The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Little Round Top - Gettysburg (7/2/1863) - June 24th, 2005

military.com ^ | James R. Brann

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


...................................................................................... ...........................................

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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

The Defense of Little Round Top

Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain has long been lauded as the hero of Gettysburg's Little Round Top. But does Chamberlain deserve all the credit, or did he have some unheralded help?

Late in the afternoon of July 2, 1863, on a boulder-strewn hillside in southern Pennsylvania, Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain dashed headlong into history, leading his 20th Maine Regiment in perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War. The regiment's sudden, desperate bayonet charge blunted the Confederate assault on Little Round Top and has been credited with saving Major General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac, winning the Battle of Gettysburg and setting the South on a long, irreversible path to defeat.


20th Maine on the Taneytown Road

For many years, historians and writers have given the lion's share of the credit for the 20th's dramatic action on Little Round Top to Chamberlain. Numerous books and even the popular movie Gettysburg have helped fuel adulation for the Union officer. But did Chamberlain really deserve the credit he received? Or, to put it another way, did he deserve all the credit? Answering that question adequately requires taking another look at the Battle of Gettysburg and the hell-raising fighting that occurred among the scattered stones of Little Round Top.

On June 3, 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee began the Army of Northern Virginia's second invasion of the North. Lee's main objective was to move across the Potomac River and try to separate the Union forces from Washington. When the Army of the Potomac's commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, belatedly became aware of the Confederates' movement, he began to force-march his army north, trying to keep Lee to the west and screen Washington from the Rebel troops. On June 28, as the bulk of the Federal troops enjoyed a brief respite near Frederick, Md., Meade replaced Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac.


Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Meade faced a daunting task. By June 30 Lee's forces, including those of corps commanders Lt. Gens. James "Pete" Longstreet and Ambrose P. Hill, were marching on the Chambersburg Road in southern Pennsylvania, while Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell was leading his corps westward from York. Major General J.E.B. Stuart, directing Lee's cavalry, had not returned to the main Southern column from his screening mission around the Union forces. In fact, Stuart would not return until July 2, a crucial error in judgment.

Lacking adequate intelligence from his scouting forces, Lee directed his army to gather at Gettysburg. The general did not want to fight at Gettysburg, but alert Union horsemen had reached the area -- a fact that would put a wrinkle in Lee's plans. When Confederate Brig. Gen. James J. Pettigrew approached the town leading a 2,584-man brigade that was part of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division, he became aware of the Union cavalry force positioned there. Pettigrew withdrew his troops and then reported back to Heth. The next day, July 1, Heth headed toward Gettysburg with four brigades of infantry to drive off the reported Union troopers and secure the town.


Little Round Top from the northwest.
Brady photograph.

To Heth's surprise, waiting for him was Union Brig. Gen. John Buford, who had dismounted and deployed his cavalry on McPherson's Ridge, west of Gettysburg. Buford's forces fired first, temporarily halting Heth's force and starting the Battle of Gettysburg. Both sides sent dispatches to inform their superiors of the confrontation. Meade reinforced his Union position with the I Corps, which was now led by Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday since Maj. Gen. John Reynolds had been mortally wounded earlier that day. Additional Union reinforcements came from Maj. Gens. Henry W. Slocum's XII Corps and Daniel Sickles' III Corps. Throughout the morning, Confederate pressure continued to build against the Union line.


Signals From Little Round Top

Although spread thinly, the Union troopers held their ground with repeating carbines. As the fighting intensified, both sides added more infantry divisions to the battle. The Confederates managed to exploit weaknesses in the Federals' deployment, and their attacks caused heavy losses to the Union troops, who were forced to retreat. Confederate General Ewell's failure to carry out his orders and attack Cemetery Hill on the afternoon of July 1 wasted a golden opportunity for a quick, decisive victory. The Union had lost 4,000 men by that time -- and the town of Gettysburg itself -- but Meade quickly moved reinforcing divisions onto the high ground south of Gettysburg. The two armies spent a restless night.



The Union defensive line on aptly named Cemetery Ridge resembled an inverted fishhook, extending from Culp's Hill on the north, down Cemetery Ridge and southward toward Big and Little Round Tops. Although the 650-foot-high Little Round Top was overshadowed by its larger neighbor, its position was more important because much of the hill was cleared of trees and it could better accommodate troops. Strategically, Little Round Top held the key to the developing battle. If the Southern troops could take and hold the hill, they could theoretically roll up the entire Union line.



On the morning of July 2, Little Round Top proper held perhaps just a handful of Federal soldiers. Pennsylvania native Brig. Gen. John W. Geary's division was aligned just north of the hill and was the largest Union force in the immediate area. Geary was ordered to rejoin the rest of his XII Corps at Culp's Hill after elements of Sickles' III Corps took his place. In the confusion of shifting troops, however, Geary pulled his men out too soon, before Sickles' men had moved to replace them. Little Round Top was left uncovered. Later, when Sickles' infantry did arrive, the controversial general moved his men, without orders, westward toward the Emmitsburg Road. Once again Little Round Top went wanting for protectors in blue.


Gouverneur Kemble. Warren
During the battle of Gettysburg, General Warren is credited with the discovery of the Confederate troop movements attempting to attack the area known as "Little Round Top". His subsequent action is reported to have saved the entire left flank of the Union Army.

Robert E. Lee, with his eerie sense of a battlefield, was hastily assembling a force to attack the Union left, but it would take him the greater part of the day to get his men ready to strike. Meanwhile, Meade also sensed something significant about the two adjacent hills to his left. That afternoon he sent his chief of engineers, Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, to assess the situation. To his utter chagrin, Warren found Little Round Top completely undefended. He hastily sent messengers to Meade and Sickles, requesting immediate assistance. Sickles, by that time hotly engaged with el-ements of Longstreet's corps, had none to spare. But Colonel Strong Vincent, who commanded the 3rd Brigade of Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin's 1st Division of the V Corps, received word from a harried courier about the threat to Little Round Top and led his men to the hill at the double-quick. Vincent's brigade included the 44th New York, 16th Michigan, 83rd Pennsylvania and the 358-man 20th Maine under Joshua L. Chamberlain.


The 20th Maine & the 15th Alabama
At Little Round Top, Gettysburg, Pa

The 34-year-old Chamberlain was one of the most interesting figures in the Civil War. A highly cultured, somewhat sedentary professor of modern languages at Maine's exclusive Bowdoin College, he had sat out the first year of the war on Bowdoin's stately campus. But in July 1862, sensing perhaps that the war was going to last a good deal longer than he had first believed, Chamberlain offered his services to the Union cause. "I have always been interested in military matters," he informed Maine Governor Israel Washburn, "and what I do not know in that line, I know how to learn." He was given command of the newly formed 20th Maine, a unit comprised of extra men left over from other new regiments. It was not, Chamberlain noted, one of the state's favorite fighting units -- "No county claimed it; no city gave it a flag; and there was no send-off at the station."


Union breastworks. Interior view of breastworks on Little Round Top, Gettysburg

The 20th Maine had been organized under President Abraham Lincoln's second call for troops on July 2, 1862. The regiment initially fielded a total complement of 1,621 men, but by the time of the Battle of Gettysburg the stress of campaigning had reduced the regiment's ranks to some 266 soldiers, and the 20th was considered a weak link in Vincent's brigade. Fortune, however, was to smile on Chamberlain's regiment in the form of unexpected reinforcements.

On May 23, 1863, 120 three-year enlistees from the 2nd Maine Infantry were marched under guard into the regimental area of the 20th Maine. The 2nd Maine men were in a state of mutiny and refused to fight, angry because the bulk of the regiment -- men with only two-year enlistments -- had been discharged and sent home, and the regiment had been disbanded. The mutineers claimed they had only enlisted to fight under the 2nd Maine flag, and if their flag went home, so should they. By law, however, the men still owed the Army another year of service.



Chamberlain had orders to shoot the mutineers if they refused duty. Fortunately for the men of the 2nd Maine, Chamberlain was born and grew up in Brewer, the twin city to Bangor across the Penobscot River where the 2nd Maine regiment was recruited. The mutineers were not just soldiers but also Chamberlain's childhood neighbors. Instead of shooting them, Chamberlain wisely distributed the 2nd Maine veterans evenly to fill out the 20th Maine's ranks and integrate experienced soldiers among the untested 20th Maine. He sympathized with the mutineers and wrote to Maine Governor Abner Coburn, asking that he write to the men personally about the mix-up in three-year versus two-year contracts they had signed. On Little Round Top the 120 experienced combat veterans from the 2nd Maine brought the 20th's ranks up to 386 infantrymen and helped hold Chamberlain's wobbling line together.

As he arrived on Little Round Top, Colonel Vincent chose a line of defense that started on the west slope of the hill. When the first regiments reached the rocky outcrops in that area, Vincent put them into line. The 16th Michigan took up a position on the right flank, and the 44th New York and 83rd Pennsylvania held the center. Later in life, Chamberlain wrote that his regiment was the first in line, but it actually took up its position last, curving its line back around to the east and forming the Union Army's extreme left flank.


"Colonel Strong Vincent"

The last thing Vincent told Chamberlain was: "This is the left of the Union line. You are to hold this ground at all costs!" Chamberlain ordered the regiment to go on line by file. He deployed Company B, recruited from Piscataquis County and commanded by level-headed Captain Walter G. Morrill of Williamsburg, forward to the regiment's left front flank as skirmishers. Company B, with its 44 men, was subsequently cut off by a flanking attack by the enemy, leaving the 20th with only 314 armed men on the main regimental line.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Professional Engineer]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

But, but, but, but...

I meant 1950 Nancy Allen NYC, actress (Carrie, 1941, Robocop, Dress to Kill)

[Professional Engineer]

1947 Flying saucers sighted over Mount Rainier by pilot Ken Arnold (and so an industry was born)

Hold on just onnnnnneeeeeee minute there buster. Mt Rainier is nowhere near Roswell, NM.

[A Jovial Cad]

I agree with both of you: sadly, the last "hot" war we fought to unconditionally win ended on August 11, 1945, IMO.

Putting aside small brush fire engagements (i.e., Grenada, Panama, etc.), they've all been either "Die-for-a-tie" or "win-all-the-battles-but-lose-the-war" type situations (Korea, Vietnam). Perhaps this made marginally more sense during the Cold War, with the Soviet nuclear arsenal threatening to engulf the world, but that threat ended de facto in 1989 and de jure in 1991.

I remember about a year ago when I expressed the sentiment in several threads that Fallujah should be leveled for both tactical and strategic reasons: tactical to destroy the insurgents and their fellow travelers in a sympathetic environ, and strategic to send a harsh, loud and clear message that the United States was done with fighting wars on the "limited" model, and back to the 1945 version of waging conflict: we win, you lose, period, a la the campaigns we waged against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. I was flamed to cinders, accused of being a troll, a liberal (!), and so on.

Here we are a year later, and as I'm sitting here typing this the newscaster in the background is saying that a group of Marines were ambushed, with six K.I.A. and many more wounded today...in Fallujah.

Rant now officially *OFF*.

[snippy_about_it]

Well said AJC. I couldn't agree more.

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. I was starting to get worried about your selection.

[ruoflaw]

the history of the Little Round Top battle is awe inspiring and I am so glad that you printed it so we could read it. My family and I used to watch it evey Fourth of July but our son is now grown and has a family of his own. I am going to tell our son that this is here....he will want to read it! Thanks!

[Valin]

And a fine rant it was.
In referance to Korea, I recall reading this story a couple of years ago. A group of Korean war vets retunred the the ROK, they were asking themselves "Why'd we fight this war?". They were on a tour bus going through Seoul on the way to the DMZ, they got stuck in traffic, they looked out and saw a bunch of kids on a playground. Then they knew why they fought that war, so those kids didn't have to live like the kids in North Korea.

(IMO) WWII is the wrong war to look at when thinking about the GWOT. The Cold War is the correct model. Think of this as 1947-8.

[PhilDragoo]

A war with astounding bravery, ten times the killed of Vietnam in half the time.

Regarding Chamberlain, Ronald Reagan in his first Innaugural Address, January 20, 1981, said, "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."

The Sharps carbine

The Spencer repeating carbine

FM1863: "No good deed shall go unpunished"

What Happened to the "Hero of Little Round Top," Gouverneur K. Warren, CE?

On the second day at Gettysburg, 2 July 1863, Gouverneur K. Warren, Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac, noticed that Little Round Top, key to the Union defensive position, was undefended. He ordered troops to the hill in time to blunt Hood’s attack. Almost two years later on 1 April 1865 at the Battle of Five Forks, Major General Philip Sheridan, with Grant’s authority, relieved him from command and sent him to the rear.

When Warren graduated second in the West Point class of 1850 he accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers. In the years prior to the Civil War he worked with Andrew Humphreys on the Mississippi River, on transcontinental railroad surveys, and explored, surveyed, and mapped the trans-Mississippi West. At the start of the war he received a commission as a Lieutenant Colonel of Volunteers in the 5th New York Infantry Regiment, and by the fall he was a Colonel and regimental commander. Promoted to Brigadier General in September 1862 he served as Chief Topographical Engineer and then Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac.

Promoted to Major General after Gettysburg, he commanded 2d Corps until March 1864 when Grant made him 5th Corps commander. He led the 5th Corps through the Union offensive from the Wilderness, to Cold Harbor, and into the Petersburg trenches. He must have done well because he was still in command when Grant began the offensive that led to Appomattox. Grant ordered an attack on the Confederates at Five Forks for 1 April with Sheridan in command of both his Cavalry Corps and Warren’s 5th Corps. Grant wanted Sheridan to push the attack and authorized him to relieve Warren if he got in the way.

Although Warren successfully defended his position against the Confederates, Sheridan and Grant thought he did not press the attack fast enough. At the end of the day, as Warren met Sheridan for what he thought was a celebration, Sheridan charged him with neglect during the battle, relieved him from command of 5th Corps “for cause,” and ordered him to report to Grant. Warren asked for a Report of Inquiry, but the end of the war, Lincoln’s assassination, and Johnson’s impeachment all got in the way.

Warren reverted to his Regular Army rank of Major, CE, and went back to work on the Mississippi River. In July 1866 he was assigned to serve as the first “Engineer in Charge” of the Corps’ new office in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he served until May 1870. He then was in charge of engineer operations along the New England coast with headquarters at Newport, Rhode Island. It took the Army until 1879, after Grant’s two terms, to grant Warren’s request for a hearing. The board finally published its findings in November 1882 exonerating Warren of any neglect at Five Forks on 1 April 1865.

However, it was too late for Warren. He died three months earlier on 8 August 1882. At his request his family buried him in civilian clothes and without military ceremony at Newport. He felt disgraced by his relief on the field of battle. Ironically, however, in 1888 a bronze statue of him in uniform as Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac, was placed at Little Round Top, the key position he saved on the second day at Gettysburg.

~~~

[ Medal of Honor Citation ]

Sergeant
Andrew J Tozier
Organization: Company I, 20th Maine Infantry
Entered Service: Plymouth, Maine.
Birth: Monmouth, Maine.
Date Medal Issued: 13 August 1898.
Date of Action: 2 July 1863.
Place of Action: Gettysburg, Pa.

Citation: At the crisis of the engagement this soldier, a color bearer, stood alone in an advanced position, the regiment having been borne back, and defended his colors with musket and ammunition picked up at his feet.

~~~

Why pretend we are not at war with Iran?

The "insurgency" is a supply of fighters from Iran trained by the Pasdaran.

Nuke the mullahs.

Put Ted Kennedy in jail.

Go Putin on CBS et al.

Note to "insurgents": Are you talkin to me?

It's way past time to quit the fairy minuet wafting over reality on a pair of Lindsey Graham's loafers.

This is war--who demanded a timetable for our exit from a) Iwo Jima; b) the Normandy Beach; c) the Bulge; d) World War II in general and any battle in particular?

Nobody.

Note to John McCain the Senator from Manchuria: You are so never being president.

My own plan for the Battle of Fallujah involved leaflets and daisy cutters.

The lesson of X-Ray and abu Ghraib: no prisoners.

Ship the current Gitmo perps to Tyson for processing and air drop by drone to the starving North Koreans.

[Valin]

Great Post!

[snippy_about_it]

Bravo! Great minds think alike. I just don't have the words you do. :-)

Thanks Phil.

[snippy_about_it]

Your welcome.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!!

[SAMWolf]

I meant 1950 Nancy Allen

LOL! Being familiar with RoboCop (The original) I knew who you meant. :-)

[SAMWolf]

AMEN! We seem to have lost our will as a nation. :-(

[SAMWolf]

Morning Phil Dragoo.

We have too many "enemies within" and unfortunately they retain too much power in our Courts and Government. :-(

[snippy_about_it]

You missed post 26 yesterday. I have to box it up today, can you use anything small I can throw in there?

[w_over_w]

How did I miss that? Sorry! Yes, please include the suet cage. I'd been considering adding some new kind of feeder. Your generosity is too kind. Thanks sweets.

[snippy_about_it]

okie dokie.

[colorado tanker]

I'm afraid the gloves won't be coming off, since we live in an era where leaving a prisoner in a cold room is now considered "torture."

My most realistic hope is the Iraqi army will come more and more on line and will fight like the other armies in the region, with the gloves off.

[M. Espinola]

Hats off to a top notch researched thread!