Up next in 10
How does one get one's mind around a battle - especially one that went on for three days and involved 150,000 individuals, as Gettysburg did? Long lists of regiments and brigades, hour-by-hour timelines, and maps with blue and red blocks and arrows all over are of little value to people who don't already know a lot about Gettysburg. But individual episodes, with well-defined stakes and memorable characters, stick in the mind.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
How do you wrap your mind around historic battles, especially the kinds that sprawled over three days and involved 150,000 individuals
0:08
each with their own tale of courage, folly, or sheer survival instinct
0:12
The Battle of Gettysburg is that kind of battle, and long lists of regiments and brigades
0:18
hour-by-hour timelines, and maps with blocks and arrows don't really translate to the public at large
0:24
But individual episodes with well-defined stakes and memorable characters stick in the mind
0:30
So, today on Weird History, let's look at some Gettysburg stories where the fog of war lifts just enough to reveal the humanity within
0:39
Alright soldiers, let's get in formation. When Confederate and Union soldiers first squared off in and around the town of Gettysburg on July 1st, 1863
0:54
Most of the town's 2,400 civilian residents did what any sensible civilian would do
0:58
They got out of the way. Either they stayed shut up in their houses and basements, or they left for someplace less cannonball-friendly
1:05
But not John Burns. Burns, 69, though some sources say older, because why not add to the legend
1:13
had fought a half-century earlier in the War of 1812, and could not abide by a bunch of rebels taking over his hometown
1:20
Upon hearing the sounds of combat, he told his wife he wanted to go see what was going on
1:24
grabbed his old flintlock musket, and ambled out into history. Burns approached several Union officers, offering his services
1:32
The Union men were mostly amused by this peculiar character, but Burns wouldn't go away
1:38
Eventually, they gave him a more modern rifle from a wounded soldier. As the fighting heated up, Burns calmly took position behind a tree and began firing at the advancing Confederates
1:47
He was wounded three times in the intense fighting that day. Sergeant George Eustace later described Burns' participation
1:55
It must have been about noon when I saw a little old man coming up in the rear. I remember he wore a swallow-tailed coat with smooth brass buttons
2:02
He had a rifle on his shoulder. We boys began to poke fun at him as soon as he came amongst us
2:07
as we thought no civilian in his senses would put himself in such a place When asked what possessed him to come out there at such a time he replied that the rebels had either driven away or milked his cows and that he was going to be even with them
2:20
Later, the injured Burns had to be left behind by Union soldiers as they retreated through
2:24
the town. He was found by the Confederates. If they had known he was fighting out of uniform, they might have executed him, but
2:31
Burns had gotten rid of his weapon and pretended he was just a helpless civilian who had been
2:35
caught in the crossfire. Confederate surgeons treated him and he was allowed to return home
2:40
Burns is memorialized with a statue on the Gettysburg battlefield and his valor was called out in an
2:46
after-action report by Major General Abner Doubleday My thanks are especially due to a citizen of Gettysburg
2:52
named John Burns who although over 70 years of age shouldered his musket and offered his services
2:58
to Colonel Wister 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers Colonel Wister advised him to fight in the woods
3:04
as there was more shelter there but he preferred to join our line of skirmishers in the open fields
3:14
The civilians at Gettysburg had to decide what to do when two mighty armies clashed across their town
3:20
Many chose to simply wait things out at home or in their basements, while others decided to pitch in and lend a hand to the Union soldiers
3:26
One of these was 15-year-old Matilda Tilly Pierce, who left her house before the fighting, going with friends to a farmhouse
3:32
they thought would be out of the way of the action. The farmhouse turned out to be closer to the action than Tilly had hoped
3:38
In fact, it was close to Little Round Top, the hill where some of the fiercest combat took place
3:43
With the units battling so close by, it was inevitable that the farmhouse would be pressed into service as a field hospital
3:49
Tilly happily pitched in, providing food and water to the wounded men and assisting the surgeons and nurses
3:54
She later penned a memoir relating her experiences, saying, While the infantry were passing, I noticed a poor, worn-out soldier crawling along on his hands and knees
4:04
An officer yelled at him with cursing to get up and march
4:09
The poor fellow said he could not, whereupon the officer, raising his sword
4:14
struck him down three or four times. The officer passed on, little caring what he had done
4:20
While this was war and commanders often leave their fellow soldiers behind this had to have been hard for such a young kid to see Her story is a reminder that war is never just between two armies and the impact of battle will always ripple
4:36
Samuel Wilkerson Jr. was a correspondent for the New York Times covering the clash at Gettysburg
4:41
while it unfolded. His son, Baird, was the first lieutenant commanding a battery in the 4th U.S. artillery
4:48
During the fighting on the first day, Lieutenant Wilkerson was struck in the right leg by a
4:52
Confederate Cannonball, and later passed. Father Wilkerson learned of his son's death while the fighting was still raging
4:58
Despite his grief, he penned a dispatch to the New York Times from a Union Field Hospital
5:03
on July 4, the day after the fight, supposedly looking at his son's body as he wrote
5:08
The first and last paragraphs of the dispatch, which otherwise outlined the general contours
5:13
of the event, give some clue to the writer's bereaved state of mind
5:16
Who can write the history of a battle whose eyes are immovably fastened upon a central figure of transcendently absorbing interest
5:27
The dead body of an oldest born. Crashed by a shell in a position where a battery should never have been sent
5:36
and abandoned to death in a building where surgeons dared not to stay
5:42
What remains to save the fight? My pen is heavy. Oh, you dead, who at Gettysburg have baptized with your blood the second birth of freedom in America
5:54
How you are envied. Interestingly, the language of Wilkerson's last paragraph was strongly echoed in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
6:01
delivered four months later, in which Lincoln spoke of a new birth of freedom for the nation
6:06
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine Regiment
6:15
and saw heavy action on the second day while defending Little Round Top
6:19
from Confederate General Evander Law's Alabama Brigade has emerged as one of the most famous characters
6:24
from Gettysburg this is partly because he lived another 50 years to tell his story
6:29
and was used as a central character in Michael Sharwa's novel The Killer Angels
6:33
later adapted into the movie Gettysburg But it also because the bayonet charge he ordered while it may not have literally saved the Army of the Potomac as has been suggested sure didn hurt Chamberlain had more to worry about that day than tactical considerations Two of his brothers were with him in the 20th Maine
6:52
though only one was serving as a combatant. Tom Chamberlain was an officer in the regiment
6:56
while his brother John had enlisted as a non-combatant, being sent to the front to
7:00
tend to the wounded. Before the second day's fight on Little Round Top, Chamberlain said to
7:05
his brother Tom, this is going to be a hard day for mother. Miraculously, all three Chamberlain
7:10
brothers survived the fight at Gettysburg, though not without scars. In a letter written to his wife
7:15
after the battle, Chamberlain recounted how his brother John had been briefly taken prisoner by
7:19
the enemy. The heaviness of my heart makes it very hard for me to write a letter that should
7:23
only be joy and thankfulness. My dear brother was taken prisoner in the fight and paroled on the
7:28
field by the enemy. They robbed him of every single thing he had, even a surgical instrument
7:32
but they did not harm him otherwise. He was able to make his way to me barefoot and barehanded
7:37
with scarcely anything left to him. The brother's survival was a rare good fortune
7:42
in a fight that saw countless families irreparably broken for generations. Born and raised in Gettysburg
7:53
Private Wesley Culp was a teamster familiar with the surrounding terrain with a friend named Jack Skelly
7:58
Culp had relocated to Virginia before the war but returned to his native town as a member of the 2nd Virginia Infantry
8:05
part of the famous Stonewall Brigade in Richard S. Ewell's 2nd Corps
8:09
Fighting in his hometown, Culp was actually killed on his family's property, the Culp Farm
8:15
Adding to the tragedy, his friend Skelly, a member of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry
8:20
was also killed in the battle. The two men never crossed paths on the battlefield, but they shared the same grim fate
8:26
A legend grew up around the story of Wesley Culp, suggesting that he had a letter from Skelly to his sweetheart
8:33
Jenny Wade, to whom he would have delivered if he survived. In reality, Culp's body was never identified after the battle
8:40
and his final resting place is unknown. Culp's story is emblematic of the Civil War's sometimes personal nature
8:47
where soldiers fought not just on familiar ground, but sometimes against friends and neighbors
8:52
reminding us why this was a uniquely gut-wrenching war in American history