Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Old Pete during Pickets Charge

Even a Yankee like me is familiar with Faulkner’s quote. Believe me, I have stood at the Virginia Monument, looked across that field to Cemetery Ridge and thought “This is crazy. Marse Robert, I ain’t goin”.
Faulkner on Pickets Charge
To think about the incredible courage of these men is both inspiring and a mystery. For cause and comrade doesn’t quite cover it.
In answer to Pete’s granddaughter I can only answer Early Pendleton and the myth of the lost cause.
Sort of a nineteenth century witch-hunt.
Lee was a brilliant commander, it had to have been Longstreet’s betrayal!
Growing up, I remember distinctly going to Gettysburg with my Dad. It inspired in me a love of American History, and a particular interest in Gettysburg and the Civil War.
Maybe it was Shaara’s book. I don’t think so though. But something made me look at Longstreet closer, and I quickly became an admirer.
I had two postcard photos above my bed. Old Pete on one side and WS Hancock (Union 2nd Corps commander) on the other. Two men I have admired from a pup!😀
When I walk those fields, I can only describe what happens to me as surreal. As Foote said, “The ground talks to you”!
Both my spouses told me on separate visits , “maybe you died there”.
I won’t say. It does explain what that place does to me.
I’ve been there dozens of times. It’s 90 miles away. But each time I leave for home, I feel like I’m leaving some part of me behind.
Reon

I grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and at the time it had more published authors than other any town its size in the USA. Shelby Foote grew up on a small plantation south of Greenville and the area is still called Foote and has a green state highway marker. I worker in a grocery during HS and on occasion see him there. Faulkner’s literary agent lived in Greenville and they would be seen there. We had a wonderful local book store - McCormicks and they have memorabilia and book signing with various authors- not Shelby tho, he didn’t do book signings. I personally called him in Memphis and he answered the phone himself and told me this. We had a most pleasant conversation about growing up in Greenville ( the nearest town to Foote). He was a true southern gentleman with a beautiful southern drawl. My mother and I have been told that we all sound like that. I cherish my heritage, public education and the times that I grew up in. I too have been to places where people have died and “the ground talks to you” at least it does to me. I feel a part of it like I was a part of it. I am convinced that our soul is a “spirit” being and have seen this spark of life depart from the human body. I have had 2 out of body experiences and known what I have seen and felt. My mother and wife have intuition and know when something is wrong with family tho separated by time and distance. Some folks are just more attuned to their surroundings, a gift? or
a curse. Many vets tell me you develop this skill in combat. Read Gavin
DeBecker -The Gift of Fear and his credentials. Gives you pause to think.

Like Reon I think I died in Gettysburg in a former life dreamed of the drums and cannon fire made it past the emmitsburg rd but never reached the angle but part of me is there 👍👍

I’m far from saying I had a previous life as a confederate gone to battle. But I have had feelings unique to the surroundings. We were at a reenactment at the site of the Tannehill weapons works in McCalla, AL at Tannehill State Park. It was of course destroyed by Union war criminals toward the end of hostilities. Hearing the gunfire as the exercise started, seeing the troops running to position, watching when everything in my soul was telling me to fight. A quite gut wrenching experience where slipping into that other reality would have been much preferable to observing from distance. I don’t know, maybe it’s something about a belief system crossing time. Maybe the honor and patriotism of countrymen past somehow infects those who come after.

Whatever is there is palpable and I honestly can do without any more re-enactments. It just didn’t feel like a game at all.

After seeing Shelby on that Ken Burns video, I thought “there’s a man I’d love to share a pot of coffee and and afternoon with”! Especially after I read his books, which by now I have read 5 or 6 times!
And Gettysburg and Antietam can become very real to me, even when I am alone. Those places, if you know the history can almost come alive. Sometimes it’s surreal. I can stand there and hear the guns, close my eyes and see the battle. It just does something to a person.
I become very passionate about it, and I guess it shows through.
I really don’t need a guide, but I do enjoy Ranger presentations, and talking to them about it. I always plan ahead when I’m going, and check the NPS website so I can take part in battle walks and such.
Before Covid they developed a program called (IIRC) “Living History” they do a presentation on parts of the battle, they can personally “introduce” you to someone who actually fought there, even some of the enlisted men. I always is it the Visitors Center to check the schedules for them.
But since they have become partners with a for profit organization called (I think) The Gettysburg Foundation it’s as much a tourist trap as a museum.
I haven’t been to Antietam since they opened a new one. I hope they haven’t done like Gettysburg has.
A partnership with a for profit group jade destroyed a place that I always loved to visit. My time is always spent walking the fields.
Reon

There is no one else to blame for the defeat than Lee himself. He refused Longstreet to attack early and take the Round Tops, his artillery barrage to soften the Union lines fell way long behind the front, the terrain alone from the starting point to the infamous Copse of Trees, with it rolling hills and fences was suicidal.

Pete shoulda took hoods advice

Longstreet,

Never received the recognition , that was worthy of his efforts, for many years.

Like many here I saw ...a different side of him.

I aways saw that he was a better tactician, planner than Lee , who believed in "Gods Will" for many of his decisions, which became desperation.

I find that Longstreet did not have a statue until the 1990's.

I’m rereading Stars In Their Courses again. That’s Shelby Footes study of the Gettysburg campaign because I think sooner or later this freaking cold weather is gonna finally change, and I’m gonna head down there.
One thing that always strikes me is the fact that up until the end of June, Lee still believed that the Army the Potomac was still in Virginia.
He had no clue where Stuart was at, and he assumed that since he hadn’t heard anything different, that was the situation.
He finally found out the truth from Harrison, Pete’s privately hired (and paid) scout.
His forces were scattered from South Mountain to York PA, and with this new knowledge he was trying to regroup his scattered army. Gettysburg was a handy place to do that.
Baldy Ewells men thought they were fighting PA Militia, not the AOTP. Only after they saw the black hats of The Iron Brigade did they know Union troops were near.
On 30 June, Stuart was 70 miles away, cut off by the Union army!😳
Long time ago I read a biography of Stuart, written in the late 1800s. Its author (another Virginian) suggested Longstreet should have been shot for treason for what happened those first days in July!😩
Such was the mindset of the majority of southerners at that time!
The sainted Marse Robert would never fight a battle like he did, literally blindfolded! Someone must have betrayed him! Couldn’t have been anyone from VA, but Pete was a Georgian, a Republican and Lee was gone.😟 Too late to tell anyone different!
I cringe every time I hear a remark like “if only Stonewall had been there!”
Anyone who says that displays their ignorance to the true situation faced by Lee in this fight.
I hold Stuart more responsible for the loss at Gettysburg more than anyone except Lee himself, and there were many confederate commanders who dropped the ball in Pennsylvania! Pete wasn’t one of them,
Reon

I’ve been to Gettysburg a few times. Very emotional place. Thinking about the bravery and carnage that took place there.

Ron

Good point on Stuart 👍

Standing on the round top looking down.
It's hard to believe anyone would want to assault that position.
John Buford had an eye for ground.
dave

It is my understanding that Longstreet delayed the Confederate attack on Day 2 until his favorite Alabama (??) shock troops (under Oates ??) could arrive on the scene. Famously not wanting to go into action “with one boot off”. Prob’ly he didn’t realize at the time that these troops were force-marching down the Chambersburg Pike from twenty five miles out.

During the wait Hood begged Longstreet for permission to attack the large Union artillery/supply wagon park that lay in back of the Round Tops. In a fit of pique after having had his opinions stymied by Lee, Longstreet didn’t support Hood’s earnest suggestion.

Meanwhile that Alabama unit didn’t arrive on the field until late-afternoon, and in their exhausted state were thrown against Little Round Top at 4pm without even an opportunity refill their empty canteens. Even so, it was a nick of time thing for the Union, them having manned Little Round Top just minutes earlier.

Given that very late start, it was the evening darkness that closed the Confederate assault on Cemetery Ridge on Day 2.

Afterwards Longstreet is transferred to the Western Theater where just coincidentally he arrives at the exact time and place to give the Confederates their victory at Chickamagua. Later on though, perhaps in another fit of pique against Braxton Bragg, he was strangely inactive at his position on Lookout Mountain (??) and misses the opportunity to effectively attack Rosecran’s already troubled and exposed supply line into Chattanooga.

After that he launched that Quixotic and failed attempt to take Knoxville.

Don’t get me wrong, if I had to serve under any Confederate General, I’d pick Longstreet, but like ever’body else, he weren’t omniscient.

EXCELLENT POST! I'll add again, Stuart showed his ass when he turned tail after Custer's attacked him with a considerable smaller force.

Stuart was out for fame on another ride around the yankys he royally fuqkd up

I have always thought that the intentional delay actually turned out to be sorta lucky, because it actually gave time for Sickles to move himself out of position on 2 July.
Lee had intended for Pete to attack northward, towards Cemetery Hill along Emmitsburg Road. Neither he nor Longstreet realized that Hancock had posted troops along Cemetery Ridge the evening before. They would have exposed their flank as Iverson did the day before.
Iversons North. Carolinians were mowed down literally in ranks on Oak Hill on the first day. Rumor says that Iverson was drunk. I don’t buy that though, because those Yankees were hidden behind a stone wall on the edge of the Woods. Poor reconnaissance, not a cork, killed that brigade.
Longstreet, with two divisions almost destroyed big chunks of 3 Union corps. After the battle these corps were divided up, and became part of the First and Second Corps! Had Wilcox been a little stronger and Hancock not drove them back with the First Minnesota, (80% casualties) Meade would have lost Cemetery Ridge!
Pipe Creek would have been the fight on 3 July.
Sickles lost a leg, and was sent back to Washington. He painted himself as saving the position, that Meade had intended to withdraw!😀 he was a democrat, a political promotion had given him a corps, and he was in over his head. His advance nearly lost the battle!
Interesting fellow, but not the hero he pretended to be. But he was instrumental in creating Gettysburg National Military Park, so I have to cut him some slack!😀
Stuart looked down his nose at Yankee Cavalry. Rightly so, before they had been 😀
But in the winter and spring of 62/63, Hooker and Pleasanton had actually created an effective force, rivaling Stuart’s horses.
Stuart discovered this at Brandy Station, and by getting himself eliminated from the campaign in Pennsylvania. I look at this as a major factor in the fight. A lucky break for Meade.
Gettysburg is an interesting battle, and I have studied it, and walked that field dozens of times. I love the place, and I guarantee that it will literally take hold of you.
But most people consider it to be the turning point of the war. Surely it was in the balance between the Army Of The Potomac and The Army Of Northern Virginia.
But I recognize that Grants capture of Vicksburg was much more important to the loss of the war.
Reon

Just a thought, but with the major renovations on Little Round Top, I wonder if the fixed General Warrens sword!😀
That thing has been busted since I was a little kid!😀
Warren was much more of a hero at Gettysburg than Sickels. He was given a corps in recognition.
Sheridan falsely accused him of losing a fight by retreating or advancing too slowly in the chase after Petersburg was abandoned. He was relieved of command and sent home in shame! A later board of inquiry dismissed those charges, but the war was long since over.
Another interesting side story of a battle that seems to have hundreds of interesting side stories!😀
I think this is why it fascinates me and thousands of other people. What it lacks in importance it more than makes up if you look at the details and the interesting men on both sides of the fight.
Many of them are told in Gettysburg, The Story Of Men And Monuments. I believe it’s still available in the gift shop, but probably much cheaper through Amazon. They have sorta turned a once great museum into a tourist trap.

Far and away my own favorite Gettysburg book is “The Second Day at Gettysburg: The Attack and Defense of Cemetery Ridge. July 2nd 1862…


Link

The most detailed and readable account of the First AND the Second Day I have come across, and also details the events leading up to the battle.

Includes the outstanding job of Buford’s intelligence gathering in the days before the battle and his skirmishes with Confederate outliers.

After their poor reconnaissance the Confederates were exceedingly discomforted to find Sickles where he was. My own belief is that had he been back up on the ridge in a single organized Union line, that clearly visible objective would have been broken by an unstoppable Confederate attack. The Rebs KNEW they finally had a chance to decide the war and morale was sky high.

As it was Sickle’s deployment threw both sides into confusion, piecemeal attacks and counterattacks that came down to the 1st Minnesota decide the issue at last light.

Stuart? Yes he gets much of the blame, but Lee approved the mission over Longstreet’s misgivings. But nobody foresaw Hooker being replaced at the last minute by a General Meade who would hustle his army north in reccord time, trapping Stuart on the wrong side of that advance and obliging him to go north clear to Carlisle before he could get around them.

And yet another what if: What off Hood had been allowed to attack the wide open Union artillery park and supply line sitting just in back of the Round Tops as he had earnestly pleaded to do?

All of this JMHO

I think if George Pickett’s division would’ve been put into action day 2 things might have swayed

Mike, you recommended that book before, but I have yet to get it on my nook. Maybe a kindle would have been a better choice? I usually look in B&N for reading material.
I always appreciate your post on these threads. Very often you turn me onto something that I missed. I usually end up learning something new!
Next time you’re up this way, I’d be honored to buy you supper and jaw jack a while!
I have threatened to jump in the truck and Drive to Texas! I have read much about it, and I pray I’m able to come back down there and explore sometime. You and Kaywoodie acting as tour guides!😀
Heck maybe the 3 of us can head up to Montana and see the Little Bighorn battlefield with Shrapnel. That would be the trip of a lifetime for me!😀
Earlybird, Picket didn’t arrive until late afternoon/evening on 2 July. Way too late to take part in that day’s festivities. By then, he had the only division of Lees army that hadn’t been engaged, and thus, full strength. That’s why the assault on the third day fell in his lap!
Lee originally wanted Longstreet’s entire corps, but the heavy losses on 2 July and the fact he would be stripping his right flank made him decide to use Pettygrew and Trimbles divisions, both used up rather roughly handled already, instead.
I often wonder why Lee, a very capable general, would insist on fighting this battle hampered as he was by lack of accurate reccon.
I have heard that he had maybe suffered a slight heart attack in the spring, I also heard the rumor that he was suffering from dysentery when the battle was fought. “Marse Robbert has got the runs,” so to speak!😀
Whatever the fault maybe, one has to admit that Gettysburg was probably his most poorly fought battle.
Definitely an anomaly considering most of his fights, and I can’t see Stonewall making a difference.
Lee was always closer to Pete. His tent was always pitched closer to the second corps.
Some suggested this is because he had to supervise Longstreet more closely, but I think that the myths of his performance is pretty clouded by the attacks that came after Lee’s death and Pete became a Republican.
As I said, no one ever slighted his leadership prior to these two events!
Reon