsylvania when the civil war starts they accept 15. it's a massive regiment you usually have 10 there so that's what you're looking at here and we're coming down and stopping at a very important line gary stopped us at a place called a traverse doug oh yeah so so um like a good engineer when green decides to create his line of works he decides they're going to build a traverse in case that in case his flank should get turned this is another line of works and unfortunately it doesn't uh there aren't remnants of it here today so no one quite knows where exactly the traverse is but most people believe it is somewhere in the vicinity of where i'm standing which is uh around where the slope of lower culp's hill goes into the saddle leading or hopper couple cell leads into the saddle going into lower culps hill but the reason i wanted to stop here was to point out this monument here on this boulder which is to the 14th brooklyn or the 84th new york state volunteers by the way when you're dealing with new york militia always refer to them as their militia numeric designation not their higher state volunteer designation so this is the 14th brooklyn don't call them the 84 call them the 14th brooklyn the the 14th brooklyn along with other first core units and yes 11th core units are going to come here to culp seal on the night of july 2nd once green is engaged he knows he's not going to be able to do this all by himself so he sends for supports he gets men of the iron brigade other members of cutler's division like the 14th brooklyn and even members of the fort of the uh of the 11th corps like the 45th new york and the 81st illinois they're going to come in here there will even be troops from the second quarter from the philadelphia brigade that are going to stumble around get in here get shot at and then run away right but one of the one of the interesting stories that comes out of this is that in the in the darkness of the battle one of these reinforcing regiments comes in here and helps defeat an attack by the confederates and one of the 12th core men is going to turn to one of these reinforcements and say well a few folks have been here uh on if you guys have been here yesterday we wouldn't be in this position because that stupid 11th corps got driven away and what do you know the guy he's talking to is in the 11th core and he lets that new yorker know who who he was and who just saved his bacon oh that's just great these are some of the same units who fight all three days at gettysburg there are a handful of 157 new york 61st ohio i believe the 84th new york i'll say i'll call them that just to say that let me just say because we have a good view up the hill here that uh you know the union line went like this the traverse that was somewhere around here allowed these guys to bend back along the traverse to deal with a confederate threat coming from here and we're going to start talking about that confederate threat right now yeah just just behind me you'll see a monument to uh thomas kane's brigade also known as george cobham's brigade it has really two interchangeable commanders here and this will roughly be where that traverse is a traverse is a refusal your line a 90 degree bend in it so that if the confederates come up this way which they do you can pull your blind back refuse it just like joshua lawrence chamberlain does over on little round top because that's everyone's reference point they pull back to that point the 137th new york what they're gonna find is that they are going to be out flanked so they'll try to extend their line down and then company a and some others will start to pull back they will start to refuse the line as as i said earlier george marilyn stewart and his north carolinians his marylanders his crab eaters as i like to call him as well as his virginians start to wrap around us we're going to find out that we're starting to wrap around the right flank of the entirety of green's brigade this is where doug comes in saying that here come the two uh 11th core units first core units some second core units really don't do anything then and i'm a second core guy i can say that they come in here and what stuart doesn't realize george marilyn stewart in charge of these 21 or so hundred men down in this sector of the field is that the baltimore pike is just a few hundred yards from where we're standing if he can go just a little bit farther but it's dark he can cut off the main union line supply line communication line and its line of retreat we can potentially dislodge green's brigade by outflanking it here but we're coming up one brigade too short stonewall jackson's old brigade under jim walker is still over near brinkerhoff's ridge with orders to come here and support but they don't arrive here to almost 11 o'clock at night we're confused in battle it's dark out there are these beautiful trenches that the 12th corps have created for us so we're going to start to hunker down if we're the confederates for the evening of july 2nd up the hill jon jones's men really don't even touch the union lines in the middle of the line where we went past the 149th new york there the 149th new york gets an order to pull off the line no one knows who gave the order they thought confederates were behind them they actually start pulling out of the trenches and quickly someone realizes get back in those trenches they hold their trenches and jesse williams men those louisianans they are unable to break the center so now the only place to win here at culp hill on the ending of july 2nd is down here in this area with david ireland making a very similar stand to joshua lawrence chamberlain but he doesn't get the same credit because ireland dies of dysentery in 1864. that's great chris thanks so you're with the american battlefield trust and we are we've just marched up and over culps hill we're sort of between lower and upper culps hill right now and we're going to continue along a place called party field but a couple of things uh first of all share this with your friends um also let's think about this really here because we've been talking mostly about july 2nd so far but there's going to be seven hours of fighting on july 3rd we're not going to talk too much about that but i did want to point out this marker here this is the advanced marker to the first maryland marilyn stewart saw one of his units here and this is recognized as roughly as far as they got on july 2nd on the night of the second as chris said uh maybe 160 200 yards away from the baltimore pike they would have been too weak to hold it anyway okay but this is known as that advanced marker this is only one of maybe two or three and because someone on here will say no there's four and someone else say no there's five six or seven confederate monuments within union lines at gettysburg list them on there which other ones you can think of one particularly famous uh near a clump of trees and maybe you can think of another one and somebody else will come up with a few more as we come around into an area on cops hill but not too many people visit this is pardee's field and on july 3rd 1863 if you can figure this stuff out and describe it in less than two minutes uh my hat off to you i'll even do it right now if so um and this is here there are all sorts of stories going on but now we're gonna have to fast forward to july third where the five brigades of the union army that had left on july 2nd have come back where robert e lee orders three more brigades from two different divisions over here to this area to reinforce and it is back and forth that sometimes the confederates are uh turning their backs on the union foe in front of them and attacking a union foe behind them so this is really crazy this is called par d field because of lieutenant lieutenant colonel ario pardee who commands the 147th pennsylvania and also along with the fifth ohio are really fighting the confederates in this area chris uh what you got to say here yeah so as you come down into here you can actually see we'll we'll turn the camera this way we're in the middle of a road you'll see this actual depression back here there are depressions that they talk about on july 3rd what what's the plan on july 3rd well people still argue to this day uh some people think jeb stewart's supposed to come in charging in from the rear and smash the union center that's a bunch of bs but what's going to happen is eventually the general plan at first is unchanged what robert e lee wants to do is start attacking down along the little round top sector up here at culps hill james long street does not attack richard ewell does and that's the seven hours of fighting that gary alludes to now in the night more union 12th corps troops will start to arrive using a old farm lane that was up here one of the spanglers as wayne mott said earlier today you could throw a rock and hit a spangler around here so that we had a the farm lane that would bring 12th core troops up here six core troops we haven't talked about the six core all that much they're coming in here you see the fifth ohio the cincinnati regiment they'll be down here you can also see behind them a embarker to the fifth ohio uh with an owl on top of it um and no there are no ghost stories associated with that al that i've actually read now as we go come down this way what we're gonna look do and look to do is look this way all those union troops who came in here start deploy have to fire off to my left towards the confederates confederates roughly have the high ground but what the union rv also has is high ground off to the cameras left my right and the union forces will stay in those trenches firing away for those seven hours when they run out of ammunition all they have to do is fall back towards two gullies that are right behind the uh the union lines they'll fall back a new unit will go forward they will fire fire fire fall back and be replaced by another unit and this is how they're going to keep up a constant ring of fire this day john white gary uh thinks that they fired over 200 000 rounds on july 3rd here at kob's hill all right good we're going to hightail it over as we try to show you what we really want to show you at the end of our walk here and that is uh specifically some land that you tried to you were able to help us preserve we're really proud of it and you just can't believe how close it is to the actual park land we are on geary avenue right now uh if we were to go up the hill a little bit we'd be on williams avenue but the main road for all of those is slocum avenue see if you're a car commander you get the main road and his division commanders might get the little side roads like geary and williams here let's talk here about one of the cooler monuments here if it looks familiar maybe you've seen a mini version of it mini me 140th pennsylvania on little round top but this is their main culpes hill monument 47 oh what did i say 140. i said 140th i know better they're over near uh the wyker farm this is 147th pennsylvania which is pretty cool yeah gary exactly pointed out what i wanted them to say and that was that you can see this up on little round top yes there are 12 core monuments up on little round top there's one of the fifth ohio 147th new york if you're on the north side of little round top heading towards john sedgwick's statue up there on munch hours knoll up towards swishers hill when you go up towards where the new jersey monument is you'll see some small star-shaped monuments and that's the 12th core the 12th course all over this field they're from the hanover road on july 1st down to little round top to power seal up here to culps hill they're the johnny on the spot for the union forces even though i don't believe they get the credit they deserve and two other things i want to point out first of all this monument may also look familiar because the monuments to the 147th and the 28th pennsylvania are they have similar monuments on lookout mountains so if you go to look out mountain in chattanooga you will see monuments to these same regiments who just a few months later are going to be scaling look out mountain again johnny on the spot geary's division doesn't often get the credit it deserves but they're scaling mountains and sweeping confederates off of in seemingly impregnable positions and they have similar monuments to the ones you see in gettysburg on lookout mountain in chattanooga there's another neat story that comes from this part of the battlefield and that is um on july 3rd one member of the 147th new york 147th pennsylvania i believe uh notices that somewhere on their firing line is an african-american man who has found himself a musket and all the improper accoutrements and is participating in the fighting here in party field somewhere in this vicinity southern pennsylvania and the maryland border had a particularly strong african-american population in this part of in this part of pennsylvania many of those people are going to flee in as the confederate army comes their direction but whoever this man was and we don't know who he was he managed to stay in the area and pick up a weapon and participate in the battle of gettysburg which is one of those little unknown stories about black people participating in the struggle for freedom at gettysburg john burns just gets all the credit yeah yeah no doubt we always say when we talk about john burns the hero of gettysburg the only civilian to come out and defend the town i always say known as the only civilian to come out and defend the town andy behind the camera check out par d field though a little seeing spot of uh the cultural sector of the fighting here you can see on the big boulder there it says party field right there so lieutenant colonel with about the largest monument here i guess as majors go we do have a full portrait statue to a major at gettysburg pretty respectable it's pretty impressive and what you would see over here on july 3rd are charges you have the first north carolina third north carolina 10th virginia will be up in that area and these will be one two three charges probably coming down through here by george maryland stewart's men trying to dislodge these union soldiers doesn't go very well and another story that comes out of this field is that a dog charged along with george stewart's brigade came going forward and back with all the men but in the last assa assault the dog was killed he was found by the burial parties and somebody noted that it was probably the only christian on the field was this dog who was killed out here there's a painting in the pennsylvania state capitol that shows the assaults here at parity field and includes that dog good yeah and for years i've been asking my groups do you do you know the name of the dog and no one knows because we don't know so i say therefore his name is rufus so i named the dog rufus without any historical connection to that at all let me just say by the way to orient you because a lot of people don't come over here if we were to go right over that hill we'd be at spangler spring right there okay so spangler spring is there lower cops hill is what you're looking at upper copes hill is over there and we're going to go off the field a little bit here and show you some of the land we're able to preserve because everything behind the camera here is preserved by the national park service here but um but you're going to see that there are some real holes in this preservation area so um i think i'm going to grab this from andy real quick and chart the path here this is going to be nasty um for sure uh this is rough getting through here but i just want to get you to a particular fence so you can see what we've been able to preserve so as we're walking along here one thing we did not mention uh is uh or well two things we did not mention number one is wesley kulp wesley kulp uh grew up here in the in the area moved down to shepherdstown west virginia today at the time it was virginia joins the second virginia infantry there's a lot of stories about wesley koppel where he may or may not have been killed he's probably not killed on cult property there's a story of him being buried in the kulp house in the basement uh by his sisters uh so there's a lot of stories that come around wesley kulp jack scully jenny wade but you know it doesn't seem like anybody can agree exactly where wesley fought here where he was killed where he was buried um but we do know that he was killed here another thing we need to mention is this is not just the kulp farm we have the henry culp farm over my shoulder it's a beautiful farm it is a private residence owned by the national park service uh but this isn't the only farm on culps hill we have spangler farms we have the tawny farm that will make up the fight here at culps hill and along the baltimore pike on the other side of gary's shoulder uh we're gonna see or behind the camera we're gonna see an artillery line something that is forgotten about on this part of the battlefield is that the union army is going to set up an artillery sector of more than 40 guns at one point and they are going to blast away at the confederates who are trying to attack here good you know man we might fail uh in our thing i haven't been here since it was uh since it's so grown up we're going to try to make it through so you can see the fence note this is gary avenue and i'm going to put i'm going to suggest that about 50 or 60 steps in here tops we could be on on the land you just helped us save this is six acres along the baltimore pike by the way and i want to thank the members of american battlefield trust for giving me the new phone that gary's about to break my old phone tell the truth it's not as bad as i feared well you're gonna have to trust me here it's right there and then if you were to go four acres further you'd be at the baltimore pike and and uh across the road is the national park service visitor center so with this we'll sign off it's pretty thick you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 74,882

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, Culp's Hill Hike Gettysburg, Culp's Hill Preservation Gettysburg, Gettysburg Preservation, 158th Anniversary of Gettysburg, culp's hill tour

Id: jt42z6Twp_g

Length: 59min 40sec (3580 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021