The Forgotten Heroes of Gettysburg (The 137th NY on Culp's Hill) | History Traveler Episode 134

so oh merciful days whoo all right well as you can see i am on top of a big old tower uh we are in gettysburg pennsylvania and this is the very summit of the famed copes hill uh so we're going to kind of take a look around here and then we're going to get back on the ground and do a little bit of exploring here at the far right flank of the union line here at gettysburg oh yeah i should not have done that [Music] all right now before i get to talking about corpse hill there are a few things that i probably need to establish first the name culps hill is a little bit deceptive uh it really should be called culps hills just in the same way on the southern end of the battlefield that there's a big round top and a little round top at colts hill there's an upper corpse hill and a lower corpse hill second why is corpse hill important well if you look at it it's again looking at the the famous uh fish hook formation of the union line culps hill is on the barbed end of the fish hook at gettysburg there are ten roads that are coming into town during the battle the confederates control eight of them so behind culp's hill which would be off to to my right from where i am right now is the baltimore pike uh if the union loses corpse hill they lose control of the baltimore pike and the army of the potomac supply line would be cut off and basically uh the union forces would be in a bad shape now the last thing that i need to establish is that when it comes to the fighting at culps hill there's a lot that i don't understand i understand a little bit uh but i'm still i'm still learning so there's a few stories here that that i want to tell though that as i've learned about them i've found them quite fascinating so right now i'm standing just below the monument to the 150th new york infantry and earlier today i was with dave collins and he was helping me to understand cults hill a little bit more and he he explained that on a lot of the monuments you'll see earthworks integrated into the design well that that was something that was a huge part of the battle on corpse hill the brigade commander for this general area was a guy by the name of george sears green and he may have been the oldest general on the battlefield they called him pap green anyway whenever his men got up here he insisted that all of them build up earthworks cut down logs pack them with dirt do anything that they could to to build up their defenses now the the core commander slocum and also the division commander for this area whose name was john geary uh insisted that it was unnecessary to do that it would just wear the men out and that the hill itself provided enough protection for the men but greene insisted that they they keep digging in and they keep building these earthworks it's a good thing that he did because what was going to be coming up this hill was going to be nothing short of treacherous for the union troops now on day two the union had a big problem uh general dan sickles had moved his line way out which created some gaps in on the union left flank and whenever long street attacked general mead was forced to pull multiple brigades from slocum's 12th corps over on culps hill to plug the gap that left only 1300 union troops under general george greene who were left to take on over 4 500 confederates under general johnson and not only were they outnumbered but their lines were stretched dangerously thin [Music] now because of books like the the killer angels and the movie gettysburg and ken burns civil war series all of which were beyond outstanding a lot of people know the story of joshua chamberlain and the the 20th maine and how they were at the far left flank at little round top and made this heroic bayonet charge down towards the confederates from alabama but what if i told you that over here on the right flank there is an almost identical story where a regiment this one from new york was holding the the far end flank and got down to where they had no ammunition faced a larger force and had to make a downhill bayonet charge well that is the story of david ireland and the 137th new york infantry so here on culps hill at the very end of the line on the right flank of the union forces is a monument to who i'm going to say is the most overlooked uh regiment in the battle of gettysburg the 137th new york infantry now i mentioned a little bit earlier how there's an upper culps hill and a lower corpse hill so so if you look up the hill there there's my rental car uh you can see how it really uh goes up at a a steep angle so that would be upper corpse hill and then i don't know if you can really tell but right here in this area there's a little bit of a saddle there's a low point and then it goes up to lower corpse hill well the union line went all the way down right here in front of me and then to protect their right flank there was what was called a traverse that went across so this is just another line of defense to to keep their flank from being turned and it's right here where on the evening of july 2nd the 137th was positioned and was getting ready to face a firestorm from the confederates [Music] okay so where i'm standing now is on lower corpse hill you can see uppercults hill across the saddle and you can see my rental car there in the distance just for reference now the the 137th advanced up to this position right here to check the advance of the confederates and the the fighting here was just absolutely murderous uh where chamberlain was facing a couple of regiments over on little round top ireland and the 137th are going to be facing an entire brigade and the woods would have been fairly open it looks like the park service is kind of doing that right now uh there wouldn't have been you know really any undergrowth at the time because of uh farm animals but the fighting here would have been intense and just in the same way that uh chamberlain's line got bent back well so did ireland to a point right over here so this would have formed kind of like a a right angle now colonel ireland did get some help from a group of pennsylvanians who came up over here on his right side uh which was nice at least for a moment until the pennsylvanians came under fire and then said heck with it and turned around and just walked back and and left really the 137th hanging out here so they ended up having to turn their flank again and were facing fire from three different directions this is all happening at night as well so eventually they're running low on ammunition ireland orders a strategic withdrawal and had one of his captains i believe the guy's name was greg order a squad to fix bayonets and to charge down towards the oncoming confederates to give the others time to pull back to to the traverse over there on upper culp's hill now keep in mind that it's dark so the thing that is guiding this captain and and this group of men who are making this bayonet charge is the muzzle flashes from the confederate rifles absolutely unbelievable now while we are making comparisons between the 20th main and the 137th new york here's another one both of these units suffered exactly the same percentage of casualties in the battle of gettysburg both were over 30 percent one big difference is that on the third day of the battle the the 20th maine was technically not in the fight uh the 137th was still here on corpse hill and going up against reinforcements from the famed confederate stonewall brigade so so these guys were just beat all the heck uh in in the action to defend corpse hill so so why is it that you've heard of the the 20th maine and of joshua chamberlain and not necessarily david ireland and the 137th new york well they say that history is written by the victors it's also written by the survivors david ireland died of dysentery outside of atlanta in 1864. so after the war he wasn't able to tell his story uh history is also written by the guy who has the better publicist so like i mentioned before the book the killer angels and different movies and documentaries who have focused on joshua chamberlain and 20th maine have really elevated that position but you have to include the 137th and many others whenever you're talking about the battle of gettysburg because while the 20th was securing the left flank well it was the guys from the 137th they were keeping things pinned down over here on the right [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 53,033

Rating: 4.9691682 out of 5

Keywords: history, civil war, travel, gettysburg, battle of gettysburg, army of the potomac, army of northern virginia, robert e lee, battle of gettysburg documentary, gettysburg movie, history traveler, history underground, american battlefield trust, gettysburg documentary, little roundtop, little round top, david ireland, culps hill, culp's hill, 137th new york

Id: fCNdsy7nOkg

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021