The Battle of Gettysburg

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. This was it history.com/subscribe. On a hot July morning, in 1863, two great armies collided in the rolling farmland son Pennsylvania. What followed was the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.

The three days, the union army of the Potomac and the Confederate army of Northern Virginia were locked in a brutal contest over ridge lines and hill tops that

“are now etched into the American National Memory, McPherson's Ridge, Little Browntop,”

Cemetery Hill. Firearms forged by the machines of the 19th century industrial revolution, fired volleys tearing through units of men as tightly packed as their 18th century forebearers have been in the Revolutionary War, cannons, spat, hail of iron, officers and enlisted men alike, grappled in the chaos of gunswint, charges were launched and repulsed, the

fortunes of war veered back and forth. Gettysburg was fought for control of accrossroads, and indeed it was a figurative crossroads for the American Republic. At the climax of the battle, the union line held, it withstood a massive Confederate assault. And General Robert E. Lee's daring, desperate, foolhardy, optimistic attack was repulsed

with shocking losses.

“The climax of that Confederate assault, the brief moments that they gained the top of”

the ridge that they were attacking up, is now known as the high watermark of the Confederacy. The defeat of the Confederacy marked a new phase of the civil war, the beginning of the inevitable long decline of the Confederate states. Months later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln would consecrate a cemetery on the battlefield, and he would make a speech that was just two minutes long, it's called the Gettysburg

and invocation that's brilliantly refrained the war as a test of democracy itself. His words turned Gettysburg into sacred ground, they relaunched the American project. In this episode, I'm very pleased to say we're going to walk the battlefield one figuratively, ridge by ridge, hour by hour, we're going to explore why it happened, how it unfolded, and we're going to see why it's legacy still in drills today, in the heated debates in the U.S.

over freedom and nationhood, in the idea of what the United States of America is. We are very likely joined by friend of the podcast, friend of the history hit TV channel. Major Jonathan Bracken, he's a historian, he's a serving officer in the main national guard. Let's get into it.

Jonathan, good to see you buddy, good to see you as well, that's sad that we've got this pond separating us, but it's still good to see you.

You and I have always talked about, well, a couple of days exploring that battlefield in

person, like we've done on so many others, so I'm looking forward to doing that at some stage, but for the moment we're going to be virtual, you know, it's what we have and we're happy to have it. First of all, let's work out the plan for this campaign, 1862, 1863, both sides it's changing blows, some famous battles, Fredericksburg, Chancellor'sville, in brief, neither

north or south able to kind of get that decisive upper hand or in that eastern theatre of the civil, no one's getting that decisive Napoleonic battle that everyone so desperately wants.

What you're getting is instead, you have tactical successes that are never able to be turned

into sort of operational victory by other side, and specifically at the beginning of 1863, it's the Confederacy, it's the Army and Mother Virginia under Robert E. Lee that has been winning successive tactical victories that are never able to be transformed into that big, strategic win. And so this is what's in the back of Lee's mind as he's coming out of Virginia.

Davis says, "Hey, the fortress city of Vicksburg is under siege.

“It would be very cool if you shifted forces west to the Mississippi to relieve that siege,”

that hub of the Confederacy stronghold there." But Lee says, "No, I would rather invade Pennsylvania." So he's trying to, again, what he did in 1862, take the war out of Virginia into the North and bring the war closer to Washington, D.C., and specifically cause a political sort of meltdown, a political end to this conflict.

So you march into enemy territory, hopefully inflict a stinging defeat, and that forces the Union, it forces the USA to say, "Fine, let's negotiate some kind of settlement here and let these Confederates go." Yes, it's very much designed as a political ploy to cause panic through the North. And when Lee's army leaves Virginia and goes up the Shenandoah Valley, enters Maryland,

enters, now Pennsylvania, finally, and then as his forces sort of arc northward, moving

up towards Carlisle, threatening York, threatening Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania State capital, and poised to sort of move against the mass-upported Baltimore, or maybe towards D.C., you know, Stewart's cavalry, ranges outside D.C., of course all the newspapers react to this with the usual aplomb and calm, collected. Demeter, no, no.

Everyone freaks out. It's a complete panic, absolute panic throughout the North, thousands of reserve militia are called up from all the way west as Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania begins digging trenches around the city. They think that they're in for it.

Reserve's are called up in Philadelphia and as far north as New York. So it is causing sort of a widespread panic, and that is definitely Lee's goal. And Lee, he doesn't have that many men, does he give in this huge range of forces militia and regular forces now range against him in the north. Who's he got with him?

Numbers are always a little bit of a weird game, as we know as historians, numbers don't

always tell the full story. So Lee's got about 75 to 80,000 effective troops with him.

“And what we have to remember for the Confederate army and for the army of north of Virginia,”

the majority of their logistics, their sustainment is being conducted by enslaved labor. Which means that all those in uniform, the majority of those in uniform are your trigger pullers, are the or canineers, are your cavalry. Your fighting forces, essentially, your army, your numbers are essentially your full combat force.

So the US army of the Potomac, they do not rely on enslaved labor. So a lot of people look at numbers and see the army of the Potomac around 95 to close to 100,000 effective, give or take attachments here or there. That includes your orderlies, your teamsters, everyone who's got to do this stuff of bringing the things from the one point to the next point to support the people in the front fighting.

So when it comes down to the riflemen on the line, you are looking at a near parity or maybe just a very, very slight advantage in numbers on the US side, but not a significant amount is not a three to one advantage, it's not a two to one advantage, it's barely an advantage at all. So those are sort of the numbers that we're looking at for this campaign.

Is the US army better equipped? At this point, no, not especially, both sides are quite well equipped. The Confederacy has been, oh, should we say, enjoying some gifts from some island out there, called the United Kingdom, rolling around with a lot of infield, rifleed musk, a lot of tower stamped equipment, very embarrassing, they've got a couple with worth rifle guns that

are of English make as well, a British make. Both sides are looking fairly similar when it comes to logistics and equipment, however, with the exception that the further the Lee moves north, the further he moves from his own supply lines. The US army, the Potomac, under now, as of June 28th, a George Mead, takes command within

just a few days of the battle of Gettysburg, is moving, hugging its sort of supply lines along railroad roads. Roads are key to this entire campaign, railroads and river and waters are key to the entire campaign.

“If you want to understand Gettysburg sit down at a map, look at roads, look at the rail, look”

at the water as Gettysburg park ranger history and Troy Harman lays out in a great book, and you will see exactly why the forces come together at Gettysburg has the confluence of everything that modern armies of the 19th century need to make war. What about the morale, the sort of fighting ability, because this is the area that's been mythologised and talked about and celebrated and decried, were the Confederate forces just tougher,

than their union adversaries, man for man?

“The short answer is no, the longer answer is more nuanced.”

So Robby Lee obviously believes that his army is superior, and I would say that the confederate soldiers believe after Frederick'sburg and Chancellor's will, that they are superior. The problem with Chancellor's will, Chancellor's does a weird one, everyone at Frederick's burg knew that the army had been feeded. At Chancellor's will, the army felt like it hadn't been defeated, the Union Army fought

very well at Chancellor's will, all chunk of the Union Army never fought at all.

It was a very small part of the army, the Potomac that was engaged at Chancellor's as well. So there's very much this belief that we are the equal of Lee, give us good commanders, give us a good battle plan, and we will lick him, we will beat him. And so the morale, especially as U.S. soldiers march into Pennsylvania, march out of Virginia

as the many soldiers referred to at a sort of the slave soil of Virginia, the sour-faced people of Virginia as all these northerners are describing Virginia, and onto the friendly soil of Pennsylvania, march through Maryland, and the flags come out, and you see people along the way welcoming you, morale is actually sky-high for both armies. So you have this sort of oddity of a lot of confidence coming together in this clash

of arms.

“Speaking of coming together, why do the two armies come together at Gettysburg?”

One of those rare kind of battles, are both sides actually looking for a decisive clash,

or is this one of those accidental encounter battles? Well Dan, we could literally spend an entire podcast talking about why I did that on purpose. I'm sorry, man. No, so this is one of the great fascinating things that we don't fully know. As I mentioned, there's several different schools of thought.

One is just the nature of the military terrain, so to speak, the logistical terrain, which means that this is the easiest point for armies to concentrate and fight each other. Another way to look at it would be that need is attempting to using his geometry, you know, looking at what is taught at West Point? Well, it's not causal.

It's its geometry, and the idea of using an advanced guard to draw in the enemy and then

engage them in battle, so I'm going to say that that is what Mead was looking to do on July 1st with the engagement that begins there. Really what it comes down to is that you have what is called a meeting engagement. It is a classic meeting engagement, a battle that's not planned by either side, but that both commanders have postureed their forces to be able to mass on a certain point rapidly

within about 24 to 48 hours, and we're talking the army of northern Virginia, which is divided into three large army core, and the army of the Potomac divided into seven smaller army core. They're spread out on various roads, but because of the road nature of Gettysburg, they're all able to concentrate rapidly on that one spot.

So why it happens, Lee has moved north attempting to bring the army of the Potomac to battle. George Mead, his sort of prime directive, if you will, from the president, is well, don't lose, protect Washington at all costs, but also bring Lee to battle. Don't let him move towards Philadelphia or Baltimore or God forbid New York City. Everyone's looking at the political calculus here, and Lee must be brought to battle

and defeated rapidly. And that battle takes place around the town of Gettysburg. Right now, if you look at a map, you will see those roads coming from all directions. So yeah, for sure. It's a huge crossroads.

Then you get the town. Then you get this interesting geography. There's this ridge that runs sort of almost juice south of the town.

“And that ridge becomes pretty essential, just draw out the geography for me here.”

I like to say that Gettysburg happened because of glaciers. When the glaciers pass through this area of Adams County, Pennsylvania, the U of essentially glaciers running in these long parallel lines, which gouged out the earth casting rocks up on these ridge lines and small hills, leaving these little rocky clusters along the way as the glaciers melt, dropping huge rocks and boulders everywhere.

And so what you have is essentially areas of sort of angelating waves of ridge lines, which is great for 19th century warfare as you know. With that high ground, it enables a better line of sight. You feel better if you're on higher ground shooting down versus attacking uphill. So it's really an area that is almost tailor-made for a 19th century battle because you

have these mix of ridge lines. So starting from the west, hairs ridge to McPherson's ridge to Seminary Ridge and then

of Gettysburg called Seminary Hill. It's so slight that most people almost do not even realize that it's a hill. It's so gradual and it's the most perfect platform for 19th century artillery. You don't want to have a really steep hill where you can't depress your gun mussels enough to build a fire canister, a close range.

You have a nice sort of gradual rise, it's just this perfect gun platform. And then a little bit further to the northeast, you have a large wooded, hilly mass called

“Colp's Hill that protects the Baltimore Pike that's going to become very, very important”

during the battle. And then if you just run down Seminary Ridge down to the south, you have two smaller hills, notice little round top, which is mostly bare of trees, offers very good line of sight. Very hard to get artillery up there, and then big round top, which is wooded, and so therefore doesn't really give a lot of tactical advantage.

And so Seminary Ridge and Seminary Ridge being these parallel ridge lines are going to play a major role in the upcoming battle. It sounds to me like whoever gets this high ground is going to be at a huge advantage in this battle.

And talking about the first of July, when there is a ferocious skirmish for that high ground,

how do the two sides come together? Ferocious, I like that you call it a ferocious skirm, until I first, if you were to stand alone, it would be one of the larger engagements of the Civil War.

“And that's the thing with Gettysburg, if you take any one of those three days, they stand”

alone by themselves. I was very significant engagements in the Civil War. But yes, it does start out as a skirmish and starts out as a skirmish because need is using his cavalry for their doctrinal purpose to seek out and gain and maintain contact with the enemy.

And he's got an advantage here because he's got some great cavalry commanders. The army of the Potomac cavalry is matured greatly in 1863, really come into their own. They are a match for Gettysburg's Confederate cavalry, more than a match a little bit because Gettysburg has sort of lost his bearings a little bit by a let's ego take over from common sense and he, as the army is our marching north, he actually separates

his cavalry command from the main Confederate army, leaving only two brigades backwardly.

And rides around the army of the Potomac, the problem is the army of the Potomac is moving

north.

“So as the army of the Potomac moves north, steward keeps trying to hook left and keeps running”

into U.S. troops and can't gain contact with Lee, which means that Lee is operating an enemy country largely blind. He's actually using his cavalry brigades, not for scouting, but for kidnapping, freed people of color to send back into slavery. Talk about your ideology getting in the way of good operational tactics.

Jonathan, if you can't trust dashing charismatic cavalry commanders to just utterly disregard China command and all that orders to go on their own little rampage, then I mean, you know, what are they good for? What are they good for? That is what they all have in common through the centuries.

That's true, it is, yeah, it's a good company there. Okay, so you've got the Union cavalry, these are guys on horses. They're obviously more mobile, they're able to cover more ground. So they're advancing what in a big sort of screen, like a bubble around an in front of the the foot saw Union infantryman.

Exactly, exactly. It's this wide arc, and you're the cavalry division front committed by the opposite of a cavalry, John Buford, who is very much a very common sense cavalry soldier really sees the idea of cavalry as almost mobile infantry, almost like a Dragoon, is a little bit forward thinking there.

What he's going to do is he, his job is he sees it is to preserve that high ground, preserve options for the infantry commanders. So he is going to screen his forces dismounted in front of Gettysburg, which are going to run up against Confederate infantry who are advancing blind, because if you don't have cavalry, well, he used infantry for reconnaissance, Confederate infantry advancing towards

Gettysburg, they've heard tell of Union forces in the area, but you do have a Confederate

division advancing on Gettysburg, and what happens is a first scirmish, and then exactly

what Buford wants, which is the Confederates, to slowly commit more and more troops. And as you commit, you slow down, and now it's a fight for the ridge lines. And as the Confederates sort of close up to the dismounted cavalry, they will fall back to the next ridge line. And then next ridge line, this engagement begins, we're literally a mile outside Gettysburg,

until by around 9 a.m., the Union cavalry Buford's troopers have fallen back to McPherson's ridge, which is just when John Reynolds was the first corps of infantry arrives. And this is where Reynolds makes one of those shocking decisions. Reynolds is not the army commander, he has a corps commander, he's a wing commander, he's got a little bit more authority, but he decides without asking Mead to commit his two corps

that we know of.

“But it mirrors his opposite number, General Henry Heath, Confederate division commander,”

mirrors his decision to commit his entire division, and then ask for support from Dorsey Pender's division behind him to commit these forces when Lee's general order that morning was, do not bring on a general engagement until the army is concentrated. So you have two commanders sort of just ignoring what we know of as their guidance to bring this battle to into be it.

Wow. So it's a case of the horizon shrink down and they want to take on the troops to their immediate front, that sort of wider vision has just become super focused on the threat ahead.

And we'd love to know what Reynolds was thinking, the problem is we will never know, because

as he's deploying his brigades into line of battle and as they're advancing into McPherson Woods, Reynolds is hit just below the neck with a rifle bullet and killed almost instantly. So now the senior corps commander, the senior union commander is down, as more and more troops are arriving on the field, no one's really super duper told George Mead that all of this is happening.

“There's been a few careers back to say, hey, we're skirmishing, we're slowly engaging.”

Lee is just now being appraised, that this is not a battle with some militia or cavalry, that this is in fact a slugging match between infantry and the day one morning infantry fight is absolutely brutal. You have a brigade of Mississippians that uses this unfinished railroad cut, as sort of this covering concealed route to get around the union flank.

They come up over it, there's a battery of artillery there, a second main battery, and

the battery commander says in his report after action report, you will understand how close the action was when I tell you that most of my battery horses were killed by the bayonet, and not by rifle fire. So this is how close the action is, a charge by a Wisconsin outfit, turns the tables on the confederates in the railroad cut, the union soldier stand on either side, firing

down inside to the railroad cut into the Mississippian surrender, there's a charge of some other union troops on the opposite side of the line that captures a almost a full brigade of confederate troops as well.

“And this sort of brings this law on the field, as General Heath realizes, oh, I've made”

a huge mistake and around 11 a.m. both sides sort of pull back and pause, just exchanging artillery fire while they wait for senior leaders to show up and make some decisions. Jonathan, as I'm hearing you talking, I'm so struck by what does this fighting feel like in look like on the ground? Because it's this turning point in history or it's this astonishing momentary history, where

you've got weapons that are capable of firing at career of a longer distances. So you mentioned this rifle ground that kills the union commander, but you have people are still regularly closing, there is hand to hand fighting, there's melee, there's bayonet thrusts, there's fighting that's recognizable from the, you know, two, three hundred years earlier,

but you've also got the beginnings of these, these weapons made phenomenally more powerful

and accurate and lethal at range by this sort of industrial revolution. So I'm struggling to imagine sometimes what this, it's a bit of everything is it, like if you're marching this brigade, are they marching shoulders to shoulder across these fields at the other side or they start to advance in sort of open order and what we regarded in more modern sense.

Yeah, it's a little bit of both. What you have at its essence is a clash of emiturers. These are volunteers. These are not regulars. They have not undergone the 12 to 18 months of training needed to create a, you know, good

pressure and regular of this era, or a British regular. No, these are volunteers, they are mostly guided by a sense of sort of devotion to each other. This loyalty, these regimental loyalty, these are state regiments, most companies are recruited out of individual towns and they are following their leaders, they're company of their

regimental leaders, which is why you see massive casualties amongst leaders. If leaders, ship by example, is all you have, you can't rely on that sort of bedrock discipline, then you're going to take a lot of leader casualties. Those are people leading from the front. And so yes, the rank on rank, the line, style of fighting is necessary, literally out of

peer pressure. It's necessary for command and control because again, without this discipline, this is what you rely on. That said, Gettysburg will see experiments in open order on July 3rd. There is an entire union brigade that will attack in open order in a reconnaissance and force

that is a harbinger of things to come. An open order is what you're not shoulder to shoulder how far might you be from the guys either side of you. Yes, you're looking at about 10 to 15 yards of people on either side of you, you know,

So you're always going to have that open line of skirmishers in front of you, sort of probing,

looking for the enemy.

“But we're not going to really see generally speaking, you know, we're not going to see”

a division sort of looking attacking an open order until 6465, that begins to happen. That's still very difficult. Command and control is very, very difficult in an era without immediate communication. You are looking at visual indicators, you have audio indicators, drums, views, pipes and flags, and your commander's voice.

And if you're out of your commander's voice, you can't really hear much at all. And so really, this is why this linear formation is so important. But the problem is, as you point out, that rifleed musket, man, 300 yards dead on with a 58 to 69 caliber round, that is a rifle. Thanks to Claude Bene, that was lovely Frenchman, really just causing carnage in the ranks.

And you see massive casualties on the first day of Gettysburg.

The Iron Brigade is one of the hard fighting units of the Union Army. They're going to lose eight, nine, ten color barriers in each regiment. Unit colors. The staff is completely shot through by this horrific volley of fires. Everyone sort of narrowing in on just that visible indicator that you can see it.

And you're exchanging volley is at 20, 30, 50 paces, as they were in the revolution, as they were in the Napoleonic era. But with weapons that are more capable with deadly accuracy and a lot more punch.

“I think we forget just how much more input is that spin on around, puts to that hit on the”

body, where you're smashing bones, you're not snapping them, you're smashing them, you're creating splinters, you're tearing into vital organs. If you're got shot, you're pretty much given up, but that round is going to flatten out when it hits you that lead, pull whatever intestines, vital organs with it, causing just really grievous wounds.

So you as a major, you as a company commander, you're leading a group of guys, depending on your own voice, so they can see that you're like, come on, you're bunching together, you're marching, you're making your way towards an enemy unit, you're fighting it.

The kind of ranges you'd expect in the revolutionary walls, but you're using weapons that are

beginning to resemble the kind of modern rifle that you and I might take out hunting. So it's just lethal. It is, and this lethality is demonstrated a late morning of July first. So Lee gets word, hey, this battle is happening, he has some words with his division commanders, you know, how dare you, hide very gentlemanly and whatever.

And so the situation as it develops mid-morning is Lee makes a decision to begin to concentrate his forces around Gettysburg. He's got an entire core north of Gettysburg up near Carlisle. So they're going to begin moving south as his forces move in from the west. So they're coming in and sort of closing in on this vice, so he's got a built-in flanking movement.

That just happens by virtue of the road network in Gettysburg. It's not essentially designed. And then on the union side, the eleventh core arrives on the battlefield under major general Alvaro Howard, who arrives to find that he's the senior ranking guy on the field. And he then has to figure out where he places his troops.

And at the end of this wall, a confederate offensive from this site called Oak Hill towards the north end of the union line happens. And when you talk about where are leaders? Well, you say, yes, if you're a major or a colonel, yes, you're right up there with your regiment Brigade commander's division commanders can be with the front of their unit, probably should

be or somewhere between the front of their unit and the rear. But in this confederate divisional attack by Robert Rhodes, the division commander doesn't go in. The brigade commanders don't go in. It's entirely disjointed, an entire brigade or an 800 North Carolinians advances towards what they think is the union flank unaware that there's an entire union brigade laying

down behind a stone wall to their left. And within about 150 paces, this union brigade stands up and levels the North Carolinians with the volley. They said that the dead afterwards were found with their toes completely on a straight line as if they were on parade.

And this attack is utterly crushed. So this is that example of where should a commander be? Where should a commander be in this sort of combat? If you're too far forward, yes, you become a casualty as we'll see it all throughout the battle. If you're too far to the rear, you can't control those immediate

in-the-moment things on the ground. So this is what technologies are doing. This is what the tactics are doing.

“And they will evolve throughout the war mostly to just everyone realizing the best thing to do”

as everyone realizes in the fall of 1914 is dig as much as possible. As soon as you halt, just start digging. Well, that's so fascinating about the US civil war. And the lessons that were not learned by the international observers and professional

Okay, so at the end of the first day, you've got forces flooding in,

to build upon if you like to engage in this battle at whether they like it or not as pretty much started.

“You've got the union clinging onto this high ground, right?”

This really good defensive position. But the Confederate troops are advancing like, as you say, like a vice from different directions. So at this point, who would you rather be? So the day one of Gettysburg, you can chalk it up as tactically a Confederate victory. Because, yes, that vice, that flank attack comes in and just crushes the union flank.

The poor 11th Corps, the poor German Americans. It's a largely German American corps, and because of our lovely trends towards Nativeism, they get blamed for this day one loss, even though no matter anyone who's there is going to, when you're getting attacked in the front and the side and the rear simultaneously, you're probably just going to give it up.

The Germans put up a hull of a fight. But they're falling back, they're falling back. So by four or five, six PM, it's a general retreat back through the town of Gettysburg. They're fighting in the streets. At one point, a German battery commander, a Hubert Dilger, a great bought-in-born,

artilleryist in the Union Army.

“There's a traffic circle inside Gettysburg.”

And he puts a 12 pound Napoleon at each street, like the spokes of a wheel, just firing down each street, firing grape and canister, units barricade themselves inside the houses, and they fight house to house. And by nightfall, the Confederates have driven the Union troops through Gettysburg. And now they're concentrating on cemetery hill.

The remnants are assembling there. Tactically, this looks like a great victory for Lee.

The problem is, Gettysburg is worthless.

It's not a great objective to have. What you want to do is destroy that little formation of resistance on cemetery hill. The first and 11th rallying there. The 12th Corps arriving at nightfall, elements of the second and third corps arriving there. So, really, Lee has destroyed or battered two of the Army of Potomac 7 Corps.

There's still five other corps that are coming up. And what he really needs to do is drive a night attack to drive the Union off cemetery hill. And Culpsell, whether they're setting in. Lee realizes this. He gives a discretionary order, which is very common of him to one of his corps commanders.

You know, drive them off that hill if practicable. The corps commander that it gives us to is not aggressive. He goes any conducts of reconnaissance and goes, "I don't like this." He brings his division commander as an ALC well boss. We fought hard, our men are tired.

How about we give it to the fresh division? The guy who's not here, you know, classic moment. Vote in favor to commit the guy who wasn't present for the meeting. That division commander arrives as he needs to see the ground. And by the time he conducts his reconnaissance, they know that they're facing a very well-dugging

enemy and they opt not to attack. What would have happened? Have they attacked that night? No one knows. A lot of people say, "Well, Stonewall Jackson had Stonewall Jackson been there.

He would have attacked." And I say, "Well, no, he wouldn't have because he would have been dead." Because he was already dead a month and a half. And he would just smell very badly and not attack anything. But the way it remains that night is that you have the majority of the army of Potomac arrives,

George Meater Rives, and decides to fight here. Lear Rives decides to fight there. And so the scene is set for the battle to continue. You're listening to Dad Snow's history. We're talking about Gettysburg. We're coming up.

In a world where swords were sharp. And Hygiene was probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians. Me, Matt Lewis. And me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga.

I've had first into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids. And plenty of other things that don't rhyme. Subscribe to God Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. And you mentioned that digging in, that's important we've talked about that earlier. At this point, unlike the Battle of Waterloo, for example,

1815, a huge battle between large armies on this kind of scale. On the whole, they tend not digging. They take advances in natural features, but they're not digging in necessarily.

“Are those union troops now getting their shovels out and digging as we might understand them trenches?”

Yes. So if you go up on Cops Hill, you can still see the lines of the union trenches. And this is mostly due to one certain union commander, a over 60 gentlemen who is a civil engineer and an army engineer prior, George Sears Green.

He's a brigade commander, although he had experienced leading a division. And as soon as he puts his troops up on Cops Hill, he hasn't got their shovels out. In every era, the infantry don't like to dig in, but he forces his troops to start digging. They dig rifle pits, so long lines of trenches with sort of lunettes in front of them, revettments in front of them, eventually they improve it with overhead cover, building logs,

to basically just have slits to fire through, until you have a long line trenches, running along Cops Hill, making this an incredibly formidable defense of position,

“which is very, very important. So much of the battle of Gettysburg, it's the left flank of the”

union line that gets talked about, little round top, Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th main,

but the most important part of the battle is actually the right flank, because the Baltimore

Pike is just behind Cops Hill. And the Baltimore Pike runs back to Westminster Maryland, which is the rail hub, that is the Army of the Potomac's Lifeline. It's the only rail hub. And that's where all the core trains are. That's where all the core hospitals are. That's where the lifeblood of this army is. So that 15 miles between Westminster Maryland and Gettysburg, this is this vital link that if me loses this, he has to retreat.

He has to fall back. And Lee is aware of this. Why he does not orchestrate his battle better, is amazing to me. He had dysentery. I guess that's all I would put it down to. I mean, if you're suffering from dysentery, the entire battle, your decision making is going to be off. But this is sort of the posture of where troops are, the beginning of July 2nd. Well, I've lived to see everything now. I've lived to see Jonathan Bratton

throw shade on his forebest. And I never thought that day would dawn. So this is how we know we're

getting your true unblemished opinion about this story. That's impressive. It is. It's a painful

“thing to do, but you have to overcome individual biases and look at the bigger picture.”

A true professional. Okay, so day two, the second of July, it dawns. Troops been arriving overnight. As you say, Union troops been digging in, creating this formidable defensive position at that right at the northern end, that right flank of their line. What is the plan on day two? So needs plan on day two is concentrate his forces and fight from a defensive position. Remember, this guy just took command like four days ago. Yeah, right, survive. Don't lose. It's a very

important thing. Don't lose. He's content to let Lee keep the initiative and keep attacking him. He's very confident that in his position, which extends from Kops Hill to Cemetery Hill, and then runs south down Cemetery Ridge towards a little roundtop. It's the famous fish hook. It's a beautiful interior line. You can reinforce any part of that line within 15 minutes to half an hour. If you look on the map, it looks kind of scary. They look like they're surrounded,

but actually, as an expert, you're telling me that those interior lines actually have a great advantage because they can shuffle troops around to meet one threat after another. Yes, it's a phenomenal advantage. The road network helps them out too. You can move along those roads. You can move artillery, replacements. You can move ammunition wagons, hospital wagons all around that sector. Now for Lee, who has decided to take the offensive, being offensive might once he has the initiative,

he doesn't want to give it up, possibly not the best plan to have when you are limited on material and manpower strategically. I don't know. He is facing the other problem, which is, he's too far apart. It will take a good hour or two to move from one side of his line to the other. It's very hard to synchronize your effects, and especially his battle plan for July 2nd, which is for the troops in front of Cemetery Hill at Culp's Hill to demonstrate to fix the

enemy in place there, and essentially make it look like he's going to attack. And then for James Longstreet's

core to swing south, and then attack along the emits bird road and echelon, basically rolling up

the union flank from the south west. You've outflanked the north, now Tron outflanked the south, and just crushed them in the middle. Crush them in the vice, and that's the battle plan. What could possibly go wrong? Well, so many things, mainly Dan Sickles is what goes wrong for Lee. Dan Sickles, a phenomenal character, literally a character, the only non-west pointer core commander in the Army of the Potomac is a Tamony Hall politician, most famous for shooting his wife's lover

in broad daylight in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue prior to the war, and his wife's

“lover was Francis Scott Key's nephew, the guy who composed the star-spangled banner. So this is,”

I mean, tabloid, just go nuts. Everyone knows who Dan Sickles is. One of his defense attorneys

get him off on the first successful use of the temporary insanity play, so it's really good stuff.

“And Sickles is great raises a brigade right off the bat in 1861, so that's great for the war”

effort. You need more manpower, and he's not a bad commander. He's a very aggressive guy. But because he's aggressive and because of some stuff that happened to Chancellor'sville, in May, he doesn't like where his core is positioned at the south end of the union line. It's in so little bit of low ground dominated by hoax ridge, it's a ridge line opposite, where he goes, hmm, if the enemy puts artillery there, I'm going to tight spot. I don't like this.

So after negotiating, I guess, is the nicest way of putting it with General Mead all morning, saying, hey, I don't like this spot. I don't like this spot. Boss, can you come down here and look at this spot? And Mead is going, hey, I have other problems elsewhere. Mainly, the Baltimore Pike, my main supply line. I don't have time for you, Dan, just calm down, sit tight around one PM, Sickles moves his third core, about 11,000 troops, about a mile and a half forward.

In positions them in this arc, this wide V with the V tip towards the enemy, running from this high ground, this place called the peach orchard, running back along through the wheat field, and then anchoring it in this little rocky area called Devil's Den. And that his other wing is angled back toward the main union line on some a Terry ridge, but it's not large enough to cover this whole area. So it just stuck out there, like a sore thumb, all on its own. And this would be

normally very, very bad, but the problem is, for Lee, he didn't expect union troops to be there.

“Remember, his whole attack plan is centered on this idea that they're going to roll up the flank.”

And all of a sudden, the flank isn't where you think it is. Now, you've got union troops who are right in your path. And so inadvertently Sickles creates, almost a tripwire. He gets inside Lee's decision making loop. It slows down the deployment of Confederate troops on the flank, Longstreet has to counter march because they're now troops where he didn't think they're we're going to be. And he doesn't actually begin his attack until around 5 p.m. That's very late in the day.

You don't have a lot of time left of daylight for fighting. And so when Longstreet does make his attack, he's now engaging Sickles third core well ahead of the union line. And there's this great moment where meet finally rides out to meet Sickles. Meet is known as an old godly-eyed snapping

turtle. That's his nickname. And his temper is never good in any situation. His temper right now,

“he's furious. And Dan Sickles says, essentially, hey, sir, look, I have higher ground. Isn't this great?”

And meet says, yes, General Sickles. This is, in fact, higher ground. And if you were to continue moving forward, you were continuing finding higher ground until you hit the mountains. And Sickles says, all right, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'll pull my core back. And at that moment, one of those great timing moments, the Sickles guns for Longstreet's assault begins. And a round shot comes about something on ground, berries itself in the earth nearby. And meet says, General, I wish

to God you could. But now I fear you are in it. And I have to find a way to get you out. So meet does an incredible thing in this moment. And supports his in subordinate general. And we'll support him through this entire engagement, which is the crux of the fighting on July 2nd. And so what most of this fighting on this second day, it's around this southern edge of the battlefield, isn't it? It begins this way. July 2nd is notable for just the sheer

ferocity that all happens after like 5 p.m. This fighting at the southern end of the battlefield that can better at lines coming out of the woods must have looked just terrifying. These endless lines and attacking an echelon, which means that you see sort of one brigade at a time coming out of the woods. This idea of an echelon, they're attacking separated in time and space, meant to cause the defender to commit the reserves too early. And that means that you are hitting

a vulnerable part of the line. If you're a governor, K. Warren, meets engineer standing on little roundtop, undefended at the start, looking out and you're just seeing these waves of gray, coated, brown-coded troops coming out of the woods, the sun shining on their bayonets and you're going, "Oh my God, we are screwed." And so meads chief engineer, Warren sees all this and this fighting is developing that devil's den is embroiled in gun smoke and the artillery battery there is

firing, the commander is yelling, you know, give them solid shot, give them canister, Goddamn them, give them anything. I mean, it's just very closely in fighting what's again. The fighting is continuing to the wheat field and now the pea-chorcher is on fire and this whole flank is a flame. Mead is trying to find reinforcements for anywhere to bolster what he knows is a very, very

but his fifth core is coming up. And Warren, his chief engineer, sends one of his runners,

“Raynald McKenzie, who is going to have a big day, a little big horn in 1876, runs down the slope,”

searching for anyone who's there and then he finds he's Colonel Strong Vincent with his brigade, which contains this unit called the 20th main infantry. And Vincent says, "Well, what are your orders?" And he said, "I'm looking for a division commander, General Barnes. I've ordered a, I need a brigade. And Vincent says, "Give me your orders. I will go with my brigade." This is rash rank in subordination in the 19th century in a very orders-based system. Vincent is putting

his entire career on the line. And he leads his brigade to the undefended little roundtop and

puts them in place just as the first confederates begin coming through the gap between

devil's den and big roundtop, coming up through brushing through the skirmishers, and then two confederate regiments come over, big roundtop, and smash into Vincent's left flank

“where the 20th main is. So you have two Alabama regiments versus this one main regimen.”

So Jonathan, this is Lee's plan now, potentially working. He's going to roll up this union position from the south and he's, he's a few seconds away from achieving that kind of surprise, capturing a little roundtop, but instead the main guys got there just before. Main and it has to give them credit, Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan. And then little Patty O'Rourke and his 140th New York who come holling in, Irishman Patty rolling in

at the last minute. They don't have time to load their rifles. They roll in with a bayonet, they smash into the Texans at the crest of the hill at its hand to hand fighting. So all of the little roundtop is this sort of very dramatic scene, the most dramatic in my opinion. Of course, that 20th main of around 320 soldiers holding that extreme left flank. Under the command of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, professor of Bowden College,

liberal arts professor of all things, commanding this regimen. And they're going to fire through their 60 rounds very rapidly. 20 minutes of fighting is really all it takes to fire through all your ammunition. The Confederates are flanking and they're flanking some more. As more and more Confederate units are committed to this fight after they break through Devils Den. And so it's a sort of on-rush of Confederate troops. And Sue Jamble and his left with the decision of what you do with no

ammunition left. Do I a dye in place? Do I retreat? Can't retreat. And so the famous order of bayonet forward, the bugle sounds a call, and it's a bayonet charge down this little hill catching the incredibly exhausted Confederates. I mean, these Alabama regiments have already marked 25 miles in 85 to 90 degree weather in massive humidity directly into this attack. These guys are exhausted. It's sheer adrenaline that's keeping them going. And this bayonet charge of these

miners catches them off guard. They retreat many are captured. And this sort of saves this left flank. Ironically, the exact same thing is going to happen on the right flank that night. So in the darkness, Colonel David Ireland with the New York regiment is going to do the same thing. He's on the far right flank. The Confederates are mounting night attacks against these dug-in positions. It's going horrifically for them. It's not a good story for the Confederates.

This is probably why that side of the battlefield never gets talked about because there are

night attacks occurring against cemetery hill and colbshill fails utterly for the Confederates. David Ireland bends his regiment back into a via as well and then runs out of ammunition and caduck's not one but two bayonet charges to clear the enemy and keep the vital Baltimore pike open in this whole memory problem. Probably that decision did more to win the battle than the 20th main on the ground top. But because Joshua Chamberlain was a phenomenal writer and wrote

“about his experiences after the war, that's how we look at that one. So it's a matter of, hey,”

who writes better? Wow. Okay. So on day two, the union line has bent but it is not broken and roughly speaking, Lee's plan to crush it in the vice to outflank it and crush it and kind of concentrating it up in a way. It has not worked. Not at all. No. No. It is not work and it's caused so many casualties. July 2nd is so incredibly bloody. Just for example, the wheat field is a very, very small area on the Gettysburg battlefield. Approximately 18,000 troops, 18 to 20,000 troops

all told will engage in the wheat field back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. About 50% of them become casualties. This tiny little area has 10,000 casualties killed wounded in missing. It's just this horrendous, horrendous spy. I mean, the whole wheel field is just covered with bodies.

When night falls into life's second incident, important to remember, Lee has fired almost all

Mead is beginning to worry about his ammunition reserves. Both sars are worried about their wounded,

“trying to get them care. These are sort of the things that are going through everyone's head. Lee”

has that moment on July 2nd at night where he thinks that he might have broken through on cemetery hill, Confederate troops rush up to the mussels and German gunners again. Peter Xpatri, a great moment where Louisiana puts his hand on a gun tube of this battery and says, "I take command of this gun and the German gunner holding the land here." He says, "Do so, see

had them." Basically, then come and take it and pose the land here and blow the guys to the rings.

Reinforcements again. Interior lines need to shuffling soldiers back and forth, back and forth. This is what keeps his line intact. His line does not break. He holds a council award that night. With his commanders, do we stay in fight? Do we attack? What do we do? And they say we will stay in fight. We'll fight on the defensive, which sets us up for July 3rd and actually a very little known union offensive on July 3rd.

Mulgex's bug after this don't go away.

“In a world where swords were shot and hygiene was probably better than you think it is.”

Two fearless historians. Me, Matt Lewis and me, Dr. Eleanor Yamaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I was not expecting to say that, of course, because, you know, as an amateur,

I was expecting to talk about the most famous offensive in the US military history, but let's get started with the union attack before we come on to Confederate one. Tell me, "Dawn on July 3rd. What's going on?" Dawn on July 3rd confederates have crept into some of the abandoned rifle pits on Culp's Hill. They are threatening that supply line and me, it gives the order for the 12th core and elements

of the 11th and the 1st core. This is the 3 core attack to attack that morning and retake. So relieve this pressure on his, his artery, his lifeline, the Baltimore Pike.

This is something that we've just never talked about. And it's sort of stunning.

You have approximately 20,000 union troops attacking at Dawn 48 gun artillery barrage to initiate this assault, and then a fierce union onslaught against Doug in Confederates, who after fighting for about four hours of some very determined stubborn, really close in action, are driven out of the rifle pits. And by around 10 a.m. Meadsline is secure and Lee is left going. Well, now both flanks have failed. This

informs what is commonly known as pickets charred. This is why it's so important. Lee is not just realizing that, oh, well, you know, it probably doesn't, isn't going to go well on the flank around Culp's Hill. It's, he has utterly failed. His troops have been driven out of their position and are left nearly combat ineffective. Lee's troops over the last 36 hours. They failed on the north flank. They failed on the south flank. So where are they going to attack Jonathan? What's

left? Right, bang up through the middle root one. Well, you take a page out of the battle of Alma in the Crimean War. The British do a phenomenal frontal assault across the river. Take massive casualties. They bet they break the Russians. And this is in Lee's mind. We think as hey,

“it's possible. It's a width and the realm of possibility. The British did it. How hard can it be?”

Well, just because the British do something doesn't mean it's easy, right? These are highly trained professional red coats talking about here. All right. So come on, tell me about pickets charge. So the misnomer of pickets charge picket has one division out of three divisions that are committed

in this attack. The other two were bloodied heavily units taking anywhere between 10 to 50 percent

casualties on July 1st and some of them on July 2nd. Pickets division is fresh. You're looking about 12 to 15,000 troops that are going to cross a mile of open ground to break, you know, concentrate mass and concentration crack open the center defended by about 6,000 union troops. While simultaneously, Jeb Stewart finally is back. The Cavalier has returned with 100 wagons, which is all he can show for his time away. And Jeb Stewart is going to threaten the union

which is going to be foiled by George Armstrong Custer, a good Ohio boy, a good Harrison County

“Ohio boy, which is where I'm from. And by charge of Michigan, highwind leading a charge of his”

Michigan Brigade, yells, "Come on, you Wolverines, the Cavaliers are checked by audacious Midwesterners and Stewart decides that he does not have the combat power to sort of press this attack." And so another part of Lee's plan is sort of falling away, which leaves this spectacular assault that will be preceded by, "What do you proceed in assault by Dan?" A massive artillery bombardment, which works

every time, right? Well, yeah, some of the first of all generals be scratching their heads now and

giving the side eye, but yeah, that's the idea. Yeah, Sir John French and Douglas Hague would say, "Yes, absolutely, this is a totally great idea." Two-hour artillery bombardment, one of the largest concentrations of artillery in North America, probably the largest artillery duel of the Civil War, and it is mostly defeated due to the genius of one man general Henry Hunt, the commander of Army of the Potomac Artillery, the Chief of Artillery, who realizes right away,

exactly what this bombardment pre-sages tells his gunners to cease fire, to make it look as though the Confederate counter-battery was effective, and that gives the trigger, so to speak,

for 28-year-old E. Porter Alexander, the commander of the Confederate artillery brush,

to go to General Longstreet and say, we've sort of met the conditions, their counter-battery is less the return fire, is less now is the moment. Also, we run out of violence, essentially,

“so you have to go. Longstreet, this core commander of Lee's cannot himself give the verbal order.”

He just simply nods. He has significant reservations that this attack will fail. He's argued against it, but at one o'clock, these long lines of 15,000 troops emerge from the woods in perfect order from seminary origin, begin crossing into what they think is a relatively artillery list zone, which could not be further from the truth. So that unit artillery opens up. Let's just talk through some of those projectiles. Initially, are they flying solid bull, which is able to travel

further than other kinds of rounds? What do they open up with? They open with approximately a hundred guns firing from little roundtop to cemetery hill, so it's a converging fire. They're firing at angles to each other. They're opening a solid shot with spherical shots, spherical

case, which is the explosive shell. It's got a time fuse, the union artillery is incredible.

“American artillery is always, always been one of the strong points in the U.S. Army,”

authored out our history, and it does incredible work at Gettysburg. As the Confederate lines are getting nearer and nearer, they're switching from spherical case to grape and canister, you know, around the 300 yards, these shotgun shells, cowans, New York, battery loads, triple canister, and nearly causes one of the guns to do a summer assault backwards. These are tins, really, with effectively sort of musket bulls packed into them, so that each one of those cannon,

as you say, becomes like a shotgun in some ways like a machine gun. Just dozens of these little rounds just flying out, creating just beaten zones in which it's hard to see anything, any flesh, anything surviving. Yes. And so this is what they're going into. And units, however, again, these guys have been fighting for three days. Many of the units that were mauled on day one don't even make it halfway across the field before they turn tail and run back. So already, the attack is

dissipating. The lines are getting closer and closer together. Sort of as you're getting fired on from both flanks, everything sort of begins to converge. And this attack is supposed to converge against cemetery hill. But really, it's converging at a spot along this stone wall by this clump of trees. A lot of people mistake the clump of trees as leaves objective. The objective is really cemetery hill, this vital position. But because of the Confederates converging, it doesn't

help them that they ate the Ohio swings out on their flank and begins firing valleys into the flanks of the Confederates. While on the other end of the line, the brigade of Vermonter's swings also in this long arc and begins firing musket debris down the flank of the Confederate advance further pushing them together converging on the spot this angle and the stone wall. And so you have at the crux of it as sort of the point of penetration is several thousand

Confederates massing into this one small little two to three hundred yard front. And they run up against to the right you have Alex Hayes division. You got units firing

And they've been preparing all morning with extra muskets. And this is, again, this constant

volume of fire, no Confederates get a caroust that part of the wall. But at the angle around 400 to 500 Confederates are able to pierce that line and come up over the wall. And is this moment where Lee thinks maybe he's done it. But as every single World War one general, whoever let in offensive

“will tell you, it's easy to punch a hole. It's about what happens afterwards. Can you develop it?”

And he had nothing. He had no reserves left. There was no way that these five hundred individuals are going to pose a threat. And it's a thousands of of needs and massed reserves. The six core has already arrived. This is an entirely fresh unit that meat is using to fill holes in the line. And so this clash of musket butts wielded in bayonets and pistols fired at close range and in absolute defeat for the Confederates as the union line seals itself and counter attacks

and stops the assault at the angle. And pickets charge long streets assault. Lee's folly, as I would call it, has utterly failed on the lands of Abraham Bryant, a freeman of color, which I think is incredibly symbolic. And that little section where they punch through that

will notice the high water market, the Confederacy, which is always funny to me, as the Confederacy,

the high water market would be sort of up by York, but 70 miles north. Come on man, it's poetry,

“Jonathan. Honestly, you engineers, you scientists, I tell you what, it's hard working with you guys.”

Long streets attack, at least folly, pickets charge over half the men killed and wounded. You're looking at around 50% casualties once you've taken the prisoners as well. And there's this iconic moment when these union troops realize that they've repelled the assault, Alex Hayes, a division commander, kisses his aid, melts his horse, rides out to the front of his line, grabs a Confederate flag that has been captured by his men, drags it behind him on his horse,

followed by the rest of his staff doing the same, ride a log sort of his cheering division front, which is a hell of a vision and sort of an image. But yes, you have more than half of the regimental and brigade commanders in this attack are killed or wounded, and the attack is essentially decimated. So it's left. You've got just battered troops sort of staring at each other across

“this gap in the lines. And the following day, the fourth of July, Lee bouts the inevitable”

and retreats. And I mean, it's just explained to me the importance of him breaking off that bottle and retreating to the south. What does this mean for the American civil war? So to set this stage, July 3rd, there was meant to be more fighting. Need was looking at bringing up his reserves and mounting an offensive. He conducts, as I mentioned, as a brigade that conducts an open order reconnaissance. And around 4 p.m., it just dumps rain. Absolutely pours rain. That whole night.

So now it's just miserable conditions. Lee waits it out. He's in the defensive position. He pulls his troops back to defensive lines on seminary ridge. There's still examples of some of the fortifications that they dig in there. He begins digging in. And then on July 4th, he does bow to the inevitable. And he makes his retreat, made closely following on his heels. Everyone's exhausted. There's clashes all along the way. This decision of Lee's to retreat means that

the Confederacy will fight purely defensively for the remainder of the war. What also happens on July 4th, of even greater import than Gettysburg, is that the fortress city of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River falls to General Grant's besieging forces. So now the Confederacy is split into New Orleans, is a union port now. And the Mississippi is the United States River once again, the Confederacy is split into everything is made that much more difficult. And now, union strategy

can focus on destroying this eastern sort of stronghold. You're going to see the stage is now set for an invasion of Georgia and for pushing further south against the rail lines at Petersburg, Virginia, the following year. So all of this is enabled by the twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Well, listen, man. Thank you so much for a marathon. That was as long as the battle itself. And I know you got playing with that came from and people should watch this space because

one day you and I are going to walk that field and we're going to do an in-depth look at how that battle went by blow. I look forward to that day Jonathan. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

Dan, as always, it is a joy. I look forward to going out there and hosting a point together at the

area. Three days of unrelenting combat had left more than 50,000 men killed wounded or missing and changed

combined with that other Confederate catastrophe over on the Mississippi Vicksburg, which was

“fought around the same time. In the eastern theatre from this battle field, the union began to push”

inexorably southward and the Confederacy's hopes of victory faded away. Gettysburg lives on

in how Americans tell their national stories become one of the great milestones in the

republics history. Lincoln's Gettysburg addresses become canonical, it's in some senses, one of America's founding documents. Thank you for listening to Dan's and those history hit. If you're interested in learning a bit more about the Americas of a war where we did an episode on two tightens of the conflict there rivalry, Euliseez Eschron, Robert E. Lee, you can find a link to

“that one in the show notes below. Please remember to like and subscribe with any other battles”

that you would like us to cover. There is an email there in the show notes that you can send your ideas to and we might do an episode all about that. Till next time folks, thanks for listening.

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