Walking Pickett's Charge | History Traveler Episode 144

[Music] for the past few days i've been exploring the battlefields in gettysburg pennsylvania and if you've been following along you had to know that at some point i would end up in the spot where i am right now this is seminary ridge and the area where i am at on july the 3rd 1863 would forever be immortalized as the launching point for what would become known as pickett's [Applause] [Music] charge [Music] all right now before we get going here i do need to make it clear that this is not meant to be a full-on documentary about pickett's charge there are so many great resources and books and documentaries about this element of the battle that i honestly feel like anything that i would try and do would would just fall short so this is just kind of documenting my experience uh walking the the battlefield and this part of the battle of gettysburg but just for the sake of context on on day one of the battle lee and the army of northern virginia delivered i guess you could say like a left hook to the army of the potomac on day two they come back with with a right hook and on day three lee is going to try and end it all with a big old haymaker right up the middle uh so he concocts this plan where he's going to assemble this large force of confederate soldiers they're going to charge a car across open ground and and hit the union right in the middle now long street his core commander was very much against this but lee being the battlefield commander his his order is what wins the day um so they're going to be it's called pickett's charge uh technically it's the picket pettigrew trimble charge under picket are going to be three brigades under the leadership of armistead and kemper and garnett and this is going to define the battle of gettysburg one of the biggest misconceptions about pickett's charge is that it was only pickett's division who participated in the attack in reality it should be called the picket pettigrew trimble charge because all three divisions were involved this is a monument to the confederate soldiers from north carolina here you can see these men struggling forward and you have a wounded soldier who is urging them ahead and uh interesting side note this monument which is really well done uh was sculpted by gustav borglum who was the man responsible for the sculpting of mount rushmore and then you can see where he's pointing to off in the distance along cemetery ridge whenever you come to gettysburg and travel along the confederate lines along seminary ridge one thing that you are going to see a lot of are cannons i'm talking lots and lots of cannons well that's because on july the third at one o'clock in preparation for pickets charge the confederates opened up with the largest artillery barrage in the history of the western hemisphere it just sounded like constant a constant roar of thunder even even the old veterans here on on seminary ridge were amazed at what they were seeing and hearing and the ground just must have shook what they were trying to do was soften up the union lines what they didn't know is that a lot of their shots were going over their heads but anyway yeah that that must have been something to behold so at three o'clock the the thunderous roar of cannon on the confederate side would have subsided and the call would have went out to begin the charge so just imagine along these lines right here over 12 000 men setting out across this field moving past the artillery and heading up to the famous little cops of trees right there a mile away on the union line [Music] all right so i'm setting out now following the path of the confederates as they would have charged across this open ground uh on the afternoon of july 3rd which would have been extremely hot so you can just imagine what it must have been like for those guys marching across this field under union artillery fire it was said that in formation there would be just lines of men knocked out by union artillery and then they would have to close ranks and they would get knocked out again uh it must have just been awful for these guys and and one thing that you might notice like you can barely see the the cops of trees ahead of me now uh this is not flat ground these are kind of rolling pennsylvania hills so whenever you think of pickets charged whenever you read about it or see it on documentaries don't don't think just flat you know pancake terrain that they're going across there's going to be lots of dips and swales and ups and downs before they even get to their objective [Music] now as the confederates are continuing their advance towards the union center uh they're going to get up here to the emmitsburg road and once they get to this spot and go ahead and cross here uh they're going to come up against uh some pretty significant problems there's going to be fences that they have to cross they either have to go over or they have to tear them down and once they get up to this point right here well now they are within range of the union rifles and you can imagine just in this field right here it was just really it was just a mob of people uh there there's accounts from union soldiers of uh volleys of rifle fire going off and it said it looked like confederates were falling like a sickle was just cutting them down garnett is going to be killed right here in this area somewhere i don't know the the exact details of it his body was never identified so he is either in an unmarked grave here or in an unmarked grave somewhere else he's the only confederate general who died in battle who was never identified but but right up in here uh it would have just been carnage [Music] so right from here you can kind of get the the same view that a confederate soldier would have had on the charge up this hill here's the famous little cops of trees uh pickett's men had veered off to the left of it uh there's been some debate on whether the cops of trees was the actual marker or not or whether it was ziggler's grove up there on the top of cemetery hill either way this is the general area where the the confederates were were trying to reach and uh it's right right around here where the the attack is going to be repulsed so here behind me you can see the the famous angle of the union line where where a stone wall uh takes a 90 degree turn up here and then another 90 right here and it's somewhere in this area where general armistead is famously going to take off his hat and put it on his sword and hold it up in the air and and he's going to lead a few confederates uh over the line here that are going to to breach the union defenses and uh that's going to cost him greatly uh he is going to become mortally wounded right here on the battlefield [Music] so again this is from the union position looking towards seminary ridge there is the angle and there's one more thing that i wanted to walk up and show while i'm here this monument marks the farthest advance of the north carolina troops who were under the command of pettigrew there's technically henry heath's division but but pettigrew had taken over whenever you get up to this monument it tells us a little bit of the story of these guys [Music] it says that the north carolina troops advanced to within 10 paces of this wall right here and they have a quote from an artillery man of a rhode island battery and he says as a regiment of pettigrew's brigade was charging and had almost reached the wall in front of us sergeant m c only cried out fire that gun pull pull the number four obeyed orders and the gap made in that north carolina regiment was simply terrible can't even imagine just the the carnage that took place right here on this ground that i'm standing on all right and then as we're coming up on this monument here this is at of course the famous cops of trees and here this is honoring all of the commands who participated in what they call here long streets of salt so it says high water mark of the rebellion this cops of trees was the landmark towards which long streets assault was directed july 3rd 1863 and then it lists the assaulting columns and then over here it says the res the repulse of long streets assault it says long streets assault was repulsed by like gibbons division second army corps double days division and it lists all of them but yeah this was uh the high water mark [Music] so this is it it was right here that general mead was able to do something that no union general up to that point had been able to do he had outguessed robert e lee you can stand here and just imagine the scene that that took place as the the confederates were retreating back towards seminary ridge you would have had hundreds and hundreds of union soldiers standing up here shouting fredericksburg fredericksburg in in reference to the the failed charge of the massacre that had occurred on their side in fredericksburg in an earlier battle but tragically for the confederates of the 12 000 plus men who set out across this field to attack this position only half would return to the lines the rest were either killed or wounded or captured right here in this area which was devastating to the army of northern virginia there wouldn't be any more assaults from that point on they were they were headed back down to virginia and lee to his credit didn't blame long street he didn't blame uh pickett he didn't blame the soldiers he blamed himself he he said it's it's my fault so he took ownership of the mistake and took ownership of the the devastating loss that occurred right here in this place but anyway this is this is it this was the the spot that kind of defined the battle of gettysburg one soldier who was here uh said that it wasn't just the high water mark for pickett's charge but it was the high water mark for the confederacy he said from this point on the march of the rebellion was towards appomattox gettysburg wouldn't be the end though there was still going to be another two years of fighting and dying and sacrifice that would occur all over this country in order to to keep this nation unified but one of the defining moments not the defining moment one of the defining moments occurred right here on these grounds pretty humbling to to stand in this place and and think about the sacrifice that occurred here on uh july the 3rd 1863. you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 160,229

Rating: 4.9640789 out of 5

Keywords: history, history traveler, history underground, gettysburg, battle of gettysburg, gettysburg movie, gettyburg documentary, george meade, general meade, leadership, civil war, civil war documentary, pickett's charge, longstreet's assault, confederates gettysburg, pickett's charge gettysburg, pickett's charge documentary

Id: hQR_HXuG4QE

Length: 17min 8sec (1028 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021