Gettysburg (History Channel's Civil War Week)

Re: Gettysburg

Pickett's Charge is the ultimate expression of how the Civil War was fought. Armies using tactics created for weapons with a range of 200 yards while using weapons with ranges good to nearly a mile.

 

Re: Gettysburg

That whole thing on the medicine during the Civil War? Yikes! Anatesia (sp) was recently invented, but for the most part it was meatball surgery. No antiseptics, no cleaning of medical equipment, no washing of hands.

 

Re: Gettysburg

Yeah, the big painkilling technology was a drink of whiskey, if they were lucky, and taking a bullet or a piece of wood and putting it in the guy's mouth to bite down on.

 

I didn't understand why Barksdale waited and the Confederates waited when Sickels screwed up and advanced his troops.

Seems to me like they could have split the line in two fairly easily.

 

Barksdale, and all of Longstreet's corps, were under Lee's direct orders to advance "up the Emmitsburg Road" to do that, but it would have exposed their flank to about half the Union army. A brigade commander, Law I believe, disobeyed, and Hood's division wound up in the Devil's Den, Little Round Top, etc, while Barksdale and his troops waited for that situation to be resolved. Sickles' advance came as a surprise to both sides, and delay is often the result when generals are surprised.

 

Barksdale was just waiting for Wee-Bey and Stinkum to arrive.

 

I made the mistake of walking up Big Round Top the last time I was there, thinking it was Little Round Top. Little Round Top is on the road. Big Round Top is like 350 feet above the road. And there's nothing at the top of Big Round Top. I certainly grew to appreciate those men who charged up those hills with 100 pounds strapped to their back, though.

 

"Pickett's Charge" is given that name mainly because the Virginia newspapers of the day coined the phrase to play up their boy. After the war, Pickett didn't like having his name attached to it. Some historians actually refer to it as the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Assault. It may not have been "the" last time troops just formed up and marched into enemy guns, but it was certainly the beginning of the ending of it.

I still haven't seen it other than the first 45 minutes. It's not on OnDemand yet.

The battle, and ultimately the war, was lost at the end of the first day when Ewell didn't take Culp's Hill. If you want to blame Lee for not giving specific instructions to take the hill rather say "if practicable" or if you want to blame Ewell for not just doing it, I'd say either is a fair assessment. Some people want to blame Longstreet for not starting Pickett's Charge earlier, but I don't think the battle should have even gone to a third day.

 

Wasn't Ewell the one who just stopped because of darkness, less than a few hundred yards from the top of the hill?

 

Yes. After the Confederate Army pushed Bufford back on the first day they could have mopped up if Ewell had decided not to just hang tight because everyone was tired or whatever. What that did was buy the Union time to fortify their positions along Cemetery Ridge, make the second day at Little Round Top hell for Hood and the third day a complete nightmare for Pickett's and Pettigrew's boys.

 

Watched the first hour, will finish it up later. Always enjoy learning new history, especially about a subject I think I have pretty squared away.
Went a little to heavy on the violence/slo-mos etc at the expense of explaining what was happening and why - but still a pretty good job.

Figured with Ridley and Tony Scott involved they'd find some way to make Pickett's Charge happen in a raging thunderstorm.

 

"It took a dozen blunders to lose the Battle of Gettysburg, and I committed a good many of them" -- Gen. Ewell, CSA

Give him credit. He knew he screwed the pooch, and admitted it.