Without much further ado, on behalf of the National Park Service, The Gettysburg National Military Park and the American People, I'd like to welcome you folks to said park and specifically to the 3 o'clock Devils Den program. My name is Scott Adrian. I'm obviously a park ranger. I'm wearing my gray and green. My pickle suite. Including my stetson. I'm very very proud of this piece of uniform and equipment. Because when I put it on in the morning, and I look in the mirror, it reminds me very much of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. William will come, wear the hat, no show. Doesn't make any difference where I am. Webster's dictionary defines a crucible as a severe searching trial. That's one definition. Doctor Harry Fahnz who was the head historian here for about 20 years wrote a series of books on the battle. He stopped with day 3 because he was pretty much burned out and was ready to retire and decided not to do it. But he wrote a book and it's called The Second Day. And it talks about specifically about the fighting on this end of the field. And he refers to this fighting as the Union line ablaze. And that's a very good description. What we rangers refer to as the N. Ensel's Wall Attack. Where the Confederate's brigade after brigade,division after division of infantry are gonna solve the federal positions from the left, all the way around to the right. Trying to drive the federals off the field and take the high ground. And what Devil's Den represents is the part 1 of that crucible. This is where the match was struck to start that configuration. Another definition of crucible you made find in the dictionary is a medal or other refractory material deployed for heating substances to a high temperature. That's another active description of what happned here. As we're going to discover cover on our walk. This place surely contained pure, unadulterated, hellish conflict. And confusion that endures for a grand total of over 6 hours resulting in 16,000 causalities. This is the bloodiest part of the battle. We already mentioned about not drinking the water out of Plum Run. This was a main water supply for both the Confederates and the Federals down here up until this part of the Battle commenced. Within a half an hour to an hour, that creek was running absolutely red with blood. And the water was totally undrinkable. That's how tenacious, that's how terrible the fighting was. 16,000 casulaties. We break up these programs for you folks into the Wheatfield, into Day 2, into Little Round Top into Devil's den to make it easier for us to interpret for you and for you to grasp what happened here. Now I'm gonna talk about the beginning of it. But you have to remember that after this, or towards the end of the fighting here is when all hell breaks loose and there's things going on on Little Round Top. There's things going on on the Wheatfield. There's things going on on the Peach Orchard. And at the end of 6 hours, the Wheatfield has changed hands 6 times. As the sun sinks over the horizon, over South Mountain over there folks, the only victor in the Wheatfield is the pigs. It's no mans land. And 16,000 casualties. Well to get started, does everybody have a pretty good grasp on what's happened up to this point in time? Now we're gonna talk about, let's say around noon time on day 2. Everybody understand basically why the armies are here, what happened on day 1, I was cracking wise with my volunteer friend about Marsellous Jones and firing the first shot and missing but that's all taken place. The Federals have retreated to the high ground south of Gettysburg. And they are starting to form their fishhook. At the end of the fishhook is to be right here across from where we were standing on the Round Tops. And Dan Sickles, the only non- West Point graduate that is command of a Corps, the Union Army, has been given orders to occupy this ground. But he doesn't like those particular orders. He's very concerned about the rocks here. And the high ground here, and a little bit further down at Sherfy's Peach Orchard. And he feels this evidence is going to control access to the Emmittsburg Road. Which is what most of the federal troops had come up on day 1. The 1st Corps, the 11th Corps, the 3rd Corps, will all come up on the Emmittsburg Road. We don't want to turn that over to the enemy. He tries to convince everybody that he's right. And General Meade is ignoring him. He's thinking offensively. Just do what I tell you to do and don't give me a bunch of flack. But Sickles is very concerned about this and finally without orders, he moves his 9,000 men and his 3rd Corps approximately a quarter mile further West than Meade wanted him. The only problem with that is that he said he didn't have enough men to cover the ground he was assigned to. And even less to cover what he takes up. And his wings are hanging in the air and the Confederates jump on his back. I want to talk a little bit more about that in the program. So what we're doing when we're standing here is we are standing at the foot of Devil's Den. And where that name comes from, there's several different stories, but the most popular, local legends I have found in my time here has been that in the early days of Adams County, when it first succeeded from York County and was established on it's own, in 1800, the locals here found a big black snake about a 6 footer, that was living in those rocks. And using the Biblical tradition they referred to him as the Devil. And of course, the Devil was in his den. And that's one of the backgrounds where the term comes from. What we're gonna do now is I said I'm gonna do this a little bit different than most people do, What I'd like to do is take you across Plum Run, over to the area known as the Slaughter Pen. And when we get over there, you're gonna understand why I'm taking you there. Brought you back here folks for a simple reason and I'd like to point out the rocks that are over by the brush. Now back in 1863, those rocks would have been pretty bare. The local farmers here used open range technique farming techniques using stone fences that would block their animals in. And then they would just let their animals roam and forage through this area and they would keep the foliage cut down. You can see the path going through off to our left That is the slopes of big round top. And of course on the other side of the rocks is Devils Den. And when the Confederates are going to be coming to attack Little Round Top behind you, This is the natural path they have to follow. It's narrow, it's rocky, it's constricted and you got rankees on your flank taking hot shots at you. Which weren't supposed to be here. And you're hot, and you're tired, and you have very little of any water. Imagine yourself, one of those boys from Texas, or Alabama, or Georgia is going to be making this march. And he's wearing a wool uniform and carrying anywhere from 40-60 pounds of gear on his back and a 10 pound musket and 60 rounds of ammunition So I just wanted to point this out to you so you really can't see it from the road. And the overgrowth has really hidden things. We here in the park need a battalion of volunteer goats. The come and kinda eat this stuff down and apparently about 3 or 4 or 5 years before I've started here the park tried that and it didn't work too well because goats and visitors don't mix apparently too well. The goats kept on butting kids. And so the kids wouldn't leave the goats alone . So we had to get rid of the goats. But I still think it's a good idea. This is a picture of Dan Sickles, commander of the Federal 3rd Corps. About noon time he's gonna go ahead and make a decision to move his line and his 9,000 men about a quarter mile out further to the West than General Meade wanted. Now General Hunt who is the Commander of the Federal Artillery had come up and was riding a line and inspecting it and checking how his artillery had been placed and General Sickles said Hunt, don't you think this makes a great artillery platform? And hunt says of course it does. And he says, well I'm gonna move my Corps to over here and Hunt says well wait a minute. Not on my recondition you don't . You need to clear that with a commanding General. Well Sickles has tried and he just can't get Meade's attention. Needless to say, there is some pretty bad blood between the two men and some of it deserved. But anyway, that's getting beyond the point. Sickles is gonna move his line and deploy his Corps a quarter mile to the West. So now we're gonna go ahead and go up to the crest of the hill and then I'm gonna set the table for you and then we'll get into the battle. Earlier in the morning, the 2nd, before dawn, General Lee details one of his junior engineering officers to make a scout. He wants to find the extreme left flank of the Union line. And so he sends the engineer out with orders to find the end of the Union line. And the man does so and he reports that he got as far South as Little Round Top and could find no Yankees. Unfortunately, 1 of 2 things, either the man was blind or he didn't get as far as he thought he did. Because at this point in time, on the slopes of Little Round Top on the other side from the crest, there's a full division of the 12th Corps under the General Geary the whole 2nd division of the Federal 12th Corps is encamped on the reverse slope of Little Round Top. General Hancock and the whole 2nd Corps about 14,000 men is about a mile South of here. And these men are making coffee and cooking breakfast. And in the Peach Orchard, there's the remains of the 1st Cavalry division under John Buford. Probably close to 35-40,000 Federals. And the engineer reports, there's no Yankees. I firmly believe the case was he didn't get as far as he thought he did. But based on this, General Lee is gonna come up with a battle plan. And it's always much easier to attack the enemy on their flank rather than try to hit them head on. So what he wants to do, he's waited until his old warhorse Pete Longstreet and his 1st Corps of the Army Northern Virginia goes up from Chambersburg and they make their march down Herr Tavern, about 3 miles North of here, close to the 1st days field and they come down here and they're gonna line on Warfield Ridge. This last row of trees on the horizon is Warfield Ridge. That is a natural extension of Seminary Ridge. Which is a little but further to the right. And Lee's orders to Longstreet hopefully we'll get some traffic on the road so I can point it out to you, I do not see any right now, no that's it. Where the cars coming down the road from the right to the left, and there's another car the other way around you can see it going right there, that's Emmittsburg Road. To attack parallel to the Emittsburg Road and smash into the Union left flank and roll it up like a carpet. However, as the Confederates start coming across Warfield Ridge, they're going to run into a couple of problems. Now the division that got assigned to do this is John Bell Hood's division and that comprises of 4 brigades about 7,400 men It's got his old Texas brigade in it now commanded by General Robertson General Law's Alabama brigade and then 2 brigades from Georgia under General Benning and the other under General Anderson. Like I said, about 7,400 men. And they're gonna start coming across the field and as they come across the field, you can see the barn in the hollow there, that belongs to the Slyder family at this time. And there's a detachment of the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters in there. A company and a half, mostly Company E, the boys in Wisconsin. These are the men that have the green uniform. These are the men that have been trained to take advantage of terrain and they have rich loading weapons. They can put out 10 rounds of fire to every round that a muzzleloading musket can. And so they start harassing the Confederates as they start coming across the field. There's not supposed to be any Yankees here. And only a fool leaves an enemy on your flank or on your rear. So instead of attacking parallel to the Emmittsburg Road, the decision has to be made to switch it 90 degrees and go perpendicular to it. which brings on the fighting and the crucible. Here, Little Round Top, Wheatfield, Peach Orchard. The whole day, to that whole left flank, day 2 fighting. Now General Hood is the division commander. This is a picture of General Hood Unfortunately, as the attack kicks off, he's taken out of action right away. There's a federal shell would explode over his head and the shrapnel seriously wounds him and he winds up laying in a Confederate field hospital having his left arm amputated. Command falls upon the next senior man, the most senior brigade commander, which is gonna be General Law from Alabama. In the meantime, word can't be passed through the lines to the troops as to what's going on. And so nobody knows who's really in charge. And somehow as the elements are coming across the field the lines get kind of mixed together. Two brigades get kind of mixed up. Some of the Alabamians take off with the Texans and the Texans and Alabamians get mixed and they kind of split. And there's various reasons for that, which if you're really interested in that then you can read Fahnz's book. He does a very good job explaining it. But for the purposes of this program, it's just saying that it happened. And these men made this attack without much water. There had been a detail sent out for water but the word to move came before the water detail came back. And so they're making this attack in high humidity, high 80 degree weather, and wool uniforms without much water. And so they're coming across the field that way and General Law is gonna be in charge. The line is gonna consist of these 4 brigades and the Texas is gonna be on the left flank, the Alabamians are gonna be on the right flank. Now they're kinda mixed up a little bit. Then General Benning and the Georgians are gonna be behind the Texans and General Anderson's troops are gonna be behind the Alabamians. Maybe a couple of hundred yards separated the 4 brigades as they came across the field. They're still being harassed by the Sharpshooters as they come across the field. Those sharpshooters are gonna fall back, fall back, fall back, and eventually wind up on top of Little Round Top. Now we're up here at Captain James Smith, 4th Independent battery of New York Artillery, light artillery. The guns are in the wrong spot. They would have probably been at the foot of the monument of the 99th of Pennsylvania. I already mentioned General Hunt but he was here in the 1880s when they dedicated the monument for the artillery battery. And he came up to, General Hunt came up to Captain Smith and said if you had placed your guns here on the 2nd of July of 1863, I would have court-martialed you for incompetence. But they got put in the wrong spot. It's probably because this is where they fit. They're probably a little bit further on down in front of the infantry line. Providing support for the infantry. Now, your overall commander in this part of the field is gonna be the division commander under General Sickles which is General Burney. His division is gonna be responsible for this area. General Humphreys has got the peach orchard. That's the 2nd division of the 3rd Corps. But General Burney is gonna have this area and then the brigade is gonna be assigned to occupy Devils Den and what is known as known has Hog's Ridge here is gonna be General Hobart Warren. And he's gonna have 5 or 6 regiments. Backed up by 1 battery of New York artillery He's going to have the 4th Maine. He's going to have the 20th Indiana. He's going to have the 86th New York. He's gonna have the 124th New York and he's gonna have the 99th Pennsylvania. Approximately 2,200 men against 7,400. To start with. Now there's gonna be interment artillery fire all through the early afternoon. Smith's battery is dueling with Confederate batteries. They're giving as good as they get. There's not enough room up here, now a battery of federal artillery at this time consists of 6 guns. Divided up into 3- 2 gun sections. A right, center, and a left section. There's only enough room up here on the crest for 2 sections. Normally when the guns are deployed, you would deploy the guns and then the caisson is going to be deployed probably about 30 or 40 yards behind it. That's the big ammunition wagon. You have 10 men on a gun crew, 4 men up front, and then the other 6 are what we called worked the box. Which is the ammunition supply and you had men constantly running back and forth between the limber which is the small ammunition box and the main caisson to resupply ammunition. At this point in time Smith has to leave his limbers and his caisson on the floor of the valley. So those gunners are hoping up those rocks carrying ammunition. In 90 degree heat, wearing wool uniforms. Seemed like I'm repeating myself but I'm just trying to make the point. So, your alignment is originally gonna be 99th all the way down on the right, followed by the 20th Indiana, 86th New York, 124th New York and then here at the end of the crest, is gonna be the 4th Maine. Here's a picture of Captain Smith. Approximately 4:14-4:30 in the afternoon the Texas brigade which is on the left flank starts approaching the woods to our right. The Texas brigade, the Arkansians , they're out front, slightly ahead of the first Texas. And they're gonna be headed towards those woods and as they get in close to those woods, they start taking fire from the 3 right regiments of Ward's brigade. the 20th, the 99th, and the 86th. They also are taking some flanking fire from the 17th Maine just down on the Wheatfield which was the other end of the woods there. And then General Ward's gonna order those 3 regiments that giving fire to advance and drive the Arkansians back. In the meantime, the Texans come up closer. Now the Texans are a pretty good size regiment Almost 500 men in it. And they're going to start assaulting this spot, falling, falling, falling up on the attack. And what we're gonna do right now is I'm gonna take you down to the Triangular Field where the Texas attack took place. Follow me please. The Texans are gonna be coming up this, they're gonna start back where the Emmittsburg Road is and they're gonna be coming up this way and this wall here forms a triangle. You can see the base of it on the other side. Smith's guns are doing what they can to support the infantry up here. Trying to break up these Confederate attacks. But as the Rebels keep on getting closer and closer, they can't deploy, they can't depress their guns low enough to be effective. Now for a certain period of time, they can fire canister which is good up to about 400 yards to break up an infantry attack, but after that, they can't depress the guns and so it's basically useless. So Texans do get some momentum. They're making a charge up here and I have a quote for you from one of the participants. One of the best things I think that we have is the soldiers stories. The men that fought and served here. Either in letters home, in diaries, or whatever the case may be. That we found exactly what was going on. This is from private H. Waters Berryman in Company I of the 1st Texas. He was talking about a comrade of his. I thought he had been killed but he jumped up and kept fighting harder than ever. I tried to persuade him to leave the field, but he would not leave. He told me if every man left for a slight wound, we would never gain a battle. So the man's been wounded , doesn't say how badly, but obviously he can still walk and he's gonna keep on coming. Some people want to call that foolish. I call it tenacious. So, while this is going on, the Texans come across the wall, they've got the fixed bayonets and they can smell victory. The Yankees are right up there. And they're gonna go get him At this point in time, this gentleman, Colonel van Horne Ellis of the 124th New York, decides that he's gonna do something about that. And those Texans are not gonna take this hill. So he has his men, his orange blossoms, as he calls them. They're called orange blossoms because every one of those men is from Orange County New York. That's where the regiment was raised. It was raised in early summer of 1862, of close to a 1,000 men. And just about a year later, they're down to less than 300. And Colonel Ellis is going to order a counterattack. His men fixed their bayonets and come pounding down the hill to plow into the Texans. And the Texans back over the wall, and are chased all the way back down on the other side of the wall towards Emmitsburg Road. Those boys from the Empire state did it. Just at this time, things are looking pretty good for the Yankees, and those two Alabama boy regiments show up. The 44th and the 48th. One of the things I forgot to mention to you, is that before this happened General Ward, I think I mentioned, he sticks the 4th Maine down on the rocks at Devil's Den. And the 48th is gonna keep the 4th Maine tied down on the rocks and the 44th is going to come up here and they're going to slam into Colonel Ellis' left flank. And he only had 238 men to start with. Now he's down to probably around maybe 175. And it's a pretty good size Alabama regiment. And the tide starts turning the other way. And things are again starting to look pretty bad for the Union. And so it's going back and forth, back and forth. So now let's go back up to the crest and we'll get the first counterattack and then we'll wind up. Okay the 44th is coming up and making things really hot for the 124th. General Ward is starting to panic. He orders the 4th Maine out on the rocks. He orders the 99th to make a bayonet charge from the right of the line down to the left. And he dispatches an aid for help for General Burney and manages to secure two extra regiments to give him a hand. The 40th New York and the 6th New Jersey which are down on the Valley floor and they're going to be engaging the 48th Alabama down in the Slaughter Pen. Smith can't fire. He's gonna hit his own men. So his men are basically standing here ducking bullets. But Smith was a smart cookie. He says, I am probably gonna lose my guns. But if I have to abandon them, what I want you to do is make sure that you take all the implements all the rammers, all the sponges, all the water buckets, everything you need to fire these guns, plus all the friction primers Make sure you gunners remove all friction primers so if these guns fall, those Rebs can't use them against us. Cause no one is going to bring, no infantry, is gonna bring friction primers on a bayonet charge. But basically that's what happened, there is a couple of quotes for you folks After the 99th is ordered to make that bayonet charge across the rear of the federal line. Corporal Peter Herr's of Company E wrote home, the unit fired one valid volley and with a dash, were in the thick of the fight. Above the crack of the rifle, the scream of shells and the cries of the wounded to be heard through the shout in Pennsylvania and our homes. And I think that's very, very important folks. These men were raised in the state of Pennsylvania, in the slate fall of 1861. They've been in the Army for almost 2 years. Most of that time, they've spent in the Army South of the Mason- Dixon Line. South of the Potomac River. And all of a sudden, for the first time, Billy Yank is defending his own. It's his turf. And these boys from Pennsylvania are fighting on their home state ground. Maybe it helps explain what happened here. For the first time ever, Billy Yank wins one. And I think fighting on his own home turf, may have had a whole lot to do with that. And conversely, Johnny Reb fighting on his home turf the previous 2 years may have something to do with that also. Stop and think about it for a second. Colonel Walker on the 4th Maine before his men are pulled out of the rocks, I shall never forget the click that was made of the fixing of the bayonets It was done as one, one sound. And the whole regiment had fixed bayonets that's how well disciplined and how well trained these men are. 99th is gonna make the counter-charge. You can see it. 4th Maine comes up from the rocks, the guns are secure for a while. The crest is recaptured from the 44th. The Yankees have the high ground again. For a few minutes, but then from the woods we came, General Benning across his knoll with 1,400 Georgians. And they absorb the remains of the Texans and the Alabamians. And the Arkansians. They forced the 4th Maine around the flank of the 4th Maine. And they assault around 5:15, they assault the whole Federal line here. And these men have been fighting for almost an hour and a half. They've taken some pretty horrendous casualties. About 30%. They're running out of ammunition, and the just don't have much left. The right of the line starts to give first. In order, they don't panic, they don't retreat. This is where some of the fighting in the Wheatfield started to take place. Vincent has shown up on Little Round Top. And the fighting is going on there because of the troops that have gotten through the Slaughter Pen. Some of those other Texas boys, the 4th, the 5th Texas. The 15th Alabama, the 47the Alabama, the 4th Alabama that had gotten through the rocks past the Devil's Den. The right pulls back thinking they've been relieved by other elements of the 3rd Corps and members of the 5th Corps and the 2nd Corps is seeping into the Wheatfield. Smith abandons his guns. Again, taking his implements and his friction primers with him. He manages to get 1 of his 4 guns down the hill. The other 3 are captured by the enemy. A quote from a soldier of the 15th Georgia as they assault this part of the line, the 15th Georgia Regiment faced the battery. We went straight up to the top of the hill, took the guns, and met face to face the 3rd and last time Meegers gallant Irish Brigade from New York. They fought us with desperation and tried repeatedly to repcature their battery but we beat them back. And this shows you the prime example in the confusion and heat of combat how people can make mistakes. This Georgia soldiers talking about the Irish Brigade. They were no where near here. They're in the Wheatfield. General Meeger's dead at this point in time. It's just the way things sometimes go. But it shows the interest of how this property was taken. Federals, like I said, had been fighting against tremendous odds for over an hour, all the way over an hour. When the Federal line down here at Devils Den has turned the two relief regiments, the 6th New Jersey and the 40th New York can't withhold off all those Confederates and Smith's Battery, even though he's got the 2 rear guns going, and firing canisters against the enemy can't hold the line. And they have to pull back. And the Confederates take control of this part of the battlefield. And they don't lose it until they withdraw on the 4th of July. I'd like to leave you on a quote, a couple different quotes here. Captain Weggin of the 124th. He's the Captain of Company A At this point in time, he is the senior officer in the regiment. Both Colonel Ellis and Major Horne have been killed. He is now the senior man in the regiment. He's commanding it. And he stayed behind and made sure that he didn't leave any of his wounded behind. If there's anybody that was ever obligatory that he had to make sure that he could get help, he made sure they made their way back to the Federal lines. And so he wasn't with the regiment when it withdrew. And when he caught up, he wrote this in the Regimental history that he wrote after the war. When I reached the regiment, General Ward had halted and was arraigning it. He was saying that he expected almost impossible things from his own troops. But with such a heroic, noble, resistance is being made, it was beyond anything he had ever dare to hope for even from them. And to close up folks, conclusion, everybody usually likes to know numbers. Causalities. Federal about 829 out of about 2,500 engaged. About a 30% rate. Confederates is about a little over a 1,000 at about 3,500, about 29.1% rate. The sacrifice of Ward's brigade allows the Federals enough time to get troops to cover the Round Tops. There's enough time for Vincent's brigade to get there and standoff the remainder of the Confederates from Hood's division that had made it through the Slaughter Pen. This is part 1 of that crucible that we had talked about. And in conclusion, and finality, a quick quote, a quick poem for you. A fearful, desperate fight of life and death for freedom and Union's sacred cause against all the martial flower of chivalries proud might. 3 hours they held the pass. They spiked the guns, fell back on Round Top, still facing the foe, and Gettysburg did save Union fare sheds luster on those heroes banded there Smith's New York Battery 4 won there on Devil's Den, renowned forevermore The old 4th Maine that to the rescue came brave orange blossoms on the scroll of fame and golden characters are written there, their precious heritage of nobles rare Samuel Adams Wiggin, Private, 32nd Massachusetts Infantry. Thank you folks. Questions? Anything?
