How the Battle of Gettysburg Worked

The Battle of Gettysburg remains the most memorable conflict of the Civil War, and historians continue to analyze the events preceding and following from the battle. Tune in and learn more about Gettysburg in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Kndas Kinger, joined by staff writer Jane Okay,
the candids, Hey, Jenney, sound a little bit sniffly over there. Yeah,
I kind of a cool I think I got it

(00:21):
from Josh Clark. What a bully. Well, today we're actually
going to take up a topic that a lot of
our listeners have emailed us about. We get a lot
of requests for podcasts about the Civil War, and uh,
we're certainly no Ken Burns, and we're certainly not ambitious
enough to try to tackle the entire Civil War in
a single podcast. So we thought we might approach this

(00:44):
and segments, and so today we're starting with what is
I think pretty indisputably one of the most famous battles
of the Civil War, and that's Gettysburg. Yeah, we have
a great article on the site that goes into really
good detail about what happened during the battle. We're gonna
go over and um, if you have the chance to
be near your computer and look at the great visuals,
so they'll help you a lot on when we talk

(01:07):
about different parts of the battle. Formations and lines and
numbers of men and strategies especially. So what's interesting about
the Battle of Gettysburg is that it occurred not early on,
but maybe toward the middle of the Civil War. It
ranged from July one to third, eighteen sixty three. And
even though there were still two more years of war

(01:29):
after Gettysburg, this was considered a major turning point because
until now the South had been waging some major victories.
And if you look at the motivation of the Confederates
and the Union, you can see that the Confederates had
a lot on a lot on the line. You know.
For one, slavery was the South institution, and they were

(01:49):
fighting to preserve it. And furthermore, a lot of the
fighting had been taking place on southern soil, and so
these men were fighting to protect their land, their homes,
their families. They had a lot at stake. Meanwhile, many
men from the North, while a lot had abolitionist causes
at heart, weren't as committed to fighting in the war.

(02:10):
They'd been tapped for service by Lincoln, they were obligated
to fight, but it was a war that they weren't
as wholeheartedly invested in. Yeah, you can see that they
weren't as excited about it as like, you know, the
thrill of the South that the South had. But that's
a good point. But also um the idea that much
of the North people, you know, civilians, hadn't seen much

(02:32):
action in their own in their own land or own state,
and this is a real change from that. Um This
battle took place in Pennsylvania. Lee, the Confederate general, obviously
was trying to um invade the North. Ultimately, he wanted
to take over Washington by forging into the north in
in in this campaign, he was trying to also get

(02:52):
European support and just recognition because they were struggling to
get recognition. They were secretly trading with the British at
this time when the South was but obviously the European
powers didn't want to officially take a claim because you know,
this was this was an internal conflict with the United States.
They didn't want to take a side quite yet. Also,

(03:15):
we talked in a podcast earlier about the Emancipation Proclamation
and when that was finally um instituted. That's finally when
the European powers wanted to step away from support for
the South and say like they don't want to support
slavery necessarily, so a lot of is at stake at
this point trying to get European support. To give you

(03:35):
some context, Gettysburg a small town in Pennsylvania. It only
had a population of about two thousand, four hundred at
the time, but it was also really important because about
ten roads intersected in the middle of this town, and
it was it was a major stop for like traders
and um, just like people um going from like Harrisburg
and Pennsylvania to the capital of Washington. And it was

(03:57):
a it was a bustling place and that way, and
that's kind of what brought the two forces, the South
and the North together at that point because while Lee
was was in enemy territory in the North, he was
having trouble um clothing and and just supporting feeding his troops. UM.
He didn't have the supply lines that he had back

(04:18):
in the South, and so they were actually some troops
were suffering from uh, they needed more shoes. One Southern
general major or sorry, Major General A. P. Hill actually
heard that there were shoes in Gettysburg that he could
take for his men, and that's why he started hitting
that one precisely So what you're alluding to, Jane, is
the fact that Gettysburg was an unplanned battle. When planned

(04:41):
to arrive in Gettysburg simultaneously, Yeah, no one really knew
which what where the other one was. The North and
South didn't know exactly where they were situated at this point,
so they sort of stumbled upon each other at Gettysburg.
And I think that this battle at Gettysburg was sort
of symptomatic of the happenstance circumstances of the Civil War
and the beginning. People thought that the war would be

(05:02):
over after a few major decisive battles, and that certainly
was not the case. It turned into a war of
attrition in which each side was trying to wear the
other down, and these massive death tolls were being incurred,
and as we'll see, Gettysburg was no exception to that.
So here we have a couple of Confederate troops rolling
into Gettysburg looking for shoes, and coincidentally, there are Union

(05:26):
troops already there. And so we'll see that the South,
who had been so victorious so far, their men had
a lot of valor and and guts and and courage
and maybe a little bit too much arrogant, you know
they were. There were men from West Point and the
Virginia Military Institute. We'll see that. Uh, this sort of
cockiness paved the way for a defeat. Yeah, and especially

(05:47):
they were coming off of a win at the Battle
of Chancellors will Um. The South had a lot of
confidence after that, even though they actually we shouldn't note
that at that battle, Stonewall Jackson, the great um Southern leader,
was killed exit you by friendly fire. He was a
major liability, and like you mentioned, if it was to
become a war of attrician that sort of put the

(06:07):
Confederates at a disadvantage because they had um less men
in general. And that was certainly the case that at
Gettysburg they were outmanned by the North. One major point
of uh, we should mention about Gettysburg is that Lee
actually came um into conflict of um butting heads with

(06:28):
his subordinate long Street. So we have Robert E. Lee
and James long Street. And Lee is very much a
fan of aggressive war tactics, whereas James Longstreet prefers defensive tactics.
And even though offensive tactics had won the Confederate state
Chancellors fell, it had also cost them nearly twelve thousand men,

(06:48):
and like Jane was saying, if this was a game
of numbers, the South simply couldn't afford to take another
huge loss like that. And so there are plenty of
historians and theorists out there who like to say that
this conflict in ideology between long Street and Lee is
but ultimately caused the South Gettysburg right, because some people

(07:10):
say long Street was sort of um reluctant and slow
to to listen to Lee, and so he didn't act
as quickly as he should have. And if you see
that portrayed in the movie Gettysburg, you see that long
Street is made not to be a more contemplative heroic figure.
But there are other historians who would argue that it
bordered in subordination because he would sometimes refuse to carry

(07:34):
out these orders, or he would carry them out so
slowly that they were rendered and effective, sort of play
the devil's advocate for Lee. At least he knew at
this point that made the Union general at this point
that Meade had never really won a major battle, and
uh that also the North had to replace a lot
of their seasoned soldiers at that time with inexperienced men.

(07:56):
So Lee just sort of felt like also, um, like
we mentioned before, coming off the confidence of the winn
at Chancellorsville and and all these things going with him,
he just he had the confidence that he thought he
could just take the offensive and it would work out.
He did. And let's not forget that the major initiative
here was that he was on his way to Washington.
He was going to take Washington. He was going to

(08:17):
get Europe's recognition of the South, and it was going
to be a major coup. And so you can see
how this sort of enthusiasm wound up costing him way
too many lives. So we know that the battle lasted
for three days. So before we delve into the instances
that occurred on each particular day of the battle, here
are the highlights. Day one is officially July Onest, eighteen

(08:39):
sixty three, and this is when the troops from both
sides roll into town. They've already encountered, you know, they've
done their reconnaissances. They know that either side is there,
so they know that they're going to be waging a battle.
And in Gettysburg, Uh, the Confederates actually pushed the Union
troops out of the town and to the hill outside

(09:01):
of town. And this turned out to be a really
bad move because in war you want the vantage point
of a hill because you have the elevation from which
to fight and also to scrape out what's going on
on the other side. You can see the enemy more easily. Exactly.
So by day two, which is July two, Lee has
a very uh ill fated maneuver that he tries where

(09:24):
he attacks the Union from the left side, hoping that
the right side of the flank will dash over there
and help save the guys, and then he's going to
have someone else attack them to the right, and then
the left will have to rush to the right to
rescue and essentially both sides would crumble. But this attack failed.
So on day three, July three, he tries a different tactic,
and that is attacking from the center, which also fails.

(09:48):
So to go back the day before conflict actually started,
you have this Union major general John Buford, who would
arrived in Gettysburg and he had two brigades of cavalry
with him, and um he spotted Confederates actually from the
top of a Lutheran seminary there Beauford then sent word
to Major General John Reynolds, who was about six miles

(10:09):
away at this point, who himself sent reinforce sent for
reinforcements from Union General George meade Um, who was six
miles miles farther from him at Tawnytown, Maryland. So on
dawn on July one, this is when Beauford officially begins
fighting with the Confederate Major General Henry hath And he
had actually been sent to Gettysburg to procure these infamous shoes.

(10:32):
And by eight thirty the Union is already struggling that day.
By noon, they were completely pushed out of town and
shoved off towards the hills. Right in these hills we
who mention in the south of town, and the Confederates
actually tried to push further like they want, They wanted
to get in the north past these good vantage point
of the hills, but they're held back by the Iron Brigade,

(10:53):
which consisted of about eight hundred men. But in the
Iron Brigade actually lost or at least through casualties that day,
but they were still able to withhold and keep their
ground on these hills. And what's important, while they were
doing that and holding the Confederates back. There were Union
troops mobilizing by Cemetery Hill and culps Hell, and the

(11:13):
Confederates didn't know how many men were being prepared to fight.
So by afternoon you have um Confederate Heath attacking the
southern end of the Union flank and Major General Robert E.
Rhodes attacking the northern end. By the end, some people
argue that the Confederate Lieutenant General Yule was actually um
he didn't push hard enough because he was ordered by

(11:36):
Lee to push the north past the hills, but um,
he actually instead he tried, he tried, but he failed
at first, and he wanted to wait until long Street
arrived that night. Historians argue that he didn't try hard enough,
and this was a major mistake that probably ultimately cost
the battle. And I think at this point here long
Street actually wanted to maneuver the troops around so they

(11:56):
could get towards Washington. Right when he finally arrived that night,
and that was the end of day, right, Lee with
the one who held on. And perhaps Lee was looking
around and he'd gotten word of some numbers, and he
got a little bit cocky because the Confederates actually lost
eight thousand men that day, and then you the Union
had lost nine thousand. Yeah, it's interesting. He mentioned what
Lee knew and what he didn't UM. One important point

(12:19):
that we forgot to mention earlier was that Lee was
out of contact with his cavalrymen, which were basically his
eyes and his ears, and they were led by J. E. B.
Stewart and UM. This was a major disadvantage for the
South at this point. Usually during battle, that's a huge
advantage to be able to know where your enemy is
and everything like that. And so when Lee what Lee
didn't knew hurt him. So, like we said, General Longstreet

(12:41):
arrived that night at the end of day one, he
argued with Lee about what to do. He wanted to
take more defensive position. And then at the beginning of
day two, which was July two, the rest of the
Union army came to reinforce their troops and the Union
UH sort of positioned themselves in the shape of Fishhook
at this point, curving This is when visuals will help.

(13:03):
At this point, curving around Culps Hill, UH, snaking around
Cemetery Hill, UH, down Cemetery Ridge to the hills of
Little Round Top and Round Top, which were Hills and Um,
the Confederates were sort of in a long, thin concave line.
Long Street and you'll were on the flanks either side,
and Hill was in the center. Lee actually ordered you
all to attack the Union right around Cemetery and Culps

(13:26):
Hill and Long Street to attack Union left. But unfortunately
both of these attacks were delayed at this point for
various reasons. And Long Street and um the counterpart, we're
not able to attack to late afternoon that day. So
at this point, the Union commander Daniel Stickles actually takes
his troops and moves them down into Peach Orchard and
then towards Wheat Field and Devil's Den and Long Street

(13:49):
wasn't really expecting him that, right, And that's why these
are such notorious battles because they were so bloody and
so violent and and so many deaths incurred through here
and um, essentially what they were kind of fighting for
at this promise little round Top, because this is where
elevation comes back into play. This is such a pivotal
point where you can watch the movement down below, you

(14:10):
can see what the other side just doing. So Colonel
Chamberlain actually wanted to defend his Union troops placed on
top of little round Top so that the Confederates couldn't
get to it, and he studies ground for two hours
with the Confederates just firing away at them, and he
eventually lost a third of his men before he commanded

(14:31):
a very famous bayonet charge to take out the Confederates
and it sort of saved the Union flank at that point.
It was very successful. Um So, actually, by the end
of the day to both sides lost about nine thousand men.
It was about people, but certainly bloody. So that brings
us to day three July. Three before dawn, actually the
Union actually took back round that they had lost the

(14:52):
day before around Colps Hill, and um this immediately foiled
these hopes of attacking the right flank of the Union right,
so he's thinking that he's going to attack the center,
and long Street again a very common theme is disagreeing
with him and saying, no, I don't think that this
is going to work, and in fact it did not.
So a major point of contention between long Street and

(15:13):
Lee was that in order to get to the men
on cops Hell, they're going to have to march through
about three quarters of a mile of an open field,
and so the Confederates down below, we're just a wide
open expanses, you know, perfectly positioned to be shot at
from the Union troops who had the position on an
elevated plane. Yeah, so you don't understand why long Street

(15:35):
objected to this plan, but Lee argued that the Union
was weakened. He thought that Union didn't have much left
in them. And guests, Yeah, and guests who comes along
at this point he's been missing out on all the action.
The Confederate Major General George Pickett. Yeah, he really jumped
on the chance because he had he had missed, like
you said, he had missed a lot of the action
before him. He wanted to prove himself at this point.

(15:55):
And we shouldn't have mentioned that Pickett wasn't the only
like he had his um his brigade, but he wasn't
the only one who had been there. But he has
been led the charge, and so that's why it's referred
to as the Pickets Charge, which was comprised of fifteen
thousand men, like Jane said, five thousand of whom were
actually pickets men, and ten thousand who technically belonged to

(16:16):
Long Street. So again long Street really opposes this idea
of the Confederate soldiers rushing towards cemetery Ridge, but Pickt insists,
and so he leads the charge. And what's really tricky
at this point is that the Union soldiers have been
firing from their elevated point, and then um, they decided

(16:37):
that they're going to pull the wool over the Confederate's eyes.
So they stopped firing entirely to trick the Confederates into
thinking that they've run out of ammunition. And so this
gives the Confederates an even falser sense of confidence as
they continue to push forward. So those who are walking
into a trip that exactly Yeah in Long Street ordered
to pickets charge. Ultimately around three pm didn't end up

(16:59):
very well. Fifteen thousand men Confederate men went up against
about ten thousand Union infantrymen. But of course, even though
the Confederate had more men at this point, at this
little skirmish, the Union, as we mentioned, has the upper
hand by the ground, the higher ground, and so it
ultimately failed for the Confederates. Uh they lost about half
of their men in the attack, and all thirteen colonels

(17:22):
actually one Confederate brigade. Brigade led by UH Brigadier General
Lewis Armistead, actually made it to the top of the ridge.
He was actually shot down soon after reaching the top.
But it was about this point where we um know
as the the high water mark of the Confederacy, and
this sort of it doesn't necessarily recognize the farthest north

(17:43):
that the Confederates literally got, but because obviously they're fighting
towards the south at this point just in terms of
the terrain of Gettysburg, but it does. It's very symbolic
and that that's the sort of, um the best chance
they had for the northern invasion. Like we said, they
got to that point, but they weren't able to hold it,
and that was sort of the last ditch effort for

(18:03):
the Confederates at that point. So it became pretty apparent
now that the battle was over and that the Confederates
had lost, and those who could slunk back to their troops.
Some just died in the middle of this field and
they were treated. All the troops that were still able
to be mobilized, we treated, and some numbers for you
just to put this in perspective, out of eighty eight
thousand Union troops twenty three thousand were wounded or killed,

(18:27):
and that was twenty six point one percent of the
Union's forces. By contrast, seventy five thousand Confederate troops twenty
eight thousand wounded or killed, for a total percentage of
thirty seven point three of Confederate men. So Southern obviously
took the harder hit, exactly, and in a war of attrition,

(18:47):
you really can't afford to lose numbers like that. So
the Confederates went back to Virginia and they didn't venture
back into the North again, and Washington was essentially saved,
and Lincoln was very upset with General Meade for not
essentially finishing off the Confederate troops. Yeahly was actually expecting
an attack after when he was retreating, and that never came,

(19:08):
and a lot of people criticized Mead for not taking
that opportunity to sort of, you know, you know, to
put it, not very nicely, but to kick him when
they're down, like this was a perfect opportunity to sort
of just clinch it. And we're not quite sure why.
Historians speculate that the troops were so physically exhausted by
this point and so many men were down, that Meat
couldn't gather enough men to kick him when he was down,

(19:33):
that it would have been ideal. And Lincoln was actually
so infuriated that he fired Meade. And so Meat actually
gave the Confederates a chance to scrape themselves up, dust
themselves off, and regroup. Yeah, and the North or the
South actually, um, we're able to win a couple more
battles before the end of the war. I mean, you
probably know this wasn't the end of the war. The
war would go on for another two years, even though

(19:55):
this was a major turning point. Obviously. One thing you
might be asking is, like, one of the most famous
Union generals at this point was Ulysses S. Grant, And
so why wasn't he here? Why I haven't we mentioned
his name? And that's because he was fighting another battle
at this point, a very important battle UM named Vicksburg.
And this was very long as well, lasted for months,

(20:16):
and uh, finally it ended on the day after Gettysburg
ended July fourth, eighteen sixty three, after a forty seven
day siege on that town. It was a Union victory.
Grant came out ahead, and this was very important because
it reclaimed the Mississippi River for the North, and this
was a vital trade route. And also in addition to that,
it split the South in two, which made um connections

(20:39):
and reinforcements difficult between the South. At that point. Grant
was actually one of the reasons, probably the reason the
North won the war because of his strategy of just
using the numbers against the South. He was willing to
throw the numbers and play the numbers against the South,
and even if it meant more casualties, ultimately resulted in victory.

(21:01):
So hopefully in a future podcast more on Grant later
and we can delve more deeply into Vicksburg, and just
to wrap up the Battle of Gettysburg, in this place
where no one expected to fight, you may be wondering, well,
how many civilians were killed in the blood bath? And
the answer is one, and I hesitate to say just one,
already made the mistake of saying earlier only eight thousand.

(21:23):
Any death in wars obviously a tragedy. And a young
woman about twenty years old, her name was Jenny Wade.
She was at her sister's house baking bread and she
was hit by two rogue bullets while she was inside.
So how about that very unfortunate coincidence getting caught in
the crossfire there? And I actually blogged about the unknown

(21:43):
soldier of Gettysburg, maybe just one of many unknown soldiers
of Gettysburg a couple of weeks ago on the Stuff
you Missed in History Class blog And if you missed that,
the entry pertained to a five part series in the
New York Times by Errol Morris, who was writing about
an amber type that had been found in a dead
soldier's hand, and he had no identification on him, just

(22:06):
this old timey picture of three children. And so the
story of tracing down his identity and the idea of
just being able to put a name in a in
a life to one dead soldier in a field of
thousands of dead soldiers was a really touching story. So, um,
we actually blog about many more topics than just the
Civil War on our blog, everything from uh talking like

(22:29):
Shakespeare Day to the latest news and the Great Wall
of China excavation. So it's writ and we also address
some of your questions directly on Monday's note we do,
and every Friday we do a little recap of our podcast,
So we certainly hope that you will visit the blogs
at how stuff works dot com and also if you
think of any topics you'd like to hear about or
have any comments or feedback for Jane, and may be

(22:51):
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