Battle of Gettysburg

As Commander of the Defenses of Washington in the spring of 1862, I was, owing to the nature of my duties, brought into intimate relations with the statesmen who controlled the Government at the time, and became well acquainted with President Lincoln.

i was present too after the battle of gettysburg at a very interesting cabinet council in which the pursuit of lee was fully discussed so that in one way and another i have had better opportunities to judge of men and measures than usually fall to the lot of others who have written on the same subject i have always felt it to be the duty of every one who held a prominent position in the great war to give to posterity the benefit of his personal recollections for no dry official statement can ever convey an adequate idea to those who come after us of the sufferings and sacrifices through which the country has passed thousands of men the flower of our northern youth have gone down to their graves unheralded and unknown and their achievements and devotion to the cause have already been forgotten it is therefore incumbent upon us who were their comrades in the field to do all in our power to preserve their deeds from oblivion And yet it is no easy task to relate contemporaneous events.

Whoever attempts it must be prepared for severe criticism and the exhibition of much personal feeling.

Some of this may be avoided, it is true, by writing a colourless history, praising everybody, and attributing all disasters to dispensations of Providence, for which no one is to blame.

It seems theoretically possible that different detachments encircling it, by all attacking at the same time, must confuse and overpower it.

But in practice the idea is rarely realised, for no two routes are precisely alike, the columns never move simultaneously, and therefore never arrive at the same time.

some of this is due to the character of the commanders one man is full of dash and goes forward at once another is timid or at least over-cautious and advances slowly a third stops to recall some outlying detachments or to make elaborate preparations the result is the outer army has lost its strength and is always beaten in detail one portion is sure to be defeated before the others arrive we shall have occasion to refer to this principle again in reference to the battle of gettysburg the history of our own war shows that an attack against the front and rear of a force is not necessarily fatal baird's division at chickamauga defended itself successfully against an attack of this kind and hancock faced his division both ways at chancellorsville and repelled every attempt to force his position but hooker thought otherwise he felt certain that if sedgwick assailed lee and rear while he advanced in front the confederate army was doomed When the time came, however, to carry out this programme, if we may use a homely simile borrowed from

General de Peister, Hooker did not hold up his end of the log, and the whole weight fell upon

This is Gettysburg.

This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg.

50,000 men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we're still fighting amongst ourselves today.

This green field right here, painted red, bubbling with blood Young boys, smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies.

excuse me

go into that So if we think about day one tactically, normally, and I would argue this is the baseline, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg is a Confederate victory because they drive the Union from the fields north and west of Gettysburg to the high ground south of town.

Okay, that is a legitimate, decisive means of victory on any battlefield, any time in history.

Because the problem is two human beads can't physically occupy the same piece of space simultaneously.

You need for other cores to show up.

You have to mutually support another core.

There's no core commander during the battle of Gettysburg that goes, no, no, my core, I got it.

I can just take whatever they throw at me.

He was a colonel, led the 20th Maine in a famous battle, a little round top.

It was part of the Battle of Gettysburg.

And on the second day of the battle, it was a three-day battle at Gettysburg because it wasn't a two-day battle.

And the reason a two-day battle didn't happen is Chamberlain said, if we lose this piece of ground, the whole army will be rolled up and all will be lost.

He was a colonel, led the 20th Maine in a famous battle, a little round top.

It was part of the Battle of Gettysburg.

And on the second day of the battle, it was a three-day battle at Gettysburg because it wasn't a two-day battle.

And the reason a two-day battle didn't happen is Chamberlain said, if we lose this piece of ground, the whole army will be rolled up.

And a movie about the American Civil War, one of my favorite ones, is Gettysburg.

And in that movie, Gettysburg, Colonel Chamberlain, the guy who is the hero of Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg, who later becomes a four-time governor of Maine.

Anyways, he's trying to convince some of the deserters to get back in the fight.

There's a scene where there's a bunch of northern soldiers that have just dropped their guns and said, we're not going to fight anymore.