Alright everybody, welcome to the second day
program. My name is Matt Atkinson, we're now standing
in the Peach Orchard, apex of the fighting, center of the fighting on July 2nd, 1863,
and we are going to study what happened that day. This is my esteemed colleague, the other Matt
right over here behind the camera which you cannot see, but I assure you he is there behind
your television somewhere right now, as soon as the bus gets past, and together we're going
to hopefully produce a nice little video for the people back home that can't make it to
Gettysburg. So thank you all for being my guinea pigs
out here today. Okay, let's start with the big picture. We're going to start with July 2nd of 1863
and we're standing in the Peach Orchard. What I'm going to do is set up how we get
here and how we're going to get from the big picture down to this little area, this patch
of ground on which we're standing, being one of the most deadly hand-to-hand fighting places
in all of the American Civil War. So big picture. July 1st, to back up, the previous day, the
Union army is going to get defeated. They're going to get driven back through the
town of Gettysburg, if you look right over here, if you pan over here in this direction,
you'll see those woods off in the distance. That is Cemetery Hill. To the right of those woods is going to be
Cemetery Ridge, and to the left of the woods is going to be the historic town of Gettysburg. A lot of that modern development you see out
there such as McDonald's, Friendly's, the Great Gettysburg T-Shirt Company, Pickett's
Buffet, ready? Just charge it. Okay, never mind, okay, alright. We'll try that one again-- cut. All that development was not there so the
historic town of Gettysburg is roughly starting where the Dobbin House is, the modern day
Dobbin House restaurant, there's a few scattered houses going back towards the Farnsworth on
Baltimore street. Anyway, it's wide open. Union army rallies on Cemetery Hill, that's
that wood line I just pointed out to you, and the Union army is going to come up on
the night of July 1st and the morning of July 2nd and start to extend those lines. Now we talked about, if you were over at the
Little Round Top tour, we talked about, from a different vantage point, what the Union
has to do up here. They have to come up and they have to shore
up their left flank. The way I'm standing, this is going to be
north in this direction, obviously south in this direction, west, and then east, Little
Round Top is over here behind me at this moment. The Union army is comprised, on July 2nd,
of seven corps. Maybe not in the morning, but they'll eventually
have seven corps up here by the end of July 2nd. Union army corps are about 10,000 men apiece. They're the pieces of a pie, alright, and
when you slice that pie up, they're the big pieces you take out and serve on a plate. The Confederate army, on the opposite end,
has three corps, but their corps are about 20-25,000 men apiece. Both corps on either side, corps on the Union
and Confederate side are going to average about three divisions apiece. Sometimes they have two but most of the time
they have three divisions out here. So, divisions comprise corps, and then comprising
those divisions are going to be brigades, and comprising the brigades are going to be
regiments. So when we get into the Peach Orchard action
and the engagement here on the Union left flank or the Confederate right flank on July
2nd, when I start saying stuff about Union corps moving here and Confederate corps moving
here, all you need to know is big pieces are coming together on the board, on the gaming
board up here, alright? Looking out across, through here, this is
wide open. You don't have to be a scholar to figure out
that this terrain is just-- you can see everywhere around through here. That is the misleading thing, I think, about
most Civil War battlefields. The people that don't visit it or study any
others, they think that Civil War battlefields are all like this. This is one of the few battlefields during
the four years of the conflict, though, that you could see for long distances. When people come up to me and they say, "Matt,
how far will these cannons fire?" Well, I can tell you, they're all roughly
about a mile, but it's all relative. They rarely fired at anything they couldn't
see. Here at Gettysburg, in some instances, they
were almost maxing the guns out, some instances they may have maxed out the distance they
could fire. Most Civil War battlefields, it doesn't really
matter how far they can fire because they never have to fire that far. Now, you've got an open landscape then. If you're the Union army, you are going to
utilize the natural terrain features in order to set up a defensive perimeter. Looking here from the Peach Orchard, we're
looking out toward, roughly, the northeast over here in this direction. If you can see above that treeline right there,
you can see a large dome with a figure on top, you may even be able to make out some
wings on it, that is the Pennsylvania Memorial, and that is the lower end. To the left of the Pennsylvania Memorial is
Cemetery Ridge, and I guess you could say the bottom half of Cemetery Ridge is where
that monument is right there. That's where the Union army's line is going
to end, basically, on the night of July 1st. Now, as additional Union troops come up, they
will start extending to your right, the Union line, to the right of the Pennsylvania Memorial. Eventually, they're going to extend it all
the way down two where you can see these two wood lines off in the distance. To the right is Big Round Top, that will not
be occupied specifically, but to the left over here, the shorter one will be Little
Round Top. Eventually that will be the end of the Union
line on July 2nd, but not before you have a lot of different things going on that throws
that skew off. Now, once again, back to terrain, you look
around through here, look at the Peach Orchard right now. I don't know if I'm on the highest point in
the Peach Orchard, probably not, but I'm close to being on the highest point on the Peach
Orchard. Notice from this position, ladies and gentlemen,
how you get a 360-degree view of everything around you. In other words, this terrain right here commands
everything around it. This terrain, this feature in the terrain
is exactly what a Union corps commander named Dan Sickles sought to control on July 2nd. He wanted to move his 10,000 men from down
there to the right of the Pennsylvania Memorial, on that ridge which you see behind that barn
being constructed, and he wanted to move these men up here to this salient. In actuality, he did just that, that's why
all these monuments are sitting here right now. Sickles moves his roughly 10,000 men up to
this area, the Peach Orchard, and this becomes his salient. Now, if you look off to your left off in this
direction, you'll see the highway. You'll sometimes see traffic going up and
down. Sickles's right flank, remember, from the
direction facing the way I am, Sickles's right flank is going to extend along this highway. His left flank will extend back in this direction
toward Big Round Top, but it will not make Big Round Top. At the base of Big Round Top is a place called
Devil's Den. It's got rocks at the bottom, very rocky,
that is the end of Sickles's line right over there. Sickles is going to move out and if you were
standing here on July 2nd, you would have seen a beautiful sight. There's a little under 10,000 Union infantry
who are going to march from that ridge, which I pointed out, out to this area with flags
flying, drums playing, bands playing, etc. Beautiful, in column, the blue lines moving
forward, snaking forward through the fields. It will take, in real time, this is not a
board game, it will take in real time Dan Sickles about three to four hours to position
his troops along that V which I just described to you and get everything situated. Now Dan Sickles believes that he has a better
defensive position by moving out here. This is what you can do, you can come here
to the Peach Orchard, you can look around, you can view it for yourself, then you can
turn around and you can have a bus go on by - that was done intentionally, I would like
you to know - I'm getting off to a rocky start here. You can come up here and you can view the
land which Dan Sickles wanted to occupy and you can go back down there to that distant
ridge and you can view it from that angle also, which is better. The one thing that happens when Dan Sickles
gets up here is that Dan Sickles has got his corps into position in front of the rest of
the Union army. Here we are where Dan Sickles was; where you
see those monuments back along Cemetery Ridge is the rest of the Union army. If the enemy is over here along that wood
line, he has brought himself closer to the enemy along Seminary Ridge. He has also extended his line by twice the
distance from the original position which he had over there. Folks, Dan Sickles will never, ever regret
moving his corps up here, and we can debate whether that's the right move or not, but
beyond a doubt, his move is going to trigger something on July 2nd that is going to cause
heavy fighting because of that move. In a sense, when the Union general finds out,
which he did not know what Sickles was doing, when General Meade, the Union commander finds
out, he rides out to see Sickles over there at the Trostle Farm where that barn is being
reconstructed again, and by the time he gets there it is too late to get Sickles out of
this predicament. Meade has to support him and they send waves
of reinforcements in here in order to do this. That's going to cause even more massive casualties. At the end of the day, the end result is the
same; Dan Sickles is going to wreck his corps, suffering roughly 50% casualties. Now that's partly captured, a lot of them
were going to be captured, but 50% casualties out here on July 2nd. It's gone, wiped out, 3rd Corps is gone. That's a pretty heavy decision, to say the
least. Okay, so the Yankees have moved out here,
Robert E. Lee is looking to get at the Union. Robert E. Lee turns to his subordinate. What did we talk about? Corps. Robert E. Lee has three of them. Robert E. Lee turns to his most seasoned corps
commander, a guy by the name of James Longstreet and he says to Longstreet, they called him
Old Pete. I doubt Longstreet ever was referred to as
Old Pete by Robert E. Lee, but some people may have. He turns to Longstreet and his real beard,
as compared to the movie, and he says I want you to move your corps around here and strike
the Union left. In other words, come out here my Orioles dressed
Yankee friend, face me. Alright, if he's the Confederates and I'm
Dan Sickles right here, he wants the Confederates to do what? He wants the Confederates to hit the Union
army at right angles. See the T? Put your arms up, see the T as they come in? What is the problem for me as a Union commander
in defending myself if I'm getting attacked from over here? I have to turn. This thing doesn't turn on a dime. Another thing they can't do is move terrain;
the terrain is not conducive to turning like this to confront. But that's Lee's plan, that's exactly what
he wants to do, he wants to pivot on the Union line and roll it up like you would a wet blanket. Thank you. So he turns-- you didn't have to get out of
here so fast. So he turns to Longstreet. Now, when we get into mindsets, you get into
Dan Sickles, you get into James Longstreet, the two principle commanders that are out
here that day, then you have to get into, obviously, some amateur psychology. We sometimes hit it on the mark and we sometimes
don't. Dan Sickles, from the Union standpoint, has
tried and tried and tried to get an answer to whether he can move out here. If you go back to three months before the
Battle of Gettysburg, Dan Sickles is at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and Dan Sickles
is told to relinquish high and open ground around Chancellorsville, and he does that. He obeys his orders, he withdraws from that
high ground and the Confederates subsequently come in there and plant artillery pieces on
top of it and pummel his new position. Dan Sickles is a political general, we talked
about that in the Little Round Top program, he is a political general, but nevertheless
he is like every other general, he is learning on the job. Dan Sickles learned a lesson from the Battle
of Chancellorsville, one that he doesn't want to repeat. His worst fear is to have Confederate artillery--
take away the monuments like you see them today, his worst nightmare in his mind is
to have Confederate artillery positioned so they can bombard his whole position. That's the last thing Dan Sickles wants to
happen. So he feels he has to act to stretch the limits
of his orders. Was it the right thing to do? Debatable, to say the least. Not in my opinion, but at the time, you have
to understand his mindset. Longstreet, to get into his psychology, Longstreet,
for whatever reason, whether it was miscommunication or they actually said this or whatever, Longstreet
comes into Pennsylvania with the belief that Robert E. Lee and himself have agreed to fight
a defensive battle. So if you have an agreement with somebody,
what is Longstreet's mindset when Lee, his boss, tells him to come over here and attack? Not defend, but to attack the Union army? He's not too happy about that, of course he's
not. I'm not saying that Longstreet is going to
throw it, by any means, I'm not saying that he's going to throw the match here on purpose
like the Black Sox, alright? You'd impress me if you knew who that was. [audience member] You mean the Black Sox scandal,
World Series? [Matt Atkinson] Yeah, hmm. Okay, I'm impressed. If you think about it, I think it's natural
human emotion that your work reflects your attitude. I mean, I don't think it's rocket science,
I don't think Longstreet's heart is in this thing, but then again, he is a professional
soldier and he would perform his orders. So therefore, Longstreet, after much debate--
and remember, when you get into Gettysburg and you start reading into Longstreet and
Lee, just like any couple that married out there, there are always three sides to a story,
aren't there? What are the three sides? I like that, her's, her's, and the truth. His, her's, and the truth. When we get to Gettysburg, out of that triangle
of sides right there, we only have one side of the triangle. We don't have Robert E. Lee's side so between
the two, it is very hard for us to determine what was actually said. We have Longstreet's version; we don't have
Lee's. We know the men disagreed, how about we leave
it at that? They disagreed, now what exactly was said
is up for debate, but Lee told him to attack. So Longstreet is coming around through here,
he's eventually going to pull up with his roughly 18,000 men around three o'clock in
the afternoon, and he will start to position himself along this treeline. If you look right over here this treeline
right over here is Seminary Ridge, and down here to your left, the same ridge basically,
is going to turn into Warfield Ridge, but it's one continuation. What has Longstreet sought to do? He has sought to attack with the element of
surprise and so this wood line is going to allow him to do that out here, or so he hopes. When he pulls up at three o'clock though,
the attack plan that he and Lee had planned upon has completely changed because Dan Sickles
is sitting right square in the middle of this thing where he plans to pivot his whole line. This is where we get into Longstreet's attitude
and his work reflecting that. There is no doubt that Robert E. Lee-- and
this is a double-edged sword, that Robert E. Lee is a macro-manager. For better or worse, he will say to a commander,
I want you to go and take the hill, but he won't tell you how to do it, right? He allows a lot of leeway to his subordinates
that sometimes works out and it sometimes doesn't work out. You can see them both at play in Gettysburg. Longstreet feels that he must adhere to his
original orders which were to pivot, and just like the Yankee gentleman dressed as an Orioles
fan right over here, he has to come up and he has to pivot at right angles and try to
roll up the Union line. When Sickles moves out here and by the time
Longstreet moves up, that plan is out the window. But Longstreet won't adjust the plan to conform
to the necessary obstacles which are now on the ground. The only thing that he'll do is change the
order of the attack that's going in, but still the Confederates are going to try to attack,
pivot on the Emmitsburg Road-- there's traffic right here, and attack, using this as an axis
of advance to hit the Union flank. Time has dragged on too. Three o'clock, like I said, when he pulls
up. His artillery is just now getting into formation. His infantry should have gone directly into
the assault, but now Sickles, with him being there, is going to delay that infantry assault
even more as the rest of the Confederate infantry files in and tries to outflank Sickles's line. Any questions so far? I can't tell between the two of you if I've
got Longstreet or Lee fans. [laughter] Either one, huh? [audience member] It fluctuates. [Matt Atkinson] You fluctuate? Depending on what battle it is? I've noticed a lot of people are either hardcore--
and the same with Sickles, most people would say Sickles was against it. But you know, here at Gettysburg-- I don't
have a poll to back this or anything, but a lot of people come up to me and they wonder
about Longstreet, why Lee didn't follow Longstreet's alternative plan to make the Union army attack
him. That comes up quite a bit, so I think Longstreet's
reputation is getting better compared to maybe what it was 100 years ago. [laughter] Yeah, it wasn't too good. Alright, we're going down from the big picture
now to the small picture. I want you to look around through here and
I want you to think of yourself as a Union soldier that day, on July 2nd. It's relatively quiet, it wouldn't be as quiet
as it is right now, but it's relatively quiet, a sporadic boom here, some gunshots going
off, but in this sector of the line it's relatively quiet for a battlefield. You're lounging around, you're Union soldiers,
you would probably have campfires, you've got your guns stacked, you're lounging around,
writing a letter, writing in your diary, maybe eating something, maybe you've gone off in
search of water over here at the barn, etc. You're waiting and you've been waiting for
several hours for something to happen. Around three o'clock, as I said, that Confederate
artillery is going to open and the Confederates are going to eventually bring eight batteries
of artillery to the dance. The Union will eventually have seven artillery
batteries in here. Think about the noise that's going to create
and think about the peaceful, tranquil day when those shells are going to start to whistle
in here over your head and what that's going to do to you and everything that you were
thinking about or dreaming about, maybe home. The problem with the Peach Orchard, ladies
and gentlemen, for those Union soldiers, if you picture yourself right now, is that the
Confederate guns go straight down to the south. The Confederate guns continue to run to the
north to that wood line right there, so if you have Confederate guns firing from this
direction and firing from this direction, what does that do to your position? You're in the middle, so you are caught in
a crossfire, and there is nowhere to go because the Union soldiers had not fortified themselves. Now I'm not saying-- the problem for the Confederates
is, and this is the great thing about preserving the battlefield, is that they cannot see the
hump, but where you see the road over here to your right, where you see that bus coming
along right there, that's Sickles's right flank. The last thing you want is to be facing this
way and to have shells coming in from your left. What is that going to do to you? Ricochet along the lines, or, cross the T
and you're liable to cause more casualties. It is a artillerist's dream as far as geometry
and shooting angles, although they can't see what they're hitting. Veteran troops could withstand this fire,
and both sides open up with a vengeance on each other. The Confederates are trying to knock out the
Union cannons and vice versa. And these Union soldiers, what are they going
to have to do? What's the only thing they can do? Lay down. They lay down and they hug the ground and
they hope for the best. Burling's brigade-- corps, division, brigade,
Burling's brigade has come up and positioned themselves in this fields out here and shells
are missing the Peach Orchard and the front line and are flying over into this field. Burling wants to save his men, he's getting
men killed out here in this field, so what does he do? He marches his brigade back to those woods. Guess what happens? A little captain comes riding up to him from
Sickles's staff and asks him who told him he could move his brigade. And he said, well I did it myself. That staff officer orders him back out into
the field, right back into the middle of that fire. Sickles has got even bigger problems, though,
as this artillery fire starts to boom. Burling's brigade is his reserve meaning that
the Union troops are set up all along through here in the V and you keep a reserve in case
you run into trouble you've got something to send there. Sickles has stretched his line so thin that
he has to disburse that brigade-- remember, brigade, regiment; corps, division, brigade,
regiment. He has to disburse the regiments from the
brigade to different places in the line, so Sickles basically doesn't have any reserve
left, his line is that thin. You want to see it frozen in time? I'll show it to you. If you look right out there, in the distance
you'll see those cannons. You see those two greenish-blue, that's Napoleons. If you've got good eyes you can see on down,
you can see those black tubes. I believe they're three-inch ordnance rifles,
that's a little far for me or maybe my eyes grow that weary in the service of my country. But those monuments right there, a little
Washington for you there, if you think about it, those monuments are frozen in time. What's the significance then, Matt? Sickles doesn't have enough infantry so what
does he plug the holes with? Artillery. And those monuments today bear testimony to
the thinness of Sickles's line, now he would never agree with that but, basically, that's
what it does. Sickles has to plug the center of his line
with these cannons. Things are not looking good. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Confederate
artillery booming, you can extract 10,000 men that easily. I wouldn't say he's trapped but he's pretty
trapped. It would be very hard to extricate him. And here come the Confederates. Marching out, if you look over here in this
direction as far as you can go, the Confederate attack is going to start way down there as
far as you can see, the treeline. The Confederates are going to be moving out
and moving toward, basically, Big Round Top and around in front of it, like a door, coming
out through here. The Confederates, as they march out, are going
to be doing what? They're at right angles. To the camera, you would be the artillerymen,
or to you all. As you're marching out through here, the artillery
is going to turn and get to fire down the entire line of the Confederate infantry; not
good. But it is a long distance and these are veteran
troops so they'll put up with it, but the Confederate attack starts in waves as it starts
to go forward. Alright, I'm going to show you something about
why Longstreet's positions, dispositions, as we start the attack here, is better than
some of the other Confederate commanders. Alright zombie man and fake Orioles fan. If you come over here-- let's see how I want
to do this. Are you related? [audience members] Yeah, brothers. [Matt Atkinson] Really? You get along? [audience members] No. Kind of. [Matt Atkinson] Sort of? You have to wear his hand-me-downs it's going
to be a problem, what do you do? Okay, what I want you to do is both of you
face this way and stand like this. Stand in front of your brother and face that
way. You see them right here, you've got two brigades. Say these boys right here, they represent
brigades. Now, Longstreet comes up and he positions
his brigade-- remember; corps, division, brigade, regiment. He has two divisions out here. He positions the brigades in his division
and double ranks meaning one brigade in front and one brigade behind, two brigade deep. Step up by your brother right here. Other Confederate commanders further to the
north such as Richard Anderson just has a single line of brigades with nobody right
here. The thing about it, that may seem simple to
you, ladies and gentlemen, but it turns out to be a windfall in the end for the Confederates,
as far as making their attack work. Go back to where you were sir. Okay, you no longer think, big brother will
do the thinking. Now, if you think about it, coming out through
here when-- if you step out, let me see how I want you to do this. Just step forward. If he goes that way and the next Confederate
brigade, you know, they would have had them all in a front rank, goes this way right through
here, what's my problem? What have I got between me and the next brigade? Open, nothing. That's a problem because the enemy can get
into here, so, by having depth-- step up between us, Longstreet can feed those rear brigades
into the fight where they're needed. Up here, the Confederates run into problems
because they don't have any depth to their attack. That's one thing James Longstreet receives--
well I wouldn't say receives no credit, but is often overlooked, the deployment of his
troops. Longstreet is known for being slow and you
could argue that he's also meticulous and he does-- he's kind of like George Foreman. You know, if you remember old George, you
could hit George twenty times just so George could hit you once. You like that? I always liked George, man. I hated to see him get beat up too, man he
could take it. But anyway, George Foreman coming out here,
Longstreet is slow, just like Foreman, but he hits like a mule, kicks like a mule out
here. And so when he finally gets his attack off,
he puts a lot of force behind it, and that attack, starting out through here, is going
to end up just like we just showed you. Those Confederates who are in double rank--
go back to where you were, fanning out, let's say I'm two front brigades here and we'll
have another one, I don't have a guy behind me. Let's step out, you that way, I'll go this
way, stop. And then you come in here, works out beautifully. I'm not saying it's flawless, ladies and gentlemen,
but it works out about as well as you can expect under the circumstances. Alright, one more example, come back and get
behind each other again. And this is going to tie into the Peach Orchard
and the fighting that's going to go on, but you have to understand what they're trying
to do. Longstreet is going to launch what is called
an en echelon attack. An en echelon attack. An en echelon attack is like, basically, a
row of falling dominoes, right? The first brigade on the far right is going
to go forward, then the next one, then the next one, then the next one. Line up by your brother. For simplicity's sake, give me three or four
steps out there, junior. Now you can stop right there, he goes forward,
now you go forward. Now I go forward, like this. But what are we doing with each other? We are tripping each other's movements. When he goes, he goes. When he goes, I go. It's a timing mechanism. That's how you get everybody into it. The other thing about it, which the en echelon
attack is built to do-- step back here because I don't want Matt to miss this angle because
this is good stuff, all you YouTube people-- what are you boys doing? Don't tell me that, come on over here for
a minute, I want you two to be Yankees. You've never heard of George Thorogood I guess,
no, he's got a song for you. Alright, just line up in a straight line. If you can figure that one out, you'll be
good. Union line right through here, let's line
up, we're going to hit these boys. Don't worry about it, you're a Yankee fan. Okay, Union army, step forward toward him,
not you, junior. Step forward toward him, okay? If he comes up and he hits you, you don't
have to hit him, but if he hits you, what are you going to call for? [audience member] Help? [Matt Atkinson] Help! Why? Because you're tied up. So that help has to come from somewhere. Give me one more person on the end right here,
doesn't matter, just stand on the end, you've got an easy job. Here's the rest of the Union line. Something has to give, despite you having
more men and interior lines, you still have to get men from somewhere, so what ends up
happening-- are you all related? No, alright, well don't be too quick to disavow
each other, so if you walk down behind him to your friend in the white t-shirt over there,
he walks down to support him, doesn't he? So he comes forward, this line, this attack
is tripping up, go ahead, step into the gap, into that hole. Right through there, walk straight through
it. See what it does? Let's come back, let's recreate that real
fast so then we'll have to rewind it. Okay, stand right here bud. Alright, echelon attack, en echelon attack,
we're going to start on the right, it's going to be like a row of dominoes rolling this
way, the Confederate attack is going this way; Union reinforcements are going this way. See how you catch your opponent guessing wrong? That's exactly what they want to do. Go up there and hit him. Start screaming. [laughter] Go to his help. Go forward, right through the gap. That's exactly what you want to do. You know what ends up happening? I'm getting a little ahead of the story here,
thank you, I'm getting a little ahead of the story right now, but it works. The en echelon attack works. Meade strips that entire ridge back there
and sends all those Union troops down here to the south end. It's just going back to that Confederate attack
up here as the dominoes keep falling as it gets to the north up here where Lee's statue
is today on Seminary Ridge, stop number five, things fall apart. Because the Confederate commander doesn't
have his act together, the division commander. He has no depth to his attack, he doesn't
get half of his forces in. Then the next one in line, the next division
commander gets wounded. When he goes down, none of them move forward,
but the attack actually worked, the en echelon theory actually worked, the Confederates just
didn't get enough men into it, in time to employ it. Any questions? [audience member] How long was the artillery
before they started to attack? [Matt Atkinson] Very good question, how long
was the artillery before they started to attack? Three o'clock is when they open up with the
artillery and the first Confederate troops step off around four. So about an hour of a severe artillery duel
going on, which I was reading about earlier, and I had forgotten the severity of it. Really, I mean it was hot, very hot. Batteries coming in and out of here, cases,
you know, the ammunition chests exploding, people cheering and so forth, and others not
cheering. There was a Confederate gunner over here in
the woods who, actually he was a number seven man who's in charge of fixing the fuses. For some reason, can you imagine this, for
some reason he had a cannonball with the fuse in it that caught on fire. He took the cannonball away from the battery
and pulled the plug out before it exploded, saving the battery many casualties. But can you imagine having the wherewithal
to not panic, I would have probably run for my life, he just simply took the cannonball
away, probably got a knife, and just flicked it out of there. That's just crazy. So four o'clock, let's go back to your question
about the timing, so four o'clock for the Confederates to step off right here, but in
real time, folks, that domino effect which junior and fake Orioles fan over here demonstrating
for us today, the real time for it to get all the way up here is going to be almost
two hours. That is partly, not because they're not automatically
triggering off each other, it's because-- who was my original line? Come out here my polka dot friend. Come over here. If he's the Union line right here and we're
breaking this up, he’s no longer the end. Step right over there where you were, sort
of. Now come in at him this way. If he's the Union line, the first thing I
want to have happen is for him to develop it-- not you, him. What is that going to do to him, to the Yankees? Alright, turn this way. He's going to hit him like this. We talked about this at Little Round Top. He's going to hit him like this and then I'm
the rest of the Confederates, what am I going to do to him? Yeah, hit him from the side, hit him from
the front. That's exactly what's going to end up happening,
but that takes time for this attack, over here, to develop, to come out and hit him. Does that make sense? So that's why there is such a big delay between
the attack starting and the attack getting to where we are at the Peach Orchard. The Confederate general is like a puppet master
holding the parts back until that attack can get going. That's where reality meets the road, instead
of a board game. Any other questions? Alright, let's see, what do I want to do right
now? Let's walk right over here to, what would
that be, the eastern edge of the Peach Orchard and we'll bring up our first Confederate brigade
and I'll show you what combat can do to a bunch of veterans, even veteran troops. We are now standing, roughly, at the eastern
edge of the Peach Orchard. The Peach Orchard is behind me and to my left
or to your right if you're in the audience. If you look out right over here there's a
swell where the camera is right now. That swell right out there, ladies and gentlemen,
is going to become a death trap for the Confederates. What did we talk about at our earlier stop? We talked about an en echelon attack with
the Confederates moving up from the south moving to the north and stepping off like
a row of dominoes from right to left, from right to left, from right to left. Eventually that domino attack is going to
come to the brigade of South Carolinians under Joseph Kershaw. And I have been assured by several South Carolinians
that I have the correct pronunciation. I do not need letters from Yankees. Now Kershaw's brigade is right over there
and Joseph is a good commander, Old Joe. He gets his command moving fast. Alright, come over here. Stand beside me. We are the same brigade this time. I am the right half of Kershaw's brigade,
he's the left half of Kershaw's brigade. What am I expecting as I come through here? I'm going to go right through this swell right
through here, that bottom depression and toward that farmhouse, that's the Rose Farm right
over there. Ordinarily, and I don't think I'm asking too
much, I would expect Confederates to be here, right here, basically attacking back behind
me. When Kershaw marches his South Carolinians
out through this swell, guess what? He doesn't get any support. So you know what ends up happening? He gets out here and he is getting hammered
in that swell right there, so what does Joseph Kershaw do? He doesn't panic, he is a seasoned combat
commander, he therefore conforms to the circumstances on the ground. His orders were to attack through the Rose
Farm and up through those woods presently known as the Stony Hill in modern jargon right
over there. Joseph Kershaw, without any support on his
left is going to therefore split his brigade in two. He's going to take his left half, which is
right over here, the fake Orioles fan, and he is going to turn them to the left. Okay, so, let's see how I want to tell you
to do this. Let's step forward really slowly, let's step
forward, now I want you to peel off and go in that direction, just go toward them and
face them. There you go, now halt. His left half right here is coming exactly
toward this Peach Orchard and the Wheatfield Road back behind the camera out here to your
front, your left front where all those artillery pieces are right there. They get out in this field and all of a sudden,
they get close enough to these Union cannoneers, let's say two or three hundred yards away,
and what are those infantrymen going to start doing to the Union cannoneers, the artillerymen? They're going to shoot them, right? They're going to start picking them off because
why is that in their best interest? They can't fire their guns as long as they're
getting shot. If you'd like to try to replicate it, grab
yourself a sandwich, a nice sandwich or something you might enjoy and go out and kick over a
hornet's nest and see how long you can stand there and eat that sandwich while these hornets
go around you. It has something to the same effect as the
artillery. That's just a joke, don't try that at home. I just came up with that, it may or may not
work, but write me and tell me if it does, or send me pictures if it does. If you think about it, face that way again
buddy, Kershaw's brigade, the left half, is coming up toward these artillery pieces. This story right here, ladies and gentlemen,
is how things go wrong in combat, and how when mistakes happen in combat people get
killed. Alright, you stay there, you're the left half,
I'm the right half. If you pan over here you can see the Rose
Farm off in the distance. You see that farm house, etc.? The right half of Kershaw's brigade is going
to go around the barn and the house. Well those two regiments, as they go through
there, are going to get jumbled up, meaning-- come over here, zombie. If we're regiments now, we're two regiments,
that means that - just stay there - that one is going to get behind the other. Put your arms out. The one is going to get behind the other. So what does Kershaw do to get them like this? He wants them like this. He has them like this, what does he end up
doing? He sends a messenger to the colonel, the regimental
commander, and he says I want you to move by your right flank, meaning I turn, move
to my right until I clear his front, and then I turn again. See how you get your alignment correct? That's all fine and good, it's not a bad order. Where it goes terribly wrong, ladies and gentlemen,
is when that messenger, for some reason, and we don't know who it was, rides over here
to him. Oh yeah, oh yeah you can see this coming all
the way. You're facing that way and you suddenly receive
and order to face to the right. Face toward the camera. If this gentleman right here - face toward
him - if this gentleman right here is the Union artillery, that's not such a good thing. So literally, I am not kidding you, the Confederates
in the middle of that field were heading this way and then faced this way like he's standing,
and presented their flank to that Union artillery along Wheatfield Road. And what did the Union artillerymen, who were
about to leave, what did they end up doing? That's right, they actually ran back to their
guns, those that had been fleeing, and they loaded it with canister. Canister is a tin can filled with 28 one and
a half inch iron balls fired at 400 yards or less. It turns that cannon into a giant shotgun
and they just maul those South Carolinians. Out here in this field is death. I won't go into it, but you can imagine what
those balls are doing out there and the havoc it would wreak. What can the South Carolinians do? What would you do? I don't know if I'd use the word 'desert.' [audience member] No I said hit the dirt. [Matt Atkinson] Oh, hit the dirt, well, they'd
do that. Run! That's exactly what they do. You're both right, they either hit the dirt
or they run, and that left flank of Kershaw's brigade just melts away and they run back
to the Rose Farm and they try to reform behind some valleys or behind the buildings and so
forth. It is a-- I don't know how many of them they
actually got back in the line, but it is a tribute to the soldiers that they were able,
that the officers were able to rally them, because a lot of units would have just said
that's enough for today, but they would enter the fight again with much lesser strength. So anyway, Kershaw, his right flank Mr. Zombie
over here, is going to go up and attack the Stony Hill. They'll punch into there, they'll get a lodgment,
but they'll be under a lot of pressure. The left flank has melted away all because
the Confederates' friends have not supported them on the other side. Any questions, before we find out who's going
to support them, finally? [audience member] What percentage of Kershaw's
brigade did he lose? [Matt Atkinson] Average? He probably lost-- well, it depends on the
unit and where they were. He probably loses, on average, about a third
of his strength. You know 28 to about 35 would be probably
about the average percentage. It varies by unit. Any other questions? We're going to walk to the west side of the
Peach Orchard, it's going to be one of our final stops. I'm going to bring up that last Confederate
brigade, or the one that matters as far as the Peach Orchard goes, and we're going to
have ground zero combat in this area. Let's take a walk. Okay, so we're back closer to where we were
at the first stop, we're a little closer to the Emmitsburg Road. If you look out over here, look behind you,
you see that wood line in the distance; that's the main Confederate position. Now that's probably about, I don't know, 4
or 500 yards, maybe a little longer over there to that position. Now, at our last stop, we talked about Kershaw's
brigade going in. Okay, stand beside me. If you're Kershaw, you walk forward, alright
you can halt, he gets out there and he just gets blistered because I don't go forward. There's nobody-- raise your left hand. There's nobody on this side so he's unprotected,
he needs somebody to come up right here, but there's a lag time. Now I don't know if it's because Longstreet
held back this brigade that I'm about to talk about or the brigade just wasn't ready to
go in time to keep up with Kershaw, I don't know, but it wasn't there, I can tell you
that for a fact. The brigade which I'm referring to is the
command of William Barksdale. William Barksdale of Mississippi and his four
Mississippi regiments, it's brigade, regiment out here. William Barksdale and his four regiments are
hunkered down behind this treeline and they're getting the brunt of this Union shelling. A lot of these shells meant for these Confederate
guns are missing their mark and hitting these Mississippians. Barksdale is a, was, is at the time of the
battle, a lawyer. He is a big man, he stands over six feet tall,
he probably weighs about 240 lbs. which is pretty big for that time. Before the war, besides being a lawyer, he
was a politician. His politics were fire-eating, does anyone
know what a Fire-Eater is? I don't mean at the circus either. A Fire-Eater is an advocate of secession,
seceding from the United States, he was a Fire-Eater. In the House of Representatives, he took that
brand of politics to the hilt, and when Mississippi seceded from the Union, left the Union, Barksdale
joined right into the fray. He was first the colonel of the 13th Mississippi
and then by seniority he rose up to be the brigade commander. Now Barksdale is sitting over there and he
is pretty ticked off because he wants to charge. These Union guns, like those you see behind
me right there, are really, as I said, hurting his men. He goes to his boss; corps, division, brigade,
so his boss, his immediate boss would be his division commander. He goes to McLaws, he says I want to go in. And McLaws says no, I can't do it, Longstreet
says no. Barksdale then goes to Longstreet, he bypasses
the chain of command when Longstreet comes riding by and he says, general, let me take
that battery. And Longstreet says, wait a minute, we'll
all be going in shortly. Once again, I think Longstreet is allowing
that right hook that I showed earlier to develop itself. So eventually, I don't know how many minutes
after Kershaw stepped off, maybe, I don't know 15, 20, 30 minutes? It's hard to say, you know, everybody's watch
is different, but there was a lot of lag time. Barksdale is going to get the green light
to go, and in that wood line that you see out there, coming out of that wood line, you
would have seen 1400 Mississippi soldiers lining up along that edge right there. They would have unfurled the Confederate battle
flags, and Barksdale-- remember, I'm reverse from you all. On the right of the Confederate line over
here, he would have dashed out on a white horse. He didn't ride very gracefully like King Arthur
or somebody like that, but nevertheless, he had enough presence about him to overcome
that. He gallops out on the right hand of the brigade
line and he's got his hat off, and he's galloping down through there. I think Barksdale had a comb-over, so, I'm
thinking, I mean I don't know that, but because his comb-over wasn't combed, he had this white
hair that came down over his shoulders. He dashes along his lines right through there,
rallying his troops to go forward. You can imagine-- and his horse is hard to
control, just like his rider. I mean, it's got all the romance of war right
here, okay? So he dashes out in front of these Mississippians
and goes down about halfway the length of the brigade line and he gets in front of his
whole regiment, the 13th. He draws up reigns on his horse, and you can
imagine that horse kicking around and him trying to control it. And he yells at his brigade, with that big
booming voice. He goes, "Attention Mississippians, battalions
forward!" And they raise-- over there, if you can imagine
better than I'm describing, in the distance, those 1400 Mississippians raised the Rebel
Yell, that eerie Rebel Yell, and they start across this field toward this Union position. In less time than it takes for me to tell
this, but in more time for that horse truck to get past, Barksdale is going to charge
across this field, head toward this Union position, and run right into it. Mostly Pennsylvanians, some New Yorkers are
going to move out to oppose him. Heavy fighting will end up occurring right
here behind me and right over here at the Sherfy Farm. But Sickles doesn't have enough men, enough
depth to the line to throw the Mississippians off. Nevertheless, there is, right here in front
of you, let's take this one for instance, the 21st Mississippi is coming up right toward
here and they have, along that fence line right there-- let's say the Union troops are
roughly in this area where we're standing, they had a knock down shoot out at point-blank
range fight for almost 15 minutes. Loading and firing as fast as they can and
shooting each other. Smoke going everywhere, men crying out in
pain, right here. Batteries, Union artillery trying to get out
of here, Confederate shells whistling over into the area, solid shot and things like
that, sustained combat. Over here at the Sherfy farm, the 114th Pennsylvania,
dressed in their red baggy britches; they were Zouves and wore fez hats. They marched out into the field to meet the
Mississippians, meet an attack with an attack and the Mississippians proceed to just run
over them. One volley and almost a majority of the regiment
is gone and the survivors fight on. After a while, the Confederate pressure builds,
starts to build some more, and coming behind Barksdale-- what did I tell you about Longstreet's
attack? Coming behind Barksdale, face that way, face
toward the camera, is Longstreet's what? Two brigades in formation; one brigade in
front, one brigade behind. So Barksdale, if orange shirt here is Barksdale,
then coming up behind out of that wood line is another Confederate brigade under Wofford. When Wofford comes out of there with his Georgians,
one of the Confederate artillerists stands up and he takes his sword out and says, "Hoorah
for the bald head!" Nobody really recorded what Wofford thought
of that but it's nice-- what, did you think something more dramatic was going to happen? [laughter] But he looked splendid! The point is, ladies and gentlemen, if you're
a Union soldier and you're fighting for everything that you've got-- and the rally cry in some
of these Union regiments was "Pennsylvania!" That's what they would shout during the fight. What would you think if you saw another 1500
Confederates come out of that wood line? It's just not my day. But I'll give credit to the Union soldiers. You know, they sustained a fighting withdrawal. There is a thin line, a thin area in the Union
line right over here to my left, to your right between here and the barn-- the Confederates
start to creep in there and around the Union flanks. But the Union troops, some of them run, I'm
sure, but the majority of the men are going to fall back . For instance, if you look behind
you right here, they're going to fall back over this hillside in this area and they're
going to rally right back there. They're going to continue to fight the Mississippians
as they come over that hill all the way to the end. It is a stand-up fight, but the Union doesn't
have enough troops. The significance of the Peach Orchard is this
as a tactical study in the Battle of Gettysburg: the significance of the Peach Orchard is this
is the first significant Confederate breakthrough along Sickles's line on July 2nd. This is where it all starts to unravel right
here. When Barksdale explodes through the Union
line and starts to go in two different directions. Let's pan right over here, you see this nice
artillery piece. Barksdale is coming in toward this position
like this and he is going to-- once he pierces the Union line, instead of going that way,
straight ahead, he's going to pivot to his left like this and he is going to use the
Emmitsburg Road right there to hit the Union in the flank, alright, and roll them up. And what is Barksdale doing? He's out front on that white horse with his
hat off, urging his men on, "Forward! Forward! Forward!" He's already been wounded several times. According to one account, he's got a foot
almost dangling off his torso from a Union shell that took it off, mangled it pretty
bad. Still, he's in the saddle, urging his men
on. By this time, they have probably been in combat
maybe 30 minutes, and I'm talking about some heated, heated 30 minutes here. They're running out of gas. Barksdale has to stop, he stops, he sends--
he has four regiments, he sends three regiments this way and one regiment this way to keep
the push on the Federals. So these three regiments are running out of
gas and Barksdale rides up to them and he says, "Brave Mississippians, one more push
and the day is ours." And they rally again and they push on and
so Barksdale heading in this way is eventually going to meet what? He's going to meet-- come on over here. Stand right there and face that way. He's a Confederate and I'm a Confederate;
I'm moving this way, he's moving that way. Come forward. Barksdale is going to turn and we're going
to move together. That is how Barksdale gets from here, roughly,
all the way down behind that Trostle Farm, the barn that we said was under reconstruction
in the video earlier. Barksdale ends up going-- on the left are
going to be Alabamians, they're going to end up going to that swell behind the Trostle
Farm, and they're going to stop right there; they're completely out of gas. New Yorkers under Willard's brigade are going
to come up and reportedly, a whole company, that's about 30-40 men, are going to come
up and train their rifles on Barksdale. New Yorkers would reportedly hear him swearing
at his men to get them back into line and attack one more time and that company will
fire and Barksdale will finally be felled. We don't know the exact spot but somewhere
behind that Trostle barn right over there. Let's go to our last stop right over here
at the eastern corner of the Peach Orchard. Okay, this is the last stop of the program. As you're looking across through here, now
you can see the Trostle Farm. Now, I'm going to back up a little bit and
go to the Union side; we've been talking about Barksdale's brigade, but we're going to talk
about the Union to close it out, and the Confederates, for that matter. Down there around the Trostle Farm, if you
focus in to the left of the barn, there's a very small monument, you can barely see
it to the left of the barn. It looks greyish in color. That is the headquarters marker for Sickles,
that's where his headquarters was on July 2nd. In that vicinity is where Dan Sickles is going
to meet his fate; a one in a million shot. Dan Sickles is down there on his horse-- this
is as Barksdale is breaking through or right after, you know, things are starting to fall
apart. Confederate artillery is going to start to
come up here. E.P. Alexander, it's a book called "Fighting
for the Confederacy," a great account of the Confederate artillerymen rushing up here with
their horse-drawn artillery. They get into this area and there are so many
dead and wounded soldiers that they have to move them in order to get the guns into position. Now the Park Service does not interpret that
today because this is a Union position and, you know, we could put monuments everywhere,
but after the collapse of this Union position, this hill-- what did I tell you about the
Battle of Chancellorsville and Sickles? This position becomes a Confederate artillery
position and all the Confederate guns are parked along through here and along the Emmitsburg
Road. Alexander said that he thought at that moment,
as he saw thousands of Union troops from the 3rd Corps fleeing off into the distance, he
thought he was seeing the end of the war. That was how dramatic the victory was right
here. And he said it was the artillerymen right
here with the artilleryman's dream that they would park these cannons right here and they
would fire these shells and that there were so many targets out there that every shot
he fired hit something. An artilleryman's dream; to have the enemy
on the run and to have guns to press them, and plenty of ammo too. But anyway, that was the scene which was right
out in front of you. The Union army had been broken is Lee and
his veterans could push ahead. Now over there where Sickles's headquarters
is, about the time Alexander unlimbers, Sickles is on horseback. And you know when you sit on horseback or
in a chair or something, obviously your legs go out. A one in a million shot, but a Confederate
solid shot is going to come in and not even hit the horse. A solid shot is going to graze Sickes's right
leg. And it happened so fast that Sickles doesn't
even know that it happened. He feels something warm and reaches down with
his right hand and he brings it back up, and it's blood. Then he knows he's in trouble. I'm sure shock starts to set in pretty readily. Sickles has to be helped down off his horse. You can imagine that shattered leg over the
pommel of the saddle. Yeah, can you imagine? Wooo! What is the first thing that's going to kill
Sickles the fastest? Blood loos, that's right, so what do they
have to get on him? A tourniquet. So, you know they don't carry around medical
equipment here, so what do they do? They take a saddle strap or some type of harness
and they pull that strap around his leg to staunch the blood loss, to stop it. They holler for a litter and then they summon
an ambulance. Sickles is pale by now, he's worried about
it. I mean, he's human, he's worried about dying. Sickles, as he's being led off the field,
some of his soldiers start to whisper that he's dead, that he's laid out. Sickles has one of his aids remove a flask
full of brandy, a small flask and Sickles takes a big swig of that. He then has another aid reach inside his pocket
and remove a cigar for him, bites off the end, the aid does, gives it to Sickles, and
fires him up. Sickles has himself propped up on the litter
on his elbows as he leaves the field, smoking a cigar. That's how all Americans leave the battlefield,
those that are possible. But Dan Sickles, if you know anything about
Dan Sickles, he always had a keen sense of timing for the dramatics and his men cheered
him, some of them cheered him as he went through there. Yeah, I can't imagine how much pain that guy
was in, and he's smoking a cigar, it's crazy, just absolutely crazy. The best thing about it is that Sickles will
go back with his shattered leg and he'll have it amputated later that day. In true Sickles fashion, he doesn't want to
miss an opportunity to score some votes, so he has his leg preserved which he will visit
after the war and become very perturbed that they didn't save the entire leg because he
wanted to make a walking stick out of the upper half. But anyway, he preserves the leg and you can
still go see it down in Washington, if you are so inclined; Dan Sickles and his leg. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, Longstreet
will say in the postwar years that there was never three hours finer fighting by 18,000
men than there were on July 2nd. He considered the fighting that the Confederates
did, his men, the fighting that they did here, to be exceptional. The problem for the Confederates, and you
could say this for a lot of battles, is like I said earlier, they run out of steam as far
as the dominoes falling, and over here specifically with Longstreet's attack, they lack that one
last division. They could crack the Union line, but they
didn't have enough men to drive all the way to the second objective which is going to
be Little Round Top and to the north of there. They just didn't have enough, but Longstreet,
as he probably should have been, was very proud of that. Dan Sickles was equally proud of the heroism
of his men, but the Union high command possibly would have court-martialed Sickles for his
move out here unless he had lost a leg. It is very hard to court-martial a one-legged
hero. Plus, Sickles is going to get back to Washington
first and he is going to make sure that President Abraham Lincoln knows for sure who saved the
Union army's bacon here at Gettysburg. No repercussions will come to Dan Sickles,
but what they will do is by the time Dan Sickles is ready to return to command, they will take
the 3rd Corps and they will dissolve it, break it up, so there is no more 3rd Corps meaning
they would take the 3rd Corps and take the old troops from and place them in another
corps. So therefore, when Sickles comes back he doesn't
have a command, and he is livid, always at George Meade for that, for what he did there,
destroying his 3rd Corps. Ladies and gentlemen, the Peach Orchard, this
area, this ground on which we are standing is some of the most sustained, heavy fighting
in the American Civil War. It is an honor and a privilege to be able
to come out here and stand on the exact same ground on which these men bled and died, from
both the north and the south. My words today cannot describe the horror
that happened 151 years ago, they just can't capture it and the aftermath of what it had
to be like. One Union soldier who was captured over here
said that one of the saddest things was the number of horses that were just laying there,
maimed - mortally wounded if you want to apply that to a horse - and they would just look
at them with all these human emotions of, "why have you done this to each other and
why have you done this to me?" Now, you think about that human loss and the
families and the people who would never know what happened to their loved ones. They just all died in the midst of a peach
orchard. War is a terrible thing. Thank you all very much.
Going on a ranger walk with Matt Atkinson is on my Civil War bucket list.
Matt Atkinson is a great historian. And the master of Dad jokes.
These are great. I've seen this guy do talks elsewhere and he always keeps my interest. I only wish with these videos they could give a bit more context on where they are. He did pretty good at the beginning pointing out Cemetery hill/ridge but it would be more informative, in my opinion, to have a map or something super-imposed to give deeper context to someone who spends most of their time learning about the CW through maps.
Dan Sickles was one crazy motherfucker. I like his style.
Matt Atkinson does such a wonderful job of telling the Gettysburg story. Check out all his videos on YouTube.
Matt, like all of the Rangers at Gettysburg is fantastic, their passion to share history always shines through. So well versed and able to raise or lower the level of detail based on who he is speaking to. I highly recommend watching some of his seminars on other battles and topics.
Was just there last week, it was unfortunate the NPS couldn't conduct any programs.
I’d be careful trusting this ranger. He has a definite pro-Union bias and sometimes skews history.
Question (I haven't ever been to a battlefield) - throughout this video there is a guy sitting on a cannon. Is that OK? Seems both disrespectful and harmful to the piece, despite it being cast iron, but I don't know. When the Ranger leans on it (22:23) it tilts a bit to the side and seems a little flimsy. Are these the actual cannon that were there, or are they just surplus ones used for effect?