Gettysburg

 

so - as we usually do - when we drive north - we make a one day stop at Gettysburg...

Last time we visited"The Angle" (the bloody Angle) the point on Cemetery ridge that was the farthest north any confederate troop ever got during the war  and specifically during Pickets charge... -

This Time - Little Round top - this area was upgraded with new paths and walking areas, and placards describing the battle there...events there on July 3rd 1863 - in some opinions  allowed  Meade ot win the battle and maybe turned the tide of the war - and  this Professor from Maine with little or not military training just might have saved the Union,,,, 

This image of General Gouverneur Kemble Warren , Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac at the battle of Gettysburg. His monument stands on a large boulder at the summit of Little Round Top. Serving as Meade's Chief Engineer, Warren was surveying the Union left when he spied Confederate forces moving toward Little Round Top. Recognizing how valuable Little Round Top was for the Union army’s line of battle, and discovering it unoccupied, Warren sent out a call for reinforcements. Warren’s leadership in moving troops to this place proved critical for the Union army as it ultimately saved the Union line and aided materially in it’s victory the following day.  You can see Cemetery ridge in the far distance to the right in the picture , and that huge monument on the far left is the largest one on the Gettysburg battlefield and is  the Pennsylvania state memorial 

General Meade told Warren ====.  “Warren! I hear a little peppering going on in the direction of the little hill off yonder. . . . I wish you would ride over and if anything serious is going on . . . attend to it.  this was Meades order to Warren - And at Warren's request  Meade sent troops from the  140th New York - with men and artillery.. 

The 20th Maine - and  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain that led the troops that Warren asked Meade for,....   Chamberlain - a college professor from Maine who asked his college for a leave of absence to go join the Union Army and was denied that leave - he then applied for a sabbatical to study in France and was approved,,,, the next day he enlisted in the army..

Yes - it was Warren that knew if the Confederates flanked the Union at Little Round top and were able to get a position there ort behind that line that the rest of the union army was vulnerable... But it Chamberlain and the 20th Maine that defended that hill ..  he was given the order  "This is the left of the Union line. You are to hold this ground at all costs! "

And with their ammunition nearly all gone - Chamberlain decided to have his troops fix bayonets and charge down hill  into the 15th and 47th Alabama that were coming up the hill- the Bayonet charge was not something that was done in the Civil war. (that was far more a Revolutionary war tactic)   and he used kind of a Swing gate tactic the the Troops to he far left / South would move down and to their right to trap the Rebels between the Charging union lines,,,, It worked  .     

That day the Alabama armies lost nearly 300 men (died) and near 900 wounded ,,, the Union 130 killed and 400 wounded,... 

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/defense-little-round-top