let me tell you a story

The small hill on the left:

This is my favorite place on the Gettysburg battlefield.

The man below (I know now) is Gouverneur K. Warren, an engineer for the brand new (3 days!) major general of the Union Army George Meade.

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General Meade had sent a certain General Sickles to set up his corp to defend a line that would end at this hill. General Sickles is from New York and some years before the Civil War began he had succeeded in becoming the first person to use the "temporary insanity" plea successfully in his trial for killing his wife's lover who happened to be the son of Sir Francis Scott Key. And so OF COURSE put him in charge of 10,000 union soldiers. Why not?

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So - General Meade sent Sickles to secure this hill which is key to the Unions success. It is the extreme left flank of their battle line and if the Confederates took the hill Mead said they would have no choice but to retreat.

Sickles didn't like the ground he was charged to maintain so he moved his army forward without permission. Leaving Little Round Top empty. Duh!

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The rebels engaged Sickles army and Meade heard the shooting of guns - NOT where he had expected any of his men to be. He sent Warren to investigate and when Warren got to the top of the hill he found it empty and saw below and way far forward, Sickles men being seriously overwhelmed.

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Scroll back up to Warrens picture. Do you see how he is looking off to his left? Well, he was observing Sickles folly and saw a glint in the trees a bit off. He sent a shot in that direction and saw a whole lot of glints. Sun reflecting off Confederate guns. He knew they were on their way to the hill.

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He frantically searched for men to defend the hill and ran into Colonel Strong Vincent who didn't wait for orders from his superior and took responsibility for getting his brigade up to defend Little Round Top. He got his men there five minutes before the Confederates attacked. Had he followed protocol and waited for a proper order the hill would have been taken and the Confederates would have won yet another battle.

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As the Alabama soldiers began to push back Vincent's men he ran back and forth encouraging them to hold strong. He jumped onto a boulder, yelled to his men "Don't yield an inch!" and was hit by a Confederate shot. He died four days later.

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This marker marks the farthest left of the line. These markers and most of the monuments were placed on the battle field later on by those who fought here.

They were placed where they truly fought.

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This is where Colonel Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine fought. He was the farthest left of Vincent's brigade on Little Round Top. The end of the line. He could not let anyone around his men. By the final charge of the rebels Chamberlain's men were out of ammunition and he ordered a bayonet charge. Their last chance. It worked and his remaining 200 men captured 300 exhausted Confederate soldiers.





Oh man, there is so much more about just this fight.
And this was just a part of the second day of the three day battle. Seriously folks. I am dying to tell you more. But I am also figuring that I am way more excited about and interested in this than you probably are.
So I will spare you.
You would love it though. It is soul stirring.

Maybe I'll tell you about the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry later. That is a sad sad tale.