This is a powerful bit of writing.
(Also the strangest piece about Gettysburg you've ever read.)
I've read a fair amount about The Civil War since seeing the Ken Burns documentary called, appropriately, The Civil War.
We should make every child in every public school watch it from beginning to end and write 10 page book reports on it.
Just sayin'.
Shelby Foote's 3 volumes on The Civil War are brilliant and, if memory serves me, was the basis from which Ken Burns worked.
One of many reasons I liked the documentary so very much is I just love to hear Shelby Foote speak.
He has that old southern, upperclass Mississippi drawl that is so beautiful to the ear.
Foote's smaller book, Stars in their Courses, is an excerpt from the larger series and is a stunningly brilliant portrait of the Battle of Gettysburg - which is what I'm writing about now.
Only Shelby Foote could write a book in a book.
http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Their-Courses-Gettysburg-June-July/dp/0679601120
Stars in their Courses is one of 3 books that I always keep close at hand (and heart) on top of my dresser.
The other two being a collection of Billy Collins poetry and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
I'm a complicated man.
I'm not bragging.
As I write this I am listening to Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet on the TV behind me.
That was bragging.
Maybe.
http://www.billy-collins.com/
Until recently I kept my father's original copy of Ernie Pyle's book, Brave Men, on top of the bookcase closest to my bed.
Something about having something that belonged to dad, something he held, used, enjoyed, something that meant something to him, made me feel safer when it was the last thing I would see before I turned out the light.
Ernie Pyle was a popular writer before WWII but became a sort of national icon for reporting from the front lines.
He was killed by a Japanese sniper while reporting from the Pacific Theater.
No one has ever spoken so beautifully and with such love and admiration about the American GI as Ernie Pyle did.
I sent father's copy of Brave Men to my brother just the other day and have replaced it with another and now it just doesn't feel right in the room.
Everything is suddenly out of order.
An interloper has taken up residence and now the place reeks of fraudulency.
It's wrong for me to hoard the few things that dad left behind but I have to admit I miss having that book near me at all times.
I have only a couple other things that belonged to dad - 2 zippos and a watch that is beyond repair so the "loss" of the book is a reduction of 25% of his artifacts.
Unacceptable.
Please read Ernie Pyle's writing in, "The Death of Captain Waskow".
It will make you a better person.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/pyle/waskow.html
This year marks the 150th Anniversary of The Battle of Gettysburg.
It will be an anniversary marked by special events including the largest ever reenactment of
Pickett's Charge
I believe it was during Pickett's charge when General Hancock was hit by a "minie ball" that knocked him off his horse and took off his leg.
The horse was a total loss as well.
Hancock worried that his men would lose faith seeing their commander's body removed from the field so he made the stretcher bearers stop so he could light a cigar, knowing the soldiers would see the little clouds of smoke as he puffed away to the field hospital and realize he was still alive.
Also, he really liked his cigars.
William Faulkner wrote this about Pickett's Charge:
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.
— William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett's_Charge
Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy.
The charge is named after Maj. Gen. George Pickett, one of three Confederate generals who led the assault under Longstreet.
After Confederate attacks on both Union flanks had failed the day and night before, Lee was determined to strike the Union center on the third day. On the night of July 2, General Meade correctly predicted at a council of war that Lee would try an attack on his lines in the center the following morning.
The infantry assault was preceded by a massive artillery bombardment that was meant to soften up the Union defense and silence its artillery, but was largely ineffective. Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three-quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties, a decisive defeat that ended the three-day battle and Lee's campaign into Pennsylvania.[1]
Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, General Pickett replied:
"I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."[2]
___________________________________________________________________________________
This is the powerful bit of writing that I mentioned up top.
by ROD GRAGG
22 Jun 2013, 6:27 PM
At the beginning of the second day of fighting at the battle of Gettysburg, Sergeant Matthew Marvin, a 24 year-old Northern soldier in the First Minnesota Infantry, penned a note on the rear cover of his diary:
Should any Person find this on the body of a soldier on the field of battle or by the roadside they will confer a lasting favor on the parents of its owner by sending the book & pocket purse and silver finger ring on the left hand. Taking their pay for the trouble out of the Greenbacks herein enclosed.
Sergeant Marvin was seriously wounded later that day when his regiment made a courageous stand against overwhelming numbers, but he survived the battle.
Many others did not.
One of them, a young Southern officer, also had his family in mind when he too scribbled a brief note of final instructions.
Mounted on horseback, 34 year-old Colonel Isaac Avery was shot out of the saddle as he led a brigade of North Carolina troops into battle later the same day.
As he lay dying, paralyzed on his right side, he managed to pull a scrap of paper and a pencil from his uniform pocket and scrawled his final words:
"Tell father I died with my face to the enemy --"
Nineteen year-old Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson of New York was actually near his father during the first day’s fighting at Gettysburg. Young Wilkeson commanded a battery of the 4th U.S. Artillery engaged on the north side of town, and his father, journalist Samuel Wilkeson, was embedded with the Federal army, covering the battle for the New York Times. While trying desperately to hold back a Confederate assault with his battery, Lieutenant Wilkeson was struck down by enemy artillery fire, which left one of his legs mangled beyond repair.
In an attempt to stay in the fight, Wilkeson applied a makeshift tourniquet and then stoically amputated his own leg with a pocketknife.
A battlefield observer described the young officer’s determined attempt to keep his guns in action:
His soldiers lay him upon the ground…and, sitting there, he tells his cannoneers to go on with their fire – a bravery unsurpassed even by the Chevalier of France….Faint and thirsty, he sends a soldier with his canteen to fill it at the Almshouse well. When the man returns, a wounded infantryman who life is ebbing away, beholding the canteen, exclaims, “Oh, that I could have but a swallow!” Wilkeson, with like unselfishness, courtesy, and benevolence, replies, “Drink, comrade; I can wait.”
When it was seen that the line must retire, Wilkeson allowed himself to be carried to the Almshouse hospital… where, during the night, for want of attention, he died. Dead – but his heroism, sense of duty, responsibility to obligation, devotion and loyalty remain….
That “sense of duty” – and extraordinary examples of courage and sacrifice – are what is most remembered about the Americans, Northern and Southern alike, who were engaged at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3 -- 150 years ago this year. It was the greatest battle of the Civil War, and, with more than 51,000 casualties, it was also the bloodiest. Like the Civil War itself, the Battle of Gettysburg was a pivotal historical event, marked by remarkable drama, tragedy, irony and significance.
**Gettysburg Battlecast** Watch Pickett's Charge Live!
It was by many measures the decisive battle of the Civil War, and would prove to be the war’s turning point. Almost two more years of bloody warfare would follow, but in many ways the Southern military defeat was mightily hastened by General Robert E. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg. Never again would Southern forces be able to mount such a powerful offensive on Northern soil. The outcome of the Civil War, enabled in no small way by the Northern victory at Gettysburg, set the nation on a new course. Serious discussion about the right of secession, which had been raised in behalf of various causes, was ended. The institution of slavery in America was destroyed forever. “These united states” effectively became the United States of America, and the American nation, under a much stronger Federal government, was eventually reunited in an extraordinary spirit of reconciliation.
All these reasons make Gettysburg the must-see historic site among the long parade of Civil War battlefields, justify the undying American fascination with the battle and the war, and make the great battle genuinely worthy of commemoration 150 years after the fields of fire and fury fell silent. Equally memorable, however, is the “human story” of Gettysburg – which The Illustrated Gettysburg Reader attempts to document through the words of those Americans who lived through the battle, as well as some who did not. Along with its unsurpassed historical importance, the Battle of Gettysburg also offers all Americans – and the world -- another cause for commemoration. Today, 150 years later, Gettysburg remains an unsurpassed expression of American courage and sacrifice that should stand the test of time.
Civil War historian Rod Gragg is the director of the Center for Military & Veterans Studies at Coastal Carolina University, and is author of The Illustrated Gettysburg Reader: An Eyewitness History of the Civil War’s Greatest Battle, which is newly published by Regnery History.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/22/The-Battle-of-Gettysburg-and-American-Memory-What-We-Want-to-Know-and-Why-We-Need-to-Know-It
No comments:
Post a Comment