On the first day of the battle of Gettysburg,
the Union Army of the Potomac, the main army for the United States here in the east, does
just about everything right on July 1st, 1863, yet by the end of the day they're defeated
and driven back through the streets of Gettysburg. On July 1st, 1863 the Confederate Army of
Northern Virginia comes to Gettysburg and they do just about everything wrong, yet by
the end of the first day they're going to emerge victorious on this battlefield, but
those victories are eventually going to weigh against them. They're going to make mistakes that are going
to count against them and that will ultimately lead to their loss of the entire battle. Summer of 1863, the war has been going on
now for about two years and despite loss of thousands of lives and millions of dollars
in treasure, nobody is really winning. West of the Appalachian Mountains things are
going well for the Union cause. The border states of Kentucky and Missouri
with thousands of horses and mules is firmly in Union hands. The middle of western Tennessee is in Union
hands, a big hog producing region, produces corn. Nashville, the first Confederate state capital
falls and they had dozens of factories in the Nashville area. New Orleans, the second biggest city in the
western hemisphere, major seaport with hundreds of factories, and 108,000 people falls to
the Union navy. In the spring of 1863, an obscure general
by the name of U.S. Grant is laying siege to Vicksburg, Mississippi and if Vicksburg,
falls the Union army and Union navy will control the entire length of the Mississippi River. But out here in the east, it's a different
story. For the last 13 months this man, General Robert
E. Lee and his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, has been winning battle after battle
out here. In May of 1863 he wins perhaps what is one
of his greatest victories; the battle of Chancellorsville where he defeats a Union army that is more
than twice the size of his own army. At the same time he loses one of his best
generals, Stonewall Jackson. After Chancellorsville everybody is thrilled
by Lee's victory but it leaves him disappointed and depressed. While he may have won a big battle there,
Chancellorsville was a Confederate victory, but at Chancellorsville the Union army lost
17,000 men. That was only about 12% of their army. Lee lost 13,000 men at Chancellorsville; that
was 21% of their army. The north, in terms of military manpower,
outnumbers the south 3 to 1. The Confederacy has started the first draft
in American history in April of 1862; by this point in the war, practically every young
man between the ages of 18 and 45 is in the Confederate army and soon they're going to
start drafting 17-50 year-olds. So Lee realizes he's run out of time. Also he's got some problems. He’s been in the Fredericksburg, Virginia
area for the last six months. There's no food in the area, no grass or hay
or fodder for his horses or mules. The Confederate infrastructure, the railroads
are falling apart and Lee's army and all the other Confederate armies are starving. He can't stay where he is, he’s going to
have to fall back to Richmond or he's going to have to do something else. That something else is that he wants to invade
the north. He has several reasons for wanting to do this. First, by invading the north he hopes that
it will pull Union soldiers away from General Grant's army. He doesn't really believe that but it's a
good story to tell to Jeff Davis, he'll buy into it and leave Lee's army alone. As I said, his army is starving; up here in
Maryland and Pennsylvania there are a lot of rich farms and a lot of rich towns, Lee
wants to do some grocery shopping and he'll do it in a big way. When he goes back to Virginia he will take
with him 30,000 hogs, 26,000 head of cattle, 22,000 head of sheep, thousands of horses
and mules, barrels of flour, cornmeal, sauerkraut because it's high in vitamin C to prevent
scurvy, harnesses, saddles, clothing, paper, boxes of tin, horseshoes. Everything he needs is up here. When he goes back to Virginia, if you were
to stretch his wagon trains from end to end, it’s going to stretch for 57 miles. That’s one checkout line you don't want
to be behind. He’ll do so well up here that he won't have
to worry about feeding his army for a couple of months. But the big reason he wants to invade the
north is that he needs to fight a battle on northern soil that he hopes is going to bring
about the end of the war. And so in early June, his army begins marching
out of its camps around Fredericksburg, Virginia west, and then north into the Shenandoah Valley,
and then up into the Cumberland Valley on the other side of the mountains out here. He’s collecting those supplies, Lee's army
is spread out over sixty miles. As he was moving up here, his cavalry under
J.E.B. Stuart has been screening his advance. Lee's army has been west of the Blue Ridge
Mountains; J.E.B. Stuart has been east of the Blue Ridge Mountains
preventing the Union cavalry and the Union army from figuring out where Lee is going
and what he's doing. He’ll do so well, the Union army won't know
until June 15th, ten days after Lee has already left, that he's already moving. They’ll be surprised by this and they'll
start moving north. Stuart gets orders, on June 23rd, that tell
him: if the Union army is moving, you need to come back and rejoin the army. If they're not moving, you need to move right
off to the east to Washington D.C. to put a good scare into Abraham Lincoln and the
Federal government and rejoin the army back up in York, Pennsylvania about 30 miles to
the east of us. Well J.E.B. Stuart starts moving and on June 25th, he's
moving and he's running into Union soldiers, and he's trying to get back because they're
blocking his way. He sends word back to Lee, he sends two couriers
back to Lee; the Union army is moving. He sends another courier down to Richmond. The two couriers going to Lee never get through. The one going down to Richmond does get through,
but Lee already knows the Union army is moving so they don't bother to contact Lee. Meanwhile, Stuart is trying to get back but
he can't get back, so now he's riding to the east, he's still hoping to join up with the
army in York, Pennsylvania. The Union army is moving up here and on June
28th, Lee gets two pieces of the bad news. The first piece of bad news is that the Union
army has a new commander, George Meade, who will take command of this army three days
before this battle is fought; by the time it's over, he's not even been in command of
this army for an entire week. This is somebody that Lee knows well. Meade has serving in the old pre-war army
in the Mexican War, served as a brigade division corps commander in the Army of the Potomac,
so General Lee has fought against Meade. He’ll say of General Meade, "He'll make
no mistake on his own front and take advantage of any mistake you might possibly make.” So Lee knows he's facing a new tougher opponent. The other piece of bad news he gets is that
he thought the Union army was still south in Virginia, south of the Potomac River, but
actually they're only about 40 miles away down in Frederick, Maryland. They're moving up here quickly and Lee's army
is spread out from Chambersburg, 25 miles to the west of us, up to Carlisle and Harrisburg,
35 and 45 miles to the north of us, and out to York, Pennsylvania 30 miles to the east,
they're spread out this a big arc. And if Lee doesn't move quickly enough, he
realizes that Meade will destroy his army piece by piece, so he sends out word to his
generals, he looks on a map, he sees there's a town nearby with ten roads leading to a
single place, a transportation hub. He sends orders to his generals saying we
will concentrate the army at Gettysburg. Lee is coming to Gettysburg, he's expecting
to fight a battle, but not soon. Usually when the Union army moved, it moved
6 to 12 miles a day, so Lee believes he still has several days before he has to fight a
battle, maybe July 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. He’s got time to get up here. What he doesn't know is that when Meade takes
command he'll move his army 40 miles in 2 days, so suddenly they're actually a lot closer
to Robert E. Lee than he thought they were, and Lee's army is spread out. Meade is coming up here and Meade is expecting
to fight a battle in the next 48 hours, so he does a couple things. He tells his generals to clear all your roads
of wagon traffic, issue your soldiers three days’ worth of rations, issue them ammunition. The only wagons coming up here are going to
contain ammunition. He gives them space on the roads and he's
also going to be moving up here on several different roads so there's not going to be
any traffic jams. Meade is expecting to fight a battle in the
next 48 hours but he doesn't know where it's going to be. It could be here at Gettysburg, it could be
to the southwest over in Emmitsburg, Maryland, it could be to the east over in Hanover. He’s got troops going over in those directions,
he's got his army divided in three different wings, they're moving up in this direction. His left wing he expects to make contact with
the Union army, commanded by John Reynolds, is coming up here now, and Reynolds is heading
towards Gettysburg with about 30,000 men. Reynolds is a guy Meade trusts the most, he
expects a lot from Reynolds. Reynolds is moving up here with about 30,000
men and he leads the 1st Corps with 10,000 soldiers. In front of Reynolds's corps is - if I can
find him here - Union cavalry under this man, John Buford. Buford has 2900 men, he's been bringing an
advance of Reynolds’s left wing up into this area, he's been reporting back what he
finds up here. On June 29th, Reynolds's 2900 cavalry troopers
are going to pull into Gettysburg. 2900 men, he's going to discover 8 miles away
over in Cashtown, there are about 15,000 Confederates headed in their direction. We're going to move up here now so we can
see a little bit better over these buses, move to the top of the memorial here so you
can see a little bit better. [audience member] Now weren't Lee and Meade
friends from West Point? [John Nicholas] No they might have met during
the Mexican War but they didn't know each other very well at all. Lee graduated in 1826 and I think Meade graduated
in 1842 or something like that. Now Lee's army, most of it, is coming from
the west along the Chambersburg Pike, and there’s some troops that are coming from
the north as well, and Buford is riding into Gettysburg. They discover out in Cashtown. If you look out there you can see a red-roofed
building. Remember where that building is, we're going
to talk about it a little bit later. Cashtown is 8 miles away. There are about 15,000 troops out there. In the lead is a Confederate division of about
7500 men under this man, Henry Heth. Henry Heth, on June 30th, sends a Union brigade,
Johnson Pettigrew’s brigade, coming along this road out here, the Chambersburg Pike
where you see the traffic way out there. And Meade sent out orders: until the army
is concentrated do not start a battle. Well Pettigrew is coming here with about 2600
men and they're looking for supplies. Now the story is that they're looking for
shoes, but they're not looking for shoes, there was no shoe store here, there was no
shoe factory; they're looking for everything they can get here. He’s coming here to Gettysburg to pick up
supplies. Orders are not to start a fight, so Pettigrew
is coming up along the road out here, and he gets to about where you see that white
barn out there, McPherson Farm, and he sees Union cavalry off to the east by the Lutheran
Seminary. The orders are not to start a fight, so Pettigrew
goes back to Cashtown. He tells General Heth: I think there's Union
cavalry in Gettysburg. Now Pettigrew and his men are coming up from
North Carolina. They’re new guys. They’ve never been in big battles before. They’ve been down in North Carolina most
of the war, but now they're coming up to the show, the Army of Northern Virginia, the big
time. Because they're new guys, Heth does not believe
Pettigrew is seeing Union cavalry over in Gettysburg. And he tells Pettigrew: you don't know what
you're talking about. That’s just militia over there, a couple
of guys with shotguns, nothing to be worried about. But Pettigrew is insistent that there's Union
cavalry up there so he goes to Heth's corps commander, A.P. Hill, and he tells hill his
story that he believes there’s Union cavalry over in Gettysburg. Hill says that cannot be true, General Lee
says they're still down in Maryland, nowhere near Gettysburg. They say, new guy, you don't know what you're
talking about. And he says I still want to go over to Gettysburg
and get supplies and he says: well everyone else is headed toward Gettysburg, I want you
to head towards Gettysburg tomorrow, get those supplies, and while you're doing that take
along with you your 7500 men, you're also going to take behind you 6500 men under Dorsey
Pender's division. And you're going to take 22 cannon with you
as well. Now if the plan is just to come over here
to Gettysburg to collect all these supplies, why are 15,000 men and 22 cannon headed towards
Gettysburg? We don't know why. So around 5:30 in the morning, Heth and his
big huge column is leaving Cashtown headed for Gettysburg. Buford knows they're coming. He may be outnumbered, he’s got about 2900
men vs about 15,000, he may be outnumbered, but he's got a plan. He’s got to use some of his men to watch
the roads to the north and to the east. That will leave him about 2100 men to face
15,000 out there. Not good odds. What Buford wants to do is slow down the Confederate
army long enough for the rest of the army to get up here, so he's got a plan. He’s going to set up three defensive lines. The first line-- if you look way out there,
you'll see a church steeple, does everybody see that? That church steeple is maybe half a mile behind
Marsh Creek. So he's going setup his first line about a
half mile beyond that along Marsh Creek; two and three soldier teams are early warning
systems. The second line will be back here where you
see the red-roofed building on Herr Ridge. And the main line will be back where you see
the white barn along McPherson Ridge. So he's got about 2100 soldiers and 1 out
of every 4 will have to hold the horses for the other 3, that leaves him with 1800 men,
so now 1800 men versus 15,000. But he's go these three lines, he's also got
a couple other advantages. His men are armed with breech-loading carbines. A carbine is a short-range musket. You can load it while you're lying on the
ground or hiding behind something so you don't have to stand up to load it. It has a higher rate of fire; a muzzle-loader
musket like the Confederate infantry has can fire maybe 2, at best maybe 3 shots a minute. Breech-loaders or carbines can fire 4-7 shots
a minute. It can put up a high rate of fire, but as
a short range it's inaccurate, so you can put up a high rate of fire, but you're not
hitting anything. Also Buford has got 6 cannons out here in
3 two-gun sections. He's going to spread them out over the field
so the cannon shots are going to come in from different directions, making the Confederates
out there think he's got more men, more cannons than he does out here. So Buford is waiting, he sends word back to
John Reynolds that the enemy is coming up here, and you need to hurry up and get up
here, and Reynolds is on the way. So around 7:30 in the morning, half mile from
where that church steeple is, a shot rings out. July 1st 1863, the first day of the battle. So Confederate infantry hears that first,
shot they stop. Heth says it's just a bunch of militia, I’ll
throw out a few skirmishers, about four or five dozen men to push those guys back. They’re moving forward, the shots are still
ringing out. Nobody’s getting hurt though. They’re shooting at what they believe are
skirmishers; they don't realize it's cavalry. The cavalry can hide. Whenever Heth's skirmishers get close to the
Union cavalry, they jump on the horse and they ride back farther, fire some more shots. So they're pushing forward. The entire column is stopped back there on
Marsh Creek. They're slowly inching forward, they're finally
going to fall back to that skirmish line, back there on Herr Ridge where that red-roofed
building is, a slightly stronger line. Heth is going to have to stop again and throw
out more skirmishers. They’re going to push them back again back,
back, back until along the end of this tree line right there at the base of it is Willoughby
Run. It has now taken Harry Heth two and a half
hours to go just two miles and he's fed up. He wants to get rid of these pesky skirmishers
and what he believes is militia in front of them; it's not militia, and he's beginning
to realize that it's Union cavalry. So he stops and he decides now he's going
to put out a lot heavier force. He’s going to order one of his brigades
to fall out to and move along the line. That brigade is going to be commanded by a
man named James Archer. James Archer actually has a lot more experience
than Heth does, he's a lot smarter than Heth. Archer tells him: I think we're walking into
a trap and my brigade of 1200 Tennesseans and Alabamians are not enough to do this job. We need to throw out more men. So Heth says: that's fine I’ll put out my
second brigade. About 1800 men under Brigadier General Joe
Davis who has the last name of the Confederate president. There's a reason he has that name; he calls
the president Uncle Jeff. That’s how he got his job as a brigadier
general. Davis doesn't have any experience, but he
throws his 1800 men out and it's going to take a half an hour to put all these soldiers
out in a line, and now they're starting to push the cavalry back from Willoughby Run
out to the main line here along McPherson’s Ridge. So Buford is in trouble now, the Confederate
infantry is pushing him back, he doesn't think they can hold any longer, and now John Reynolds
will ride up. He says I’ve got more men coming can you
hold for a while? and Buford says I think I can. What we're going to do now is we're going
to move to our next stop. We’re going to be able to see a little bit
better and talk about the arrival of the Union infantry here at Gettysburg. Reynolds is coming up. He’s bringing the 1st Corps with him. Reynolds commands the left wing. He rides into Gettysburg, he finds John Buford,
he asks Buford can you hold? I’ve got more men coming I’m going to
bring them across the fields here. Can you hold for a little while longer? and
Buford says I reckon I can. As Reynolds is coming up he sees to the south
of town there's a big hill. You can see where that light blue tank is
up there. That’s Cemetery Hill. At the time, that tank and those trees weren't
there. The town was a lot smaller then and that hill
dominates the battlefield. He sees the importance of that hill, he sends
word back to George Meade: I’m going to stay here and fight and I’ll barricade the
streets if I have to, I think this might be the place to fight. Now Meade's already got a plan. He had developed written orders the night
before that if the Union army gets in trouble and they have to fall back, then they fall
back 17 miles to the south in the area around Union Mills, Taneytown, Maryland called Big
Pipe Creek. It's an ideal place to fight a battle, so
he says if we get in trouble, we're going to fall back there. The orders are supposed to go out the night
before; they don't go out until 6 o'clock in the morning. Reynolds will never get these orders, and
when Reynolds sends word back to Meade: hey, I'm going to fight here, Meade doesn't say:
hey, that's not the plan, he trusts John Reynolds and when Reynolds says: I'll barricade the
streets if I have to, he says: that's just like John Reynolds. And so Meade is already thinking about Gettysburg,
he's still 14 miles away at Taneytown, Maryland, he's not going to come up here just yet, he's
in a central location down there between his different corps commanders all across Maryland
and Pennsylvania. So Reynolds is coming up here. He’ll bring forward with him the 1st Division
of the 1st Corps. Two brigades and the first brigade, Lysander
Cutler’s brigade, those men arrive here first. Reynolds has going to stop these Confederates
and he's going to put some of them to the south of the road; he'll put three-fifths
of them on the other side of the road. There's a problem, because first, the guys
that are two of the regiments that are out here will be off to the right and they can't
see anything in front of them. The other regiment is separated from the other
two and they're protecting a battery, they're actually 200 yards in front of the other guys;
they can't see the guys behind them. And coming across the fields now is Joe Davis
with his 1800 men. He’s going to surprise the guys out here
and overwhelm them. They'll hold on for thirty minutes, they're
beaten, they're given orders to retreat. Orders that are sent over to that third regiment
along the road, the 147th New York, to retreat, but as the colonel gets that message to retreat,
he's struck in the head by a bullet. He's badly wounded and his horse panics and
rides off without him, so his soldiers out there don't realize they've been given orders
to retreat. Now Davis's 1800 men are descending upon 261
New Yorkers and they are crushed out there, and they retreat and everybody is racing back
towards the woods out here. South of the road, though, more soldiers will
arrive will be the first brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps, the best trained,
the best soldiers of the entire army; the famous Iron Brigade. The Iron Brigade are the best soldiers in
the army, known for their tall black hats and long frock coats. Earlier in the year they had fought Stonewall
Jackson’s five brigades to a standstill, held them off all afternoon. At the Battle of South Mountain, they charged
up the mountain and the general said: who are those men? They must be made of iron; that's how they
got their nickname. And at Antietam they had cleared the Cornfield
of Confederate troops, so these are the best soldiers of the entire army. Now they are charging into Herbst Woods past
the barn out there. Archer’s men are coming up through the woods
and the cavalry is falling back, and they think they've won this battle, and then suddenly
the Iron Brigade shows up. Now men begin yelling: it's those damn blackhat
fellows again, we're in trouble now! The Iron Brigade slams into them, they wrap
around the end of the Tennessee and Alabama brigade lines, and Archer's men are given
orders to retreat. They run back towards Willoughby Run and back
towards Herr Ridge and they're surrounded. The Iron Brigade will capture somewhere around
400 Confederate soldiers out there, including General Archer who becomes the first Confederate
general to be captured since Lee has taken command of the army. So Archer's men are running back towards Herr
Ridge. Way out there the rest of the Confederate
army are watching all this, but they're too far away to do anything, but Davis's men are
still coming across the field here, chasing those Union soldiers. If they turn right and cross the road, the
Iron Brigade will be trapped in the woods. And now that is beginning to happen. When the Iron Brigade went into the woods
out there, not everybody went in. They left one regiment behind, the 6th Wisconsin
under this man Rufus Dawes. Rufus Dawes’s grandfather William Dawes
rode with Paul Revere one night in 1775. Dawes's birthday is on July 4th; he'll turn
25 if he lives. Dawes sees what's happening here. He sees those Confederate troops chasing those
troops across the road here and he realizes that if they turn south, the Iron Brigade
will be trapped in the woods. So he orders his men to charge towards the
Chambersburg Pike. They rest their muskets on fences along the
pike and start firing at those Confederates. The Confederates stop what they're doing,
they turn, and now they're going to face Dawes's men. About 1800 vs about 400 soldiers, but the
Iron Brigade isn't worried about this. They said: Now we've got a good standup fight
with nothing between us and them, no rocks or walls or anything, just us and them. Then one soldier said: They disappeared just
like they'd been swallowed up in the earth. They haven't disappeared; what they've done
is they've jumped into a railroad cut. If you look out there you can see a group
of trees that runs along the road, you'll see a wooden fence out there as well, by where
that car is. The railroad will come to Gettysburg in 1858. It was supposed to continue west of Chambersburg,
so a railroad has been dug and put tracks down, but the tracks here won't be laid for
another 15 years or so, but these Confederates have jumped into the railroad cut, this big
ditch. In some cases it's only three or four feet
high; in other cases it's ten foot high. The Confederates did not have ten foot soldiers
in their army. The men are firing, the Confederates in the
railroad cut are firing towards Dawes’s men. Dawes’s men are along the fence, they do
not have very good protection at all, they're taking casualties. Dawes now has three choices: he can either
retreat, let the Iron Brigade be captured in the woods out there, he can stay where
he's at and get his men slaughtered out there, or he can do something else. He decides he's going to do something else. He'll order his men to climb the first fence
then climb the second fence, and they're going to charge towards the railroad cut. Mississippians, North Carolinians in the railroad
cut are firing towards Dawes's men. He's got 175 yards to go. His men are being shot down by the dozens
around him, he said men were leaving in the 20s and 30s Finally, when they get about 30
yards from that railroad cut, there's a slackening of fire along the railroad cut, and then a
sheet of flame emerges from the cut, and Dawes says that half of his men went down. Now the thing is, Dawes and his men are at
the railroad cut and they've got loaded muskets. Confederates in the railroad cut do not have
loaded muskets now, they have empty muskets. They can't see how thin Dawes's line is, and
Dawes begins to order them to throw down their muskets and they do. He will capture the Confederates in the railroad
cut, and the survivors will retreat back towards Herr Ridge out there and around noon on July
1st, 1863, the battle of Gettysburg should be over. Lee did not want to fight here, Harry Heth
has gotten a bloody nose out here, and he's fallen back to Herr Ridge. George Meade has not made the decision to
fight here yet-- there's a lull for about two hours. Now, while all this was happening as the Iron
Brigade went into the woods John Reynolds had been leading them. And a shot would ring out and John Reynolds
is shot in the back of the head. He will be the most senior general killed
here at Gettysburg. So now these guys are leaderless out there,
the guy who's in charge is -- that's John Reynolds right there -- the guy in charge
now is this man, Abner Doubleday, division commander in the 1st Corps. Doubleday is very unpopular in the army, nobody
likes him, he's a very mediocre general, and on top of that, he did not invent baseball. But Doubleday is in charge now, and while
he may be a mediocre general, Gettysburg on July 1st will be his best day in the army. He’s going to bring up more reinforcements. He'll pull the Iron Brigade back across Willoughby
Run into the woods out there, and he's bringing more troops on the battlefield. Around 12:45 Lee will arrive on the battlefield
and wants to know what's going on. We did not want to fight here, we wanted to
start it. He tells Heth: you do not send any more men
in just yet. But coming down from the north are now more
Confederate soldiers; 8,000 men under this man, Robert Rhodes. Rhodes is one of the best generals in the
Confederate army; not today at Gettysburg. Rhodes commands the largest division in the
entire army and he's marching down from Carlisle. He’s coming down the Carlisle Road; he sees
this road up here, this hill up here, Oak Hill. He pulls his troops behind it, goes to the
top of it, and looks down in the fields out there. There are 10,000 Union soldiers out there;
he's got 8,000 men up there and they don't realize he's up there. He’s on their flank and if he attacks across
these fields he can crush them. He’ll have the element of surprise, he has
everything in his favor. The first thing Rhodes does is he rolls out
his cannons and he starts shooting to let everybody out there know: “Hey I'm up here! Look at me!” So he's already thrown away the element of
surprise. Second, that gives Doubleday time to move
troops up here and he'll move the troops of Henry Baxter's 1400-man brigade up here and
along the stone wall. Baxter’s men are here on Oak Ridge; they'll
go up to the road here and then bend back here, 1400 men. Rhodes had 8,000 up there. He's going to use three of his brigades to
attack this area right here. The plan is he will send one Alabama brigade--
this is Henry Baxter right here. He’ll send one Alabama brigade under this
man, Edward O’Neal. They’re up there on the hill. They’re going to attack down the hill towards
Baxter's brigade. He’s got two more brigades: Alfred Iverson's
brigade is out there in the woods; to their right is Junius Daniel's North Carolina brigade. About 4,000 men to attack 1400 here. The plan is for these brigades to all move
at the same time and launch this attack. Immediately things go wrong. First, O’Neal, up here on the hill, there's
Union troops moving out in the fields here and they start firing towards O’Neal’s
brigade up here on the hill. They've got cannons out here in the field
and Rhodes will move one of O’Neal’s regiments back behind the woods so they don't get hit
by cannon fire. O’Neal had 1700 men. For some reason, Rhodes will move another
one of O'Neal's regiments off to the right, the 3rd Alabama, and those guys don't know
why they're moving, and when they get over there nobody has any clue as to why they're
moving over there. So O’Neal has 1700 men; now he's down to
a 1,000. He doesn't believe he has the use of those
additional regiments up there, and his men step off. They step off 30 minutes too soon before the
rest of these guys are in place out there. And as they're coming towards this hill right
here, Baxter’s men see them coming. They move along the ridge right there, there
was a stone wall running down that way, and O’Neal is not with them. He walks up to Rhodes and says: hey my staff
and me, we don't have horses. And Rhodes is looking at him: What are you
doing? your men are heading down the hill right here and you're not with them, so these
men are coming forth leaderless, they'll blunder straight into the Union lines right here. The Union soldiers will rise up and fire several
volleys into them which will inflict huge casualties on them, and they will race back
up Oak Hill. Many of the men will go down to the barn down
here and they'll be captured. O’Neal is still a colonel and usually a
brigade commander commands as a brigadier general. And O’Neal has been waiting for his promotional
orders to come now for some time, but Robert E. Lee and Robert Rhodes have some doubts
about O’Neal, and Lee has O’Neal’s promotion orders. They’re in his pocket, and as a result of
what O’Neal is doing up here, or rather, not doing, those orders are going to stay
in his pocket. So O’Neal doesn't get promoted and the first
attack here has failed. Coming across the fields now is Alfred Iverson’s
1400 North Carolinians. To their right is Junius Daniel's brigade. O’Neal is supposed to attack the area right
here; Daniel’s is supposed to protect them. Daniel’s has a hard job because he's supposed
to be going in this direction and in that direction at the same time. Iverson’s men are coming across the fields
here. Now, we're standing right here and we'll move
down here a little bit farther because I want you to step away, and actually we're going
to walk over to the other side of the road here a little bit. Okay, you have this low stone wall right here
and Baxter’s men don't have to worry about O’Neal anymore, so they move all over here
behind this low stone wall. You notice there was a road over here; this
road was not here in 1863. To build this road they had to build the ground
up a little bit more, so the area behind the road would have been a little bit lower. If you're looking out there you may be able
to see that the ground is sloping down away from us here into a swale out there, and coming
across the fields is Iverson’s brigade. They don't have any skirmishers in front of
them; an early warning system. They have no idea what's back behind this
wall here. They’re heading forward and when they get
about 75 yards away from us here, Baxter's men will rise up and surprise Iverson’s
men. And they'll be shot down immediately. In the space of about 20 minutes, Iverson
will lose about 900 of 1400 men. And Iverson is not with his men; either he's
back in the woods out here -- apparently he's drunk -- so he's going to lose his job here. And Union soldiers here after they fire into
Iverson’s men, the men are falling to the ground, they can't escape, they start waving
white flags. The Union soldiers here are going to go out
and take prisoners and along with one line here there were 79 men. 77 of them fell forward; 2 of them fell backward,
they're all in a perfect line. So Iverson’s brigade has been blunted here,
Daniel’s is trying to protect the survivors here, and they're trying to attacks towards
the road; they can't do this, so they have to fall back. By this point it's about 2:30 in the afternoon. For the most part, even though the Union army
is outnumbered here at Gettysburg, they're actually winning the battle. But more troops are coming and we're going
to move up here to our last stop and talk about the Union 11th Corps out here. I still can't really see it, oh well, too
hazy out there. What do you see out here? Flat, open ground right? Coming onto the field now is the Union 11th
Corps commanded by this man, Oliver Howard. The 11th Corps has fewer than 10,000 soldiers. It’s the smallest corps in the Union army. Half of the 11th Corps is made up of German
immigrants. They’re unpopular with the rest of the army. Most of them don't even speak English. Howard doesn't like his men and they don't
like Howard. Howard’s a stern church-going Mainer, he
doesn't believe in drinking, and the Germans-- they like to drink a lot of beer. Howard’s men are coming up into Gettysburg. Howard sees Cemetery Hill out there. He realizes the importance of that position,
so he's going to leave one of his divisions, about 3,000 men, on that hill. The other two divisions are going to move
out towards the north of town. They see there's no good ground out here to
post their troops and they're going to stay along the north edge of the town here. Coming down the Carlisle road is one of Rhode’s
brigades, George Doles’s brigade, and he's going to push sharpshooters forward to a small
hill way out here -- I'm not sure if you can see it today -- called Barlow's Knoll. There's a flag pole out there, there's a monument
out there I don't know if you can really see it, it's way out there. And the sharpshooters are up there and to
the right -- or actually, closer to town here on the right end of the Union lines -- is
one of Howard’s division commanders, Francis Barlow. And Francis Barlow sees those men on some
high ground out there, and so he pushes the men forward to push them off that high ground. Maybe Doles was a decoy to pull Barlow out
there. By doing that he's caused the whole line to
come forward, and the left end of the line right here under a general by the name of
Schimmelfennig -- I like saying that name, Schimmelfennig -- they're moving out here,
this is a very, very thin line. There are not enough soldiers out there to
hold this line. What Barlow doesn't know-- if you go out to
Barlow’s Knoll out there, you can see his monument out there, you can see him looking
towards Oak Hill over here, where Rhodes is. He’s looking in the wrong direction because
do you see where that T.V. tower is out there? That's generally where the old Harrisburg
Road was and coming down that road right now is General Lee's bad old man Jubal Early with
about 6500 men, and Barlow is facing in the wrong direction. Early will come forward, sees a perfect opportunity,
strikes Barlow’s division, and crushes that whole line. The 11th Corps is now retreating. At the same time Heth out here has been waiting
to attack again and Lee will let him go forward with his last two brigades. They will finally drive the Iron Brigade off
McPherson’s ridge and suffer huge casualties out here, so many casualties they cannot continue
to fight. The Iron Brigade will fall back towards Seminary
Ridge to make one last stand out there; they'll build brigades in front of the seminary. Rhodes is launching an attack out here and
the line is collapsing. At four o’clock, Dorsey Pender's division
is out there and they will finally drive the Iron Brigade off of Seminary Ridge, so the
entire Union army is retreating through the streets of Gettysburg. Back at Taneytown, Meade is still back there. When he got word of Reynolds’s death he
thought about coming forward, but he doesn't think that's a good idea, because if he comes
forward and his army's retreating, he'll get caught up in that retreat and he'll lose contact
with his army, so he sends forward Winfield Scott Hancock who is close by. His close friend tells Hancock: you know what
my views are? go up to Gettysburg and see what's happening out there and you make the
decision whether or not we're going to fight here. I’m going to stay where I am because I’m
centrally located to the rest of the army back there. By staying there, if we have to fall back
to Big Pipe Creek, I'm in a good position to position troops out there. And if we're going to fight at Gettysburg
I’m in a good area to send everybody else forward up to Gettysburg. So Meade will stay back at Taneytown 14 miles
away, and Hancock is heading back to Gettysburg. Now the Union army is retreating through the
streets of Gettysburg. Howard has done one bad thing today. He knew he could never hold these lines forever,
he knew he was outnumbered up here, and he failed to put staff officers in the streets
of Gettysburg to tell the troops where to go when they're going to retreat from this
area back to Cemetery Hill, so large numbers of his men will be captured in the streets
of Gettysburg going down dead-end streets and down alleys. But the rest of them will rally on Cemetery
Hill, where you see the light blue water tank out there, and every soldier on the battlefield
realizes the importance of that hill. Lee will send orders to his corps commander
Richard Ewell. Richard Ewell is up here on Oak Hill with
Robert Rhodes, and he tells Ewell to attack Cemetery Hill if it's possible, but Ewell's
got some problems. Rhodes's division up here has suffered 30%
casualties and is in no shape to fight anymore today. Early's division hasn't suffered that many
casualties but they're somewhat disorganized. He’s got another division coming up but
they're not here yet, the Stonewall Division. The troops out here are disorganized and then
he gets word from one of his brigade commanders out here on the York Road that there's Union
soldiers out there; that brigade commander is a general by the name of Extra Billy Smith. Extra Billy Smith happens to be the governor-elect
of Virginia. He’s the oldest general in the Confederate
army. He's 64 years old and Extra Billy says: there
are Union soldiers out on the York Road. Well maybe there are, maybe there aren't. We’re not sure what Extra Billy saw out
there. He may have been looking at fence posts, he
may have been seeing Union troops of the 12th Corps that were briefly out there. But he reports back to his boss, Jubal Early
and Richard Ewell: there are Yankees on the York Road. Neither Ewell nor Early believes this, but
you can't ignore the governor-elect of Virginia, so you're going to have to attach another
brigade to shore up Extra Billy out there. Now Ewell's got these orders to attack a hill
and that's got at least 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers on it. They’ve got 40 cannons up there. Ewell's got no place to place any cannons
out here to fire on Cemetery Hill, to attack Cemetery Hill-- it's got 8 to 10,000 men. He's only got 4,000 soldiers to do it, so
he decides it can't be done, so he sends word to the other side of the hill to Robert E.
Lee and A.P. Hill: can you loan me some men? and there are men out there. There’s a Georgia brigade, Edward Thomas's
brigade 1400 men; they've barely been in this fight at all. They can help out and attack Cemetery Hill. Coming onto the field right now on Herr Ridge
is 7,000 men under Richard Anderson. They can help out attacking on this hill,
but Lee, the great gambler, for once does not know where the rest of the Union army
is so he does not want to release those men, so Ewell decides it's just not possible to
take Cemetery Hill. July 1st ends with Lee having won a great
victory here, but he still hasn't taken that hill and he'll spend the next two days trying
to take that hill. As I said earlier, the Union army did just
about everything right out here on July 1st, just about everything right. They’re outnumbered but they're winning
the battle on July 1st, only numbers weigh against them. The Confederate army did just about everything
wrong and they suffered huge casualties out here on this field on July 1st. But they won big on July 1st and they think
they can win big on July 2nd, but on July 2nd they'll make more mistakes as well. On July 3rd Lee has one last chance to win
here at Gettysburg and that last attack will be known as Pickett’s Charge. Half of Pickett’s Charge is made up of Virginians
from George Pickett’s division of about 6500 men. The other half of the attack will be made
up from men of both Pender’s division and Heth's division. Pender’s division out here on July 1st suffered
almost 20% casualties. General Pender himself has been mortally wounded
and he's going to die a couple weeks later. Heth's division which had opened up the battle--
General Heth has been wounded and he's going to be in and out of consciousness for the
next 36 hours. And his senior brigade commander, who should
now be commanding the division, James Archer, has been captured so that means a new guy,
Johnston Pettigrew, is now the division commander. July 1st had been Johnston Pettigrew's first
big day as a brigade commander and now he's commanding a division. Also Pettigrew's division now has suffered
huge casualties. They've suffered 40% casualties here on July
1st and 16 colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors, who would have commanded regiments
or brigades that day, have been killed or wounded by July 3rd. Those guys should not have ever been in this
fight on July 3rd. On July 1st, 1863 the Confederate army does
just about everything wrong here but they win on July 1st. On July 2nd they continue to make mistakes
and those mistakes are stacking up against them. They win big on July 1st but they paid a price
here for their victories on July 1st. The mistakes they make on July 1st are eventually
going to weigh against them on July 3rd and cause the failure of Pickett’s Charge. I want to thank you for coming out here. I’m sorry if I kind of babbled a little
bit, I just got out of the hospital a couple weeks ago, so I haven't quite recovered yet
and this is my first first day program of the year. If you have any questions I’ll stick around
and be happy to answer them. I want to thank you for coming, we have a
lot of other programs today: cemetery walk at three o’clock today, a second day program
at 2 o’clock, a program on the third day at four o’clock, we have a campfire tonight,
and lots of other programs, so thank you for coming.
