Posted on 07/03/2005 8:03:44 AM PDT by Valin
We missed our opportunity yesterday to pay tribute to the heroes of Gettysburg Day 2, the decisive day of the battle. Among the heroes who saved the Union on July 2, 1863 were the 282 men of the First Minnesota Volunteers. Their story cannot be told often enough, and Mackubin Thomas Owens made it the centerpiece of his terrific 2003 "Reflections on Memorial Day."
As John has previously observed here:
The pivot of American history turns on the second day at Gettysburg, and, while thousands of men fought gallantly on both sides that day, there were two points where the fate of the world, really, hung in the balance. The first was at Little Round Top, where Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's 20th Maine held off Confederate attacks throughout the day. The second came late in the afternoon, when the Confederates attacked the center of the Union line, which had been stripped almost bare as Union generals sent more and more troops to defend the southern part of the line. It was in the center that the First Minnesota made its famous suicide charge, attacking onrushing Confederates who outnumbered the Minnesotans fifteen to one in a desperate effort to gain time to reinforce the Union line. The regiment suffered a casualty rate exceeding 80 percent, but succeeded beyond General Hancock's expectations, as they not only purchased with their lives the critical minutes needed to reinforce the Union line, but stopped the Confederate advance in its tracks. No unit of the United States Army has ever exceeded the First Minnesota for gallantry and courage. As John noted, Chamberlain's moment also came at Gettysburg on July 2. John summarized Chamberlain's heroics and those of the Maine volunteers under his command: An excellent scholar, Chamberlain was a professor at Bowdoin when the war broke out. Considered a little old for military service, he took a "sabbatical" from Bowdoin and enlisted. His most famous moment came, of course, at Gettysburg, where he and his Maine volunteers held Little Round Top against heavy odds. At the height of the battle, with Chamberlain wounded and his men running out of ammunition, Chamberlain--who had been ordered to hold the position, which anchored the Union line, at all costs--responded not by withdrawing but by ordering a bayonet charge that broke the Confederate attack. By the end of the war he was a Major General (brevet). Chamberlain was widely regarded as the toughest man in the Union Army. He was wounded six times, and left for dead on the battlefield at least once. Grant chose him to lead the Army of the Potomac in the Grand Review of the Union Armies in Washington at the close of the war. After the war, Chamberlain was elected Governor of Maine four times. His Civil War wounds finally killed him, but not until 1914. As word reached Washington that Vicksburg as well as Gettysburg had ended with a Union victory, many sensed that a turning point had been passed. Lincoln spoke to the crowd that gathered outside the White House on the evening of July 7. (See the text of Lincoln's July 7 remarks here; see Professor Donald Miller's comments here). He warmed to a theme he would not develop fully until the following November. "How long ago is it?" he asked. "Eighty odd years, since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that 'all men are created equal.'"
The war, he noted, was a "gigantic rebellion...precisely at the bottom of which [was] an effort to subvert that principle." Now the rebels had suffered two staggering defeats on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. "Gentlemen," he added, "this is a glorious theme, and a glorious occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the theme and worthy of the occasion." Lincoln concluded:
Recent events bring up certain names, gallantly prominent, but I do not want to particularly name them at the expense of others, who are as justly entitled to our gratitude as they. I therefore do not upon this occasion name a single man. And now I have said about as much as I ought to say in this impromptu manner, and if you please, I'll take the music. UPDATE: Reader Andrew Wharton directs us to Bill Whittle's retelling of Little Round Top in the essay "History" at Eject! Eject! Eject! Whittle's post tells the story in the context of our current war. Wharton notes that Whittle's essay is from his book Silent America: Essays from a Democracy at War.
UPDATE 2: Reader Stephen Terry points out that the Washington Times remembered the significance of July 2 yesterday with a terrific column on the First Minnesota by Francis P. Sempa, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvia: "15 minutes of fury on Cemetery Ridge." So many fine books on Gettysburg and the Civil War have been written that it's difficult to single one out, but the best book on the First Minnesota Volunteers is without question Richard Moe's Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers, back in print thanks to the Minnesota Historical Society.
I don't think the 2nd day was truly decisive.
They still could have run around to the right of the Union position on July 3rd. Sure it would have been a very audacious plan, but Lee had lived on that reputation up until this battle.
The 3rd day was decisive. The 2nd day set the Union in the direction of victory.
Actually I think day 1 was the decisive day. When Ewell didn't take Cemetery Hill.
No that was a critical day, and certainly Buford's action in front of Heth saved the day, and in the end the battle, as the battle lines were drawn from where Buford was holding when Reynolds came up, not to mention Ewell's failure, but the CSA could have still won the battle had they not charged directly up Little Round Top. They could have easily swung around to the right and taken the entire Union Army from the rear.
Longstreet argued for a flanking movement to the South around the Little Round Top redoubt instead of an direct assault on the Union position.
I played that hand in a war game on several occasions and won every time.
oh yeah....they could have marched to Hanover if they wanted too around the right of the Union flank. but a combination of the Napoleonic School tactics (i.e. we will fight our enemy before us), and the fact that Lee wanted to defeat the US man to man (they have said his heart issues were getting much worse as 1863 was wearing on), mitigated that.
It is a given that had Jackson been there and not AP Hill, it may have been much different.
Unfortunately for the soldiers involved, the military commanders of the day, especially the older ones like Lee, were still using the tactics of direct assault that had been in use for centuries. The Civil War was a watershed for new equipment (subs, gatling guns, repeating rifles) as well as an evolution in tactics to manuver and total war.
The most masterful ( and hence successful)use of tactics during the war was Sherman who used the flanking manuver against Joe Johnston over and over, moving ever closer to Atlanta and the sea. He was truly the tactical innovator of the war--Damn his Yankee soul to hell :-)
They could have easily swung around to the right and taken the entire Union Army from the rear.
From what I understand the problem Lee had was one of time. If he had been able to move his troops faster they could of done it (taken Little Round Top)If memory serves it took Hood most of the day to get his troops in position( I seems to recall they got lost along the way also).
IF Ewell had taken "That Little Hill" it would of taken the high ground away away from federal forces.
Back later. There's a plate of eegs and bacon out there somewhere and I'm determined to track it down and "have my way with it".
LOL
Sheridan too.
Sheridan combined fast moving cavalry with quick moving infantry, similar in many ways to what Jackson did early in the war with just infantry....
yep....
they were worried abou the land supporting them and all that stuff.
Add to that, the battlefield of Gettysburg was huge by their considerations and the 2 high points were under Union control (the Round Tops) and all movements could be observed.
I think Lee was also influenced by the fact that he'd won so many battles against superior forces. He'd begun to think his soldiers were divinely inspired and able to do anything he asked of them. What a bitter lesson it was to realize and accept the error in his thinking. And what a fine man he was to accept the responsibility so completely. I'd like to have known him.
Amen to that, brother. Lee was one of the greatest Americans ever to live, general of the "Lost Cause" or not.
I watched a couple dvd's in remembrance ... There's a bridge a couple miles from here named for Lt. O'Rourke, who led a fierce bayonette charge from Little Round Top and paid with his life.
BTW, Gettysburg is a "must visit" for American history buffs. The battlefield, aside from the monuments, is pretty much just as it was then. Looking across such beautiful countryside, it's hard to fathom what happened there 142 years ago.
The South suffered from "Victory Disease" and the Union commanders managed to identify and accomplish their individual missions in such a sequence the they kept missing blowing it!
when I was about 12 years old, my family made a pilgrimage to Gettysburg and I spent a day climbing over the boulders of the Devil's Den where the Texas Brigade eventually won the field on July 2.
It is an eery place and you can still feel the spirits of the men who fought there.
You're not the first person I've heard say that.
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