May 27, 2024 • 34 mins
The Battle Of The Wilderness. What is it like fighting in a burning forest?
Follow The Jesse Kelly Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJesseKellyShow
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is a Jesse Kelly show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Let's have some fun. Let's honor the fallen
on a Memorial Day. From me, from you, from all
of us, those who have fallen, thank you, thank you.
(00:33):
Any family member listening right now who gave somebody up
for this country, thank you, thank you, thank you. Let
me tell you what we have on tap four tonight.
Yes it is me. Yes, we are here live. Yes,
we do this every single year Memorial Day. We do
not take off. We do a three hour show, no politics.
(00:57):
You're gonna have a lot of combat stories, a lot
of names listed, a lot of history stuff. This is
always a history heavy day. I have a couple of
big history stories. I'm gonna tell you one from the
Civil War, one from as a naval battle from World
War Two. You have emailed in names of people you
want honored. We're gonna get to hopefully all these names.
(01:18):
Some people even emailed in little stories. I'm gonna try
to get to these stories. I have Air Force Cross citations.
There is so much to get to tonight. It's gonna
be history heavy, battle heavy. We are honoring the fallen
here as we try to do just everything seems small,
doesn't It doesn't everything seem too small though. Look, it's
(01:41):
something we feel strongly about. We try to honor the
fallen as best we can. But what's enough? I mean,
what's enough? But here there's a conversation someone emailed in.
I actually thought it'd be appropriate to open up the show,
listen to this, and then just say, what can we do?
That's enough? Jesse. I was recently reminded of family's sacrifice
(02:02):
when a service member falls. I was in a store
that didn't have any customers in it. The cashier was
a young man in his mid twenties. Neither of us
were much for small talk. The exchange went something like this, cashier,
are you a vet? Me? Yes, Do you have a
vet discount? Cashier? Yes, I have a fond place for vets. Mate.
(02:24):
Thanks cashier. My dad was killed in Iraq when I
was two. Me feeling as if I was gut punched.
I'm sorry to hear that, the cashier said. I heard
he was a good guy. The guy apparently follows it up.
(02:45):
He said, you've made a significant sacrifice for our country.
Thank you. Then I walked out of the store and
cried a bit in my car guy's name is Rick Marine.
It hit him hard, obviously hits me hard, hits it
probably hits you hard. That's what we forget, right, Cashier
(03:06):
mid twenties. He never knew his father. He'll never know it.
So I was giving my son's crap all weekend, laughing
with them, joking with them, having a blast. Shoot. I
took him swimming this weekend. I've had fifteen years as
a father raising my oldest. My youngest is thirteen. That
(03:30):
Cashier never got to experience that because his dad gave
his life for this country. The dad who gave his
life for this country didn't never get to rough up
his boys in the pool on a weekend. That's what
he gave up for you and for me, for this
wonderful country. And that is why we feel so strongly
about doing a Memorial Day show. So let's start our
(03:54):
Memorial Day show, shall we? Let's do some history. Shall
want you to I want you to imagine something. I
want you to picture this. You you have to go
get in a fight. What kind of weapons are we
dealing with here? Well, you have a weapon that's going
to shoot one shot at a time. You also have
(04:17):
a large bayonet, you can attach to the end of
this weapon. You and all your buddies, you line up
shoulder to shoulder, and the enemy armies lined up shoulder
to shoulder. And let's say you're one hundred yards apart,
all right, you're a football field away there on the
other side of the football field. You're on the other
side of the football field. You're picturing this. Okay, you
(04:38):
have your weapons. These are civil war weapons. I'm sure
you figure this out. Civil war weapons. They're over there.
You're over here, all right, now, that alone right there.
If I told you that was to set up, you're
on the football field and you had to sit and
shoot at them standing there in a line, and then
we're gonna be shooting back at you, you would all
(05:00):
already be a bit apprehensive, would you not, Especially by
this point in time. We're not dealing with the kind
of musket balls they were dealing with in the Revolutionary War. Yeah,
we don't have machine guns at this point, but these
weapons are getting a lot more accurate, and certainly accurate
one hundred yards away. You'd probably be a touch nervous,
(05:23):
wouldn't you, knowing they were shooting back, maybe even knowing
you were gonna shoot them. Shoot what if they charge?
That's a big bayonnett he's got there. I bet that
wouldn't feel good. Pretty nervous right now, aren't you. Well,
let me make it worse for you. Let me put
a bunch of trees on the football field, thick forest
(05:46):
worth of trees. All the men are still there. Where
are they now? Well, I don't know if somewhere in
the trees. And yes, they're still trying to kill you.
You nervous yet? Oh wait, let me make it worse.
Now that you're on the football field, but you can't
see them anymore because it's a bunch of thick trees.
(06:07):
Allow me to bring in an industrial strength fog machine
like you would see at a concert or something like that,
And I'm gonna pump in such dense fog that you
can't see the trees which are hiding the men who
are trying to kill you in the woods. Oh you
want me to make it even worse. I'm going to
(06:27):
add something to the fog machine. It's basically poison for
your lungs if you start breathing it in. If you
breathe too much of it in, you're gonna die. It's
gonna make you cough, you nervous shit. And finally, to
cap it off, I'm gonna light the forest on fire.
(06:49):
What I just described is what thousands of Americans died
in in the Battle of the Wilderness. It's known as
the Battle of the Wilderness, and it might be the
most horrific battle ever. And the two different battles were
going to go over today for Memorial Day. They both
have a huge thing in common and that they were
(07:13):
both really turning points, or right about those turning points
in the war. So let's set it up before we
go back to the forest. We'll get back to the
woods here in a little bit. Here's what's going on.
First and foremost, this is the Civil War, obviously, and
the Civil War by the time the Battle of the
Wilderness had kicked off, the Civil War had been going
(07:34):
on for a couple years, and for the North it
had not been going well at all. So he let
me do this set up here. You know, I don't
like to dump a bunch of names and crap on
you because it ruins the story and it gets mind numbing.
But you got to understand this Lincoln. Lincoln had a
man in charge of his army called Mead. Mead was
(07:55):
his name, and Mead was Look, Mead doesn't need any
help for me to be destroyed by the history books.
But Mead was a man. I'll put it as nicely
as humanly possible. I don't know him because I don't
know him, right, You don't know who's a victim of
historical propaganda and who's not. He was a cautious type.
He was a cautious type. Lincoln wanted this war fought,
(08:19):
He wanted this war ended. Mead just wanted to train
his men. Never take risks, never go out, never train
his never never launch into this attack or no grand
strategy here. Mead simply wouldn't attack, he wouldn't engage. And
it was driving Lincoln crazy and the South by this point, well,
(08:43):
let's go over what was going on in the South,
because this is actually going to tie directly into the
Japanese and how they were operating in World War two.
Here was the deal with the South, and they knew
this was their deal. Here's the deal the South. They
had to win, and they had to win early or
(09:03):
they were not going to win. They simply didn't have
the logistics they needed to win they didn't have the shipping.
They didn't have it. They were gonna starve to death.
The South had to win, and win early. But very
similar to the Japanese, they did have what you'd call
in boxing. We're gonna do a couple boxing analogies here.
(09:26):
They do have what you'd call a puncher's chance. Why, well,
they may not have the logistics and the food, and
they're not gonna this is gonna come into play for
the Battle of the Wilderness. They didn't have the manpower,
you know, the North as well. The population was They
may not have had what it took to last for
a long fight, but dag gone, can they throw a
punch in round number one? They had just spent By
(09:50):
the time the Battle of the Wilderness rolled around, they
had spent two years kicking the crap out of the
North virtually everywhere they went. The Southern generals were better.
They were just naturally more aggressive. The Southern troops were better.
They were more rural, more comfortable around firearms, sleeping in
the ground. So the Union was taken just people fresh
(10:13):
off the dagone boat and throwing a uniform on These
Portsnaps didn't even speak English and they're all going down
south and killed some Confederates. So there was for two
years it wasn't going well and Lincoln had a situation
on his hands. Let's discuss that situation next. What truth attitude?
(10:34):
Jesse Kelly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday,
on a Memorial Day, a sacred day, and just a
heads up. As I tell the history stories and we
do other things, I'm going to be reading names mostly
every time we come back from break. These are names
that you have sent in. I'm just gonna kind of
(10:57):
give name in either training accident or theater in which
they die. These are people you want honored. William Burke
training accident, Private Edward Ellis training accident, William H. H.
Mixon training accident, Walter Wolf Korea HM three Winston, Glenn
Barker Vietnam Mickey Lewis Wilson Vietnam Vietnam veterans poisoned by
(11:22):
agent orange? Is this kind of one that it was
suggested it? Honestly, it's something that needs to be pointed
out and honored. We dumped a bunch of orange crap
in that jungle to get all the jungle out of it,
and we ended up poisoning a lot of our guys,
honoring them. Robert Scudder, Porterfield Specialist, Greg Finley, West Germany,
(11:45):
Private Don Brown, West Germany, Pfc. Roy Brown, Junior Operation
just cause. That's Panama. Sergeant Mark Rodenmacher, Urgent Fury. That's Grenada.
And we'll go over more here in a little bit.
Let's go back to Lincoln. So Lincoln, we're leading up
to the Battle of the Wilderness. In case you just
joining us, that's what we're doing, a little Civil War talk.
(12:06):
Lincoln had a situation he had two years where he'd
just been beaten up by the South and he had
an election coming up. Now. Obviously he wanted to win
reelection that was at stake, and Lincoln also believed this.
He believed if he lost the election that whoever won
(12:30):
the election in the North would have struck a peace
deal with the South. And he probably wasn't wrong about that.
If Lincoln loses this upcoming election, we very likely, as
we speak right now, have two different countries. We do.
I don't know whether the South would still have slaves
or what. I don't know, but we very likely would
(12:51):
have two different countries. If Lincoln loses this election coming up.
All right, Now, Lincoln simply cannot take this anymore. He
cannot take it anymore. Mead won't move. He needs a
win or he's gonna lose the election. So he goes
and finds this wonderful young officer who's been beating people
up out west named Ulysses S Grant. He finally, yeah,
(13:15):
you may have heard of him from time to time,
you Lisses S Grant. By the way, quick side note,
not that this is anything special at all. I'm related
to him in some way, uh, some kind of you know,
it's some kind of distant thing, third cousins, brother's dog
type thing. But anyway, Ulysses s Grant, No, we never
met you, Listenes s Grant. So he's now in charge
of the North, and Lincoln says, go, you gotta go
(13:38):
fight now, let's go down south. Robert E. Lee, Robert E.
Lee is somebody that people have a difficult time talking
about today. I don't. But in this Namby Pamby society
we have now everyone has to try to be like, oh,
the thing, Robert E. Lee was an amazing human being.
An amazing human being, he really really was. Whether he
(14:00):
was an amazing general. Well, I'm gonna show up when
I get back from vacation next week and I'll have
about ten thousand emails telling me he was the best
general ever, and I'll have ten thousand telling me he sucked.
And all of you probably are gonna make good points.
All that stuff is fine, you can can. Those are
great history arguments to have. Whether or not he was
a great general, I don't know, but you should understand this.
(14:22):
The world at this point in time, two years into
this war, the world thought Robert E. Lee was the
Bee's knees. They thought he was Alexander the Great and
Julius Caesar all rolled up into one. Robert E. Lee
was known worldwide and revered worldwide as this military strategic genius.
(14:48):
His men loved him when you look. As I've always said,
just quick side note. When it comes to officers, whoever
they may be, lieutenant's flag officers, whoever they may be,
the men are always right. If the men hate their officer,
it's because he sucks. And if the men love him,
it's because he's amazing. Robert E. Lee's men loved him.
(15:11):
They loved him so by now he's basically become this
unstoppable force in the minds of so many in the North.
In the Union. You have this legendary general, he's known worldwide.
He's beating us up. Oh my gosh, so on. That's bad, right,
it's bad, But he's not completely unbloodied because we are
(15:38):
post Gettysburg. We are post Gettysburg where the Confederates finally
got their first bloody nose. But that's not enough. You see,
remember Gettysburg was the South pushing into the North, doing
an offensive operation into the North, trying to get them
to back off to stop the Northern invasion of the South.
(16:00):
He lost. Now we're back to defensive and that brings
us to the Battle of the Wilderness. In case you're
wondering where this is, Fredericksburg, Virginia is basically where it is.
We're in Virginia. Where's sixty miles or so outside of DC.
Now here's what's going on. This is an insanely as
I try to lay out in the beginning, a very
(16:22):
very thickly wooded area and it's not just the trees,
it's the underbrush and it depend depending on where you're
listening to the sound of my voice, you'll understand what
underbrush can mean I've lived all over so I've been
to places where sometimes just everything on the ground gets thick,
the sticks and the fallen trees and the everything, and
(16:43):
it's just it's hard to move around. It's not trees
just on flat ground. Everything is thick. And so here
we have the wilderness. There are only two roads going
through this wilderness. There has been a battle here before.
That happens oftentimes in history, happened all the time, World
War One, world War two. There are key points that
(17:05):
end up being places where people fight. Now, let's go
to the woods try to wrap up some of this
battle of the wilderness stock as. We have so much
to get to, but it might take me a few
hang on. Feeling a little stocky, Follow and subscribe on
social at Jesse Kelly DC. It is the Jesse Kelly
(17:26):
Show on a Memorial Day again. I'm gonna read off
a few names of the fallen here before I get
back to our little Civil war talk we're having at
the moment. Major Christopher M. Cooper accident. This is all
all these days I'm about to read here died in
a Guam flyover accident. Major Brent D. Williams Captain Michael K. Dodson,
(17:49):
First Lieutenant Joshua D. Shepherd, First Lieutenant Robert D. Garn,
Colonel George Martin, Private I'll a wish, World War two,
Europe elden Cone, Battle of the Bulge. William McKinley, Birch
crossing the Rhine, World War two. Staff Sergeant Robert L. Ferris,
(18:13):
turret gunner shot down over France, World War two. Private
Robert R. Garrett World War Two. Sergeant Braxton Pool World
War Two, recommended for the Medal of Honor but not awarded.
Killed fifty three of the enemy, knocked out three machine
gun crews, all single handily, and was killed by mortar
fire a day later. I will read more as the
(18:35):
time goes on. Back to what we were talking about here. Okay,
so Grant ulysses s Grant. He has been charged with
offensive operations. No more sitting around Robert E. Lee's a
little bit on his heels. Lost at Gettysburg. You are
now going to attack in the south. And so Grant
is doing something well that every army, every general in
(18:57):
the history of mankind has tried to do and wants
to do. He's trying to flank Lee and let me
explain this. I know it's a dumb down point, but
people learn at different paces, and for some people this
is their first introduction to some of this stuff. What
is flanking? What are people always talking about that flanking? Well,
you want to attack in the front and you want
(19:19):
to keep your enemy in front of you. This has
not changed and it never will change. When there were
swords and spears and shields. Because your shields is in
front of you and you're facing in front of you,
you want your enemy to be in front of you
and where you don't want him, like if it was
a Greek failanx, like if you saw the Spartans or
(19:41):
something like that. What you don't want to happen is
for him to attack you from the sides or from
the rear. That's called the flank. Those are your flanks.
Anything not in front of you is your flank. Okay,
So when they say he's trying a flanking maneuver, he's
flanking him, that means someone is moving around to someone's
side or someone's rear, trying to catch them off guard.
(20:03):
That's what they said. That's what they mean when they
say flanking. Grant is trying to flank Lee here. Lee's
supply lines are fragile. Lee does not have as many
men as Grant does, and Grant is trying to move
to Lee's right and flank him. It's actually a pretty
brilliant move. And Grant he kind of figures, if I
(20:28):
moved through these woods, through this thick underbrush, then he's
not going to expect it, and he's certainly not going
to meet us here, because who would ever meet us here?
Wars were not fought battles, especially in the Civil War.
You know all the battlefields, you've at least seen pictures
of them or seen the movies. They're not fought in
the woods. They're fought in the fields or the roads
(20:49):
or the railroad tracks. But because of the weapons and equipment,
and because of the artillery. Remember we're dealing with cannons here.
You would want to fight in the open when artillery,
when cannons are one of your main ways of killing
the enemy, well, being in the woods doesn't do you
any good because your cannonballs are gonna be bouncing off
the trees and killing your own men. You don't want
(21:11):
to fight in the woods. You want to fight in
the open. So Grant decides, I mean, I'm just gonna
flank him. I'll move my men right through the woods,
and Lee says, no, you will not. Now what happens
when an army is trying to flank another army, but
the other army catches on and they meet, Well, you know,
(21:33):
it's not a meeting with accounting. You don't get to
reschedule it. If you run into each other wherever you
happen to run into each other, that's where you're fighting.
And that's part of what made the Battle of the
Wilderness so horrible. Is they met in the It is
what made it so horrible. They met in the woods.
(21:54):
They met in the dark, they met in the trees,
and they began some two days battle from hell. Now
I need to explain something because we're what are we
focused on today? It's a memorial day. Let's focus on
the young men who are here. Both sides so young,
(22:15):
they're just so incredibly young. I was doing a little
prep work for this yesterday, going over a couple of things,
and and they were. They were on the southern side
and the northern side. They were going over general this
in general that, And I don't bore you with all
these things, because look, if you like details, go read
a book on that stuff. That's it's it's good, there's
there's there's a ton there. It's just not for me.
(22:35):
But you know, General Longstreet here, and this guy there
and this guy there, and you know, these are the commanders,
and they're so young, they're insanely young. I believe, if
I'm not mistaken, I might be off by a year
or two. Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of the Union Army,
(22:59):
is my age in this war, and when the Battle
of the Wilderness kicks off, he's my age. The officers
generals thirty two, thirty three, these are the high ups.
These are the old men. Now, who are the others?
Who are the privates? The PFCs, they're seventeen years old,
(23:23):
eighteen years old, they're puppies. Most of these kids most
I shouldn't say kids, they're men. Most of these men
they'd never left home, they'd never been twenty miles from home.
You go sign up, and they all had different reasons.
Everyone had a different story, right, don't ever listen to
some dumb down, simplistic version of history. Everyone on this
(23:46):
side was fighting for this, and everyone on this side
was fighting for that out. Shut up. Everyone had a
different story. Maybe the family needed money. Maybe you didn't
have a family. You were looking for someplace to belong.
Maybe you were looking for adventure, wanted to toughen up,
see what you're made of. Maybe you were all hot
and bothered about slavery and you wanted to free the slaves.
(24:07):
Maybe you loved slavery and you wanted to keep your slaves.
Maybe look that they were all over the place their motivations,
but they were all seventeen eighteen years old, scared to death,
meeting in the woods with bayonets and rifles in their hands. Now,
I'm not going to go over this unit moved here
(24:29):
and this unit moved there. Let's just go over kind
of how it went from there, what it was like.
We have to appreciate how horrific the medical care was
back then. We are and I don't want to say
we're spoiled, that's not the right way to put that.
(24:49):
But when we think about military medical care today, I
will tell you, obviously it's the military. You know, nothing's
going to be wonderful, nothing it is going to be perfect.
But I was so impressed with the medical care, like
in the field medical care and the training our docks
had in the field. Our docks were ready if you
(25:11):
got shot, blown up, if you and if you were hurt.
It was we were always training for how do we
get this guy out of here. It's always part of
your training. It wasn't just killing people. Okay, your buddy's down,
he just had his leg blown off. How are you
going to get him off the battlefield? Okay, you got
to get him to this place. And then there's training
of how to get him to a better place. And
you know, you can picture World War two and these
(25:34):
field hospitals they would set up and okay, let's get
him into this surgery. It we were. We've gotten better
and better and better and better and better over the
decades in medical care, the early especially the early part
of the Civil War. The stories are honestly, it's hell,
(25:54):
it really is. I understand there are a lot of
kids listening right now, So the kids, make sure you
check with your parents before you go looking stuff up
on the internet. Please, but you can go look. You
can go right now and look up pictures, real authentic
pictures from the Civil War of the piles of feet,
(26:15):
the feet, the doctors had sawed off without anesthesia. And
that's if that if the guys that were supposed to
take you out of there even found you in time.
In the very beginning of the war, half the medical
(26:35):
personnel were band members. They had going to grab wounded
guys that were drunk when they're walking around the battlefield.
You did not want to get wounded in the Civil War.
And so knowing that, we'll try. I'll try to wrap
up this story next hang on, I've got on animal
inside On't mean yes, Kelly, you're listening to the Jesse
(26:58):
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Joe on a
Memorial Day, trying to finish up this little Civil War story,
or we're telling here we have more names to read.
I got a World War two naval battle coming next hour,
with some other things. I should also give you a
(27:18):
heads up. Chris and I were trying to figure out
how exactly we wanted to do this today as far
as playing taps goes. We decided we're going to play
taps at the end of every hour. Every hour we'll
end with taps. I just said, how do you do this?
How do you do this the right way? I don't know.
I don't know, doing it the best way we know.
How how do we honor these men? Captain Daniel LEO Notts,
(27:40):
Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas E. Higgins washed off of
a submarine deck. Petty Officer Second Michael J. Holtz also
washed off a submarine deck. Captain Travis Ford Iraqi Freedom
Machinist's mate Joseph Ashley training accident, subcollision Chief Petty Officer
(28:01):
Patrick L. Wade IRAQ Ied, First Lieutenant Weston Lee Mauzzle,
Iraq Ied US Army Captain Scott M. Shimp training accident,
Helo crash. We'll get back to some more of those. Okay,
So the Battle of the Wilderness kicks off and these
men start fighting each other, and they're in the woods,
(28:24):
and there's the woods are so thick and the underbrush
is so thick. And have you ever watched a video?
You probably have seen it, or there have probably been
movies who have depicted this at least somewhat. Have you
ever seen somebody shoot an old muzzleloader before it is wild?
How smoky it gets because you're essentially just putting black powder.
(28:48):
And I know gun nuts, I know I'm making it simple.
You're essentially just putting black powder in a barrel and
lighting it on fire. That's all you're doing. You're creating
an explosion, creating the combustion to force the round out
of the barrel. Right, that's all you're doing. There's so
much smoke that comes with it. Well, this is dry
underbrush in northern Virginia. Everything starts to catch on fire.
(29:10):
The men are fighting each other in the thick woods,
in the thick underbrush. The officers cannot see their own men.
They can't see their flanks. They don't know whether they
need to advance or stay. You can't see the enemy,
you don't know where he is. You start shooting things,
everything that moves. And what happened was the men begin
(29:31):
on both sides. The men begin to go mad. One
reading one quote I read, they call them fiends. It
turned normal, I think it said it turned normal Christian boys.
I'm paraphrasing here into fiends. What happens is when you're
already in combat, you're adrenaline's going through the roof, everything's
going nuts. Fire brings out something different in men. I've
(29:55):
read stories in Vietnam of sog guys green Berea looking
for NVA troops in some big bamboo field, and the
field gets lit on fire, and all of a sudden,
they're running side by side with each other trying to
get out. They're not even fighting each other anymore. That's
what fire does. Fire. Now everything is full of smoke,
(30:16):
everything's on fire. Men are now screaming, men are burning.
And remember what I said about the medical care. It
already wasn't great getting these guys out. Now you've got
wounded men who can't move, laying in the underbrush, watching
as the flames come their way, with no hope for
(30:38):
anything in the world. It is horrific to think what
that must have been like. And as you and me
we sit here on Memorial Day, and I hope, I
sincerely hope you have enjoyed yourself today, enjoyed your family today.
(30:59):
Trust me, the men who fall in for this country
would want that. There's nothing wrong with having a barbecue
and some family time. Take a quick moment and remember them.
But as we as we sit here, I mean I'm
sitting here in the air conditioning. I got a large
cup of coffee sitting beside me. Chris and me just
knocked out some breakfast tacos. Yes, we get those at
night here. It's Texas. Anyway, men seventeen eighteen years old
(31:25):
on both sides burned to death in the woods in
northern Virginia. That's how they lost their lives. It was
I mean, it was so freaking bad the Confederates as
they were trying to retreat. The battle went on for
two days. The Confederates ended up losing. It's a fascinating
little conflict if you want to dig into the details
(31:47):
of it. Essentially, the Union had enough troops to keep
pouring men in and Lee really didn't that the South
was they just didn't have the man power. And after
Lee loses this battle, which he does at the end
of day two, he never gets to launch another offensive operation.
From there, he's on the defense of the rest of
(32:08):
the war. That's it. That this was the turning point
that really put the South on its heels, and from
this it was over. I mean, it was just a
matter of time. Now, I don't want to say it
was over. There were a lot of men who still
had to die still, but from this point on, the
South was not going to win the war unless you
Lincoln lost the election or something. But as the Confederates
are running out, running away, trying to get out of
(32:29):
the woods, they're taking Union troops and this happened on
both sides, I should point out, and propping them up
in front of the trees, using them as human shields
to try to get the Union to stop shooting at them,
and they didn't. So you may have been propped up
in front of the tree and been shot by your
buddy as he's aiming in the Confederates. That is the
(32:52):
Battle of the Wilderness. And look, obviously it's horrible. I
read it because it's horrible. We're gonna move on to
World War two stuff next hour, a naval battle actually
battle of Tsavo Island. But I read this because it's horrible,
because it really hits me, especially on days like today.
(33:12):
It hits me so hard that these men have gone
through such horrible things and lost their lives so early
so we can be free. And I'm so appreciative of it.
You don't have to feel bad if you're one of
the vets out there who lived and your buddies didn't.
You need to let that go. You need to let
it go. But man, today's the day to honor them.
(33:34):
Philip Neil, First Lieutenant Philip Neil Kia, IRAQ, Pfc Boyd
Kimri Kia World War Two, Dennis van Buskirk Vietnam, Harvey A.
Fowler World War Two Europe Corporal Dunk and Charles Crookston, Iraq.
We'll get to more and some World War Two stories
(33:56):
next hour. For now, we're gonna send you off this
hour with taps b b b b b b b
(34:42):
bab
This is a Jesse Kelly show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Let's have some fun. Let's honor the fallen
on a Memorial Day. From me, from you, from all
of us, those who have fallen, thank you, thank you.
(00:33):
Any family member listening right now who gave somebody up
for this country, thank you, thank you, thank you. Let
me tell you what we have on tap four tonight.
Yes it is me. Yes, we are here live. Yes,
we do this every single year Memorial Day. We do
not take off. We do a three hour show, no politics.
(00:57):
You're gonna have a lot of combat stories, a lot
of names listed, a lot of history stuff. This is
always a history heavy day. I have a couple of
big history stories. I'm gonna tell you one from the
Civil War, one from as a naval battle from World
War Two. You have emailed in names of people you
want honored. We're gonna get to hopefully all these names.
(01:18):
Some people even emailed in little stories. I'm gonna try
to get to these stories. I have Air Force Cross citations.
There is so much to get to tonight. It's gonna
be history heavy, battle heavy. We are honoring the fallen
here as we try to do just everything seems small,
doesn't It doesn't everything seem too small though. Look, it's
(01:41):
something we feel strongly about. We try to honor the
fallen as best we can. But what's enough? I mean,
what's enough? But here there's a conversation someone emailed in.
I actually thought it'd be appropriate to open up the show,
listen to this, and then just say, what can we do?
That's enough? Jesse. I was recently reminded of family's sacrifice
(02:02):
when a service member falls. I was in a store
that didn't have any customers in it. The cashier was
a young man in his mid twenties. Neither of us
were much for small talk. The exchange went something like this, cashier,
are you a vet? Me? Yes, Do you have a
vet discount? Cashier? Yes, I have a fond place for vets. Mate.
(02:24):
Thanks cashier. My dad was killed in Iraq when I
was two. Me feeling as if I was gut punched.
I'm sorry to hear that, the cashier said. I heard
he was a good guy. The guy apparently follows it up.
(02:45):
He said, you've made a significant sacrifice for our country.
Thank you. Then I walked out of the store and
cried a bit in my car guy's name is Rick Marine.
It hit him hard, obviously hits me hard, hits it
probably hits you hard. That's what we forget, right, Cashier
(03:06):
mid twenties. He never knew his father. He'll never know it.
So I was giving my son's crap all weekend, laughing
with them, joking with them, having a blast. Shoot. I
took him swimming this weekend. I've had fifteen years as
a father raising my oldest. My youngest is thirteen. That
(03:30):
Cashier never got to experience that because his dad gave
his life for this country. The dad who gave his
life for this country didn't never get to rough up
his boys in the pool on a weekend. That's what
he gave up for you and for me, for this
wonderful country. And that is why we feel so strongly
about doing a Memorial Day show. So let's start our
(03:54):
Memorial Day show, shall we? Let's do some history. Shall
want you to I want you to imagine something. I
want you to picture this. You you have to go
get in a fight. What kind of weapons are we
dealing with here? Well, you have a weapon that's going
to shoot one shot at a time. You also have
(04:17):
a large bayonet, you can attach to the end of
this weapon. You and all your buddies, you line up
shoulder to shoulder, and the enemy armies lined up shoulder
to shoulder. And let's say you're one hundred yards apart,
all right, you're a football field away there on the
other side of the football field. You're on the other
side of the football field. You're picturing this. Okay, you
(04:38):
have your weapons. These are civil war weapons. I'm sure
you figure this out. Civil war weapons. They're over there.
You're over here, all right, now, that alone right there.
If I told you that was to set up, you're
on the football field and you had to sit and
shoot at them standing there in a line, and then
we're gonna be shooting back at you, you would all
(05:00):
already be a bit apprehensive, would you not, Especially by
this point in time. We're not dealing with the kind
of musket balls they were dealing with in the Revolutionary War. Yeah,
we don't have machine guns at this point, but these
weapons are getting a lot more accurate, and certainly accurate
one hundred yards away. You'd probably be a touch nervous,
(05:23):
wouldn't you, knowing they were shooting back, maybe even knowing
you were gonna shoot them. Shoot what if they charge?
That's a big bayonnett he's got there. I bet that
wouldn't feel good. Pretty nervous right now, aren't you. Well,
let me make it worse for you. Let me put
a bunch of trees on the football field, thick forest
(05:46):
worth of trees. All the men are still there. Where
are they now? Well, I don't know if somewhere in
the trees. And yes, they're still trying to kill you.
You nervous yet? Oh wait, let me make it worse.
Now that you're on the football field, but you can't
see them anymore because it's a bunch of thick trees.
(06:07):
Allow me to bring in an industrial strength fog machine
like you would see at a concert or something like that,
And I'm gonna pump in such dense fog that you
can't see the trees which are hiding the men who
are trying to kill you in the woods. Oh you
want me to make it even worse. I'm going to
(06:27):
add something to the fog machine. It's basically poison for
your lungs if you start breathing it in. If you
breathe too much of it in, you're gonna die. It's
gonna make you cough, you nervous shit. And finally, to
cap it off, I'm gonna light the forest on fire.
(06:49):
What I just described is what thousands of Americans died
in in the Battle of the Wilderness. It's known as
the Battle of the Wilderness, and it might be the
most horrific battle ever. And the two different battles were
going to go over today for Memorial Day. They both
have a huge thing in common and that they were
(07:13):
both really turning points, or right about those turning points
in the war. So let's set it up before we
go back to the forest. We'll get back to the
woods here in a little bit. Here's what's going on.
First and foremost, this is the Civil War, obviously, and
the Civil War by the time the Battle of the
Wilderness had kicked off, the Civil War had been going
(07:34):
on for a couple years, and for the North it
had not been going well at all. So he let
me do this set up here. You know, I don't
like to dump a bunch of names and crap on
you because it ruins the story and it gets mind numbing.
But you got to understand this Lincoln. Lincoln had a
man in charge of his army called Mead. Mead was
(07:55):
his name, and Mead was Look, Mead doesn't need any
help for me to be destroyed by the history books.
But Mead was a man. I'll put it as nicely
as humanly possible. I don't know him because I don't
know him, right, You don't know who's a victim of
historical propaganda and who's not. He was a cautious type.
He was a cautious type. Lincoln wanted this war fought,
(08:19):
He wanted this war ended. Mead just wanted to train
his men. Never take risks, never go out, never train
his never never launch into this attack or no grand
strategy here. Mead simply wouldn't attack, he wouldn't engage. And
it was driving Lincoln crazy and the South by this point, well,
(08:43):
let's go over what was going on in the South,
because this is actually going to tie directly into the
Japanese and how they were operating in World War two.
Here was the deal with the South, and they knew
this was their deal. Here's the deal the South. They
had to win, and they had to win early or
(09:03):
they were not going to win. They simply didn't have
the logistics they needed to win they didn't have the shipping.
They didn't have it. They were gonna starve to death.
The South had to win, and win early. But very
similar to the Japanese, they did have what you'd call
in boxing. We're gonna do a couple boxing analogies here.
(09:26):
They do have what you'd call a puncher's chance. Why, well,
they may not have the logistics and the food, and
they're not gonna this is gonna come into play for
the Battle of the Wilderness. They didn't have the manpower,
you know, the North as well. The population was They
may not have had what it took to last for
a long fight, but dag gone, can they throw a
punch in round number one? They had just spent By
(09:50):
the time the Battle of the Wilderness rolled around, they
had spent two years kicking the crap out of the
North virtually everywhere they went. The Southern generals were better.
They were just naturally more aggressive. The Southern troops were better.
They were more rural, more comfortable around firearms, sleeping in
the ground. So the Union was taken just people fresh
(10:13):
off the dagone boat and throwing a uniform on These
Portsnaps didn't even speak English and they're all going down
south and killed some Confederates. So there was for two
years it wasn't going well and Lincoln had a situation
on his hands. Let's discuss that situation next. What truth attitude?
(10:34):
Jesse Kelly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday,
on a Memorial Day, a sacred day, and just a
heads up. As I tell the history stories and we
do other things, I'm going to be reading names mostly
every time we come back from break. These are names
that you have sent in. I'm just gonna kind of
(10:57):
give name in either training accident or theater in which
they die. These are people you want honored. William Burke
training accident, Private Edward Ellis training accident, William H. H.
Mixon training accident, Walter Wolf Korea HM three Winston, Glenn
Barker Vietnam Mickey Lewis Wilson Vietnam Vietnam veterans poisoned by
(11:22):
agent orange? Is this kind of one that it was
suggested it? Honestly, it's something that needs to be pointed
out and honored. We dumped a bunch of orange crap
in that jungle to get all the jungle out of it,
and we ended up poisoning a lot of our guys,
honoring them. Robert Scudder, Porterfield Specialist, Greg Finley, West Germany,
(11:45):
Private Don Brown, West Germany, Pfc. Roy Brown, Junior Operation
just cause. That's Panama. Sergeant Mark Rodenmacher, Urgent Fury. That's Grenada.
And we'll go over more here in a little bit.
Let's go back to Lincoln. So Lincoln, we're leading up
to the Battle of the Wilderness. In case you just
joining us, that's what we're doing, a little Civil War talk.
(12:06):
Lincoln had a situation he had two years where he'd
just been beaten up by the South and he had
an election coming up. Now. Obviously he wanted to win
reelection that was at stake, and Lincoln also believed this.
He believed if he lost the election that whoever won
(12:30):
the election in the North would have struck a peace
deal with the South. And he probably wasn't wrong about that.
If Lincoln loses this upcoming election, we very likely, as
we speak right now, have two different countries. We do.
I don't know whether the South would still have slaves
or what. I don't know, but we very likely would
(12:51):
have two different countries. If Lincoln loses this election coming up.
All right, Now, Lincoln simply cannot take this anymore. He
cannot take it anymore. Mead won't move. He needs a
win or he's gonna lose the election. So he goes
and finds this wonderful young officer who's been beating people
up out west named Ulysses S Grant. He finally, yeah,
(13:15):
you may have heard of him from time to time,
you Lisses S Grant. By the way, quick side note,
not that this is anything special at all. I'm related
to him in some way, uh, some kind of you know,
it's some kind of distant thing, third cousins, brother's dog
type thing. But anyway, Ulysses s Grant, No, we never
met you, Listenes s Grant. So he's now in charge
of the North, and Lincoln says, go, you gotta go
(13:38):
fight now, let's go down south. Robert E. Lee, Robert E.
Lee is somebody that people have a difficult time talking
about today. I don't. But in this Namby Pamby society
we have now everyone has to try to be like, oh,
the thing, Robert E. Lee was an amazing human being.
An amazing human being, he really really was. Whether he
(14:00):
was an amazing general. Well, I'm gonna show up when
I get back from vacation next week and I'll have
about ten thousand emails telling me he was the best
general ever, and I'll have ten thousand telling me he sucked.
And all of you probably are gonna make good points.
All that stuff is fine, you can can. Those are
great history arguments to have. Whether or not he was
a great general, I don't know, but you should understand this.
(14:22):
The world at this point in time, two years into
this war, the world thought Robert E. Lee was the
Bee's knees. They thought he was Alexander the Great and
Julius Caesar all rolled up into one. Robert E. Lee
was known worldwide and revered worldwide as this military strategic genius.
(14:48):
His men loved him when you look. As I've always said,
just quick side note. When it comes to officers, whoever
they may be, lieutenant's flag officers, whoever they may be,
the men are always right. If the men hate their officer,
it's because he sucks. And if the men love him,
it's because he's amazing. Robert E. Lee's men loved him.
(15:11):
They loved him so by now he's basically become this
unstoppable force in the minds of so many in the North.
In the Union. You have this legendary general, he's known worldwide.
He's beating us up. Oh my gosh, so on. That's bad, right,
it's bad, But he's not completely unbloodied because we are
(15:38):
post Gettysburg. We are post Gettysburg where the Confederates finally
got their first bloody nose. But that's not enough. You see,
remember Gettysburg was the South pushing into the North, doing
an offensive operation into the North, trying to get them
to back off to stop the Northern invasion of the South.
(16:00):
He lost. Now we're back to defensive and that brings
us to the Battle of the Wilderness. In case you're
wondering where this is, Fredericksburg, Virginia is basically where it is.
We're in Virginia. Where's sixty miles or so outside of DC.
Now here's what's going on. This is an insanely as
I try to lay out in the beginning, a very
(16:22):
very thickly wooded area and it's not just the trees,
it's the underbrush and it depend depending on where you're
listening to the sound of my voice, you'll understand what
underbrush can mean I've lived all over so I've been
to places where sometimes just everything on the ground gets thick,
the sticks and the fallen trees and the everything, and
(16:43):
it's just it's hard to move around. It's not trees
just on flat ground. Everything is thick. And so here
we have the wilderness. There are only two roads going
through this wilderness. There has been a battle here before.
That happens oftentimes in history, happened all the time, World
War One, world War two. There are key points that
(17:05):
end up being places where people fight. Now, let's go
to the woods try to wrap up some of this
battle of the wilderness stock as. We have so much
to get to, but it might take me a few
hang on. Feeling a little stocky, Follow and subscribe on
social at Jesse Kelly DC. It is the Jesse Kelly
(17:26):
Show on a Memorial Day again. I'm gonna read off
a few names of the fallen here before I get
back to our little Civil war talk we're having at
the moment. Major Christopher M. Cooper accident. This is all
all these days I'm about to read here died in
a Guam flyover accident. Major Brent D. Williams Captain Michael K. Dodson,
(17:49):
First Lieutenant Joshua D. Shepherd, First Lieutenant Robert D. Garn,
Colonel George Martin, Private I'll a wish, World War two,
Europe elden Cone, Battle of the Bulge. William McKinley, Birch
crossing the Rhine, World War two. Staff Sergeant Robert L. Ferris,
(18:13):
turret gunner shot down over France, World War two. Private
Robert R. Garrett World War Two. Sergeant Braxton Pool World
War Two, recommended for the Medal of Honor but not awarded.
Killed fifty three of the enemy, knocked out three machine
gun crews, all single handily, and was killed by mortar
fire a day later. I will read more as the
(18:35):
time goes on. Back to what we were talking about here. Okay,
so Grant ulysses s Grant. He has been charged with
offensive operations. No more sitting around Robert E. Lee's a
little bit on his heels. Lost at Gettysburg. You are
now going to attack in the south. And so Grant
is doing something well that every army, every general in
(18:57):
the history of mankind has tried to do and wants
to do. He's trying to flank Lee and let me
explain this. I know it's a dumb down point, but
people learn at different paces, and for some people this
is their first introduction to some of this stuff. What
is flanking? What are people always talking about that flanking? Well,
you want to attack in the front and you want
(19:19):
to keep your enemy in front of you. This has
not changed and it never will change. When there were
swords and spears and shields. Because your shields is in
front of you and you're facing in front of you,
you want your enemy to be in front of you
and where you don't want him, like if it was
a Greek failanx, like if you saw the Spartans or
(19:41):
something like that. What you don't want to happen is
for him to attack you from the sides or from
the rear. That's called the flank. Those are your flanks.
Anything not in front of you is your flank. Okay,
So when they say he's trying a flanking maneuver, he's
flanking him, that means someone is moving around to someone's
side or someone's rear, trying to catch them off guard.
(20:03):
That's what they said. That's what they mean when they
say flanking. Grant is trying to flank Lee here. Lee's
supply lines are fragile. Lee does not have as many
men as Grant does, and Grant is trying to move
to Lee's right and flank him. It's actually a pretty
brilliant move. And Grant he kind of figures, if I
(20:28):
moved through these woods, through this thick underbrush, then he's
not going to expect it, and he's certainly not going
to meet us here, because who would ever meet us here?
Wars were not fought battles, especially in the Civil War.
You know all the battlefields, you've at least seen pictures
of them or seen the movies. They're not fought in
the woods. They're fought in the fields or the roads
(20:49):
or the railroad tracks. But because of the weapons and equipment,
and because of the artillery. Remember we're dealing with cannons here.
You would want to fight in the open when artillery,
when cannons are one of your main ways of killing
the enemy, well, being in the woods doesn't do you
any good because your cannonballs are gonna be bouncing off
the trees and killing your own men. You don't want
(21:11):
to fight in the woods. You want to fight in
the open. So Grant decides, I mean, I'm just gonna
flank him. I'll move my men right through the woods,
and Lee says, no, you will not. Now what happens
when an army is trying to flank another army, but
the other army catches on and they meet, Well, you know,
(21:33):
it's not a meeting with accounting. You don't get to
reschedule it. If you run into each other wherever you
happen to run into each other, that's where you're fighting.
And that's part of what made the Battle of the
Wilderness so horrible. Is they met in the It is
what made it so horrible. They met in the woods.
(21:54):
They met in the dark, they met in the trees,
and they began some two days battle from hell. Now
I need to explain something because we're what are we
focused on today? It's a memorial day. Let's focus on
the young men who are here. Both sides so young,
(22:15):
they're just so incredibly young. I was doing a little
prep work for this yesterday, going over a couple of things,
and and they were. They were on the southern side
and the northern side. They were going over general this
in general that, And I don't bore you with all
these things, because look, if you like details, go read
a book on that stuff. That's it's it's good, there's
there's there's a ton there. It's just not for me.
(22:35):
But you know, General Longstreet here, and this guy there
and this guy there, and you know, these are the commanders,
and they're so young, they're insanely young. I believe, if
I'm not mistaken, I might be off by a year
or two. Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of the Union Army,
(22:59):
is my age in this war, and when the Battle
of the Wilderness kicks off, he's my age. The officers
generals thirty two, thirty three, these are the high ups.
These are the old men. Now, who are the others?
Who are the privates? The PFCs, they're seventeen years old,
(23:23):
eighteen years old, they're puppies. Most of these kids most
I shouldn't say kids, they're men. Most of these men
they'd never left home, they'd never been twenty miles from home.
You go sign up, and they all had different reasons.
Everyone had a different story, right, don't ever listen to
some dumb down, simplistic version of history. Everyone on this
(23:46):
side was fighting for this, and everyone on this side
was fighting for that out. Shut up. Everyone had a
different story. Maybe the family needed money. Maybe you didn't
have a family. You were looking for someplace to belong.
Maybe you were looking for adventure, wanted to toughen up,
see what you're made of. Maybe you were all hot
and bothered about slavery and you wanted to free the slaves.
(24:07):
Maybe you loved slavery and you wanted to keep your slaves.
Maybe look that they were all over the place their motivations,
but they were all seventeen eighteen years old, scared to death,
meeting in the woods with bayonets and rifles in their hands. Now,
I'm not going to go over this unit moved here
(24:29):
and this unit moved there. Let's just go over kind
of how it went from there, what it was like.
We have to appreciate how horrific the medical care was
back then. We are and I don't want to say
we're spoiled, that's not the right way to put that.
(24:49):
But when we think about military medical care today, I
will tell you, obviously it's the military. You know, nothing's
going to be wonderful, nothing it is going to be perfect.
But I was so impressed with the medical care, like
in the field medical care and the training our docks
had in the field. Our docks were ready if you
(25:11):
got shot, blown up, if you and if you were hurt.
It was we were always training for how do we
get this guy out of here. It's always part of
your training. It wasn't just killing people. Okay, your buddy's down,
he just had his leg blown off. How are you
going to get him off the battlefield? Okay, you got
to get him to this place. And then there's training
of how to get him to a better place. And
you know, you can picture World War two and these
(25:34):
field hospitals they would set up and okay, let's get
him into this surgery. It we were. We've gotten better
and better and better and better and better over the
decades in medical care, the early especially the early part
of the Civil War. The stories are honestly, it's hell,
(25:54):
it really is. I understand there are a lot of
kids listening right now, So the kids, make sure you
check with your parents before you go looking stuff up
on the internet. Please, but you can go look. You
can go right now and look up pictures, real authentic
pictures from the Civil War of the piles of feet,
(26:15):
the feet, the doctors had sawed off without anesthesia. And
that's if that if the guys that were supposed to
take you out of there even found you in time.
In the very beginning of the war, half the medical
(26:35):
personnel were band members. They had going to grab wounded
guys that were drunk when they're walking around the battlefield.
You did not want to get wounded in the Civil War.
And so knowing that, we'll try. I'll try to wrap
up this story next hang on, I've got on animal
inside On't mean yes, Kelly, you're listening to the Jesse
(26:58):
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Joe on a
Memorial Day, trying to finish up this little Civil War story,
or we're telling here we have more names to read.
I got a World War two naval battle coming next hour,
with some other things. I should also give you a
(27:18):
heads up. Chris and I were trying to figure out
how exactly we wanted to do this today as far
as playing taps goes. We decided we're going to play
taps at the end of every hour. Every hour we'll
end with taps. I just said, how do you do this?
How do you do this the right way? I don't know.
I don't know, doing it the best way we know.
How how do we honor these men? Captain Daniel LEO Notts,
(27:40):
Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas E. Higgins washed off of
a submarine deck. Petty Officer Second Michael J. Holtz also
washed off a submarine deck. Captain Travis Ford Iraqi Freedom
Machinist's mate Joseph Ashley training accident, subcollision Chief Petty Officer
(28:01):
Patrick L. Wade IRAQ Ied, First Lieutenant Weston Lee Mauzzle,
Iraq Ied US Army Captain Scott M. Shimp training accident,
Helo crash. We'll get back to some more of those. Okay,
So the Battle of the Wilderness kicks off and these
men start fighting each other, and they're in the woods,
(28:24):
and there's the woods are so thick and the underbrush
is so thick. And have you ever watched a video?
You probably have seen it, or there have probably been
movies who have depicted this at least somewhat. Have you
ever seen somebody shoot an old muzzleloader before it is wild?
How smoky it gets because you're essentially just putting black powder.
(28:48):
And I know gun nuts, I know I'm making it simple.
You're essentially just putting black powder in a barrel and
lighting it on fire. That's all you're doing. You're creating
an explosion, creating the combustion to force the round out
of the barrel. Right, that's all you're doing. There's so
much smoke that comes with it. Well, this is dry
underbrush in northern Virginia. Everything starts to catch on fire.
(29:10):
The men are fighting each other in the thick woods,
in the thick underbrush. The officers cannot see their own men.
They can't see their flanks. They don't know whether they
need to advance or stay. You can't see the enemy,
you don't know where he is. You start shooting things,
everything that moves. And what happened was the men begin
(29:31):
on both sides. The men begin to go mad. One
reading one quote I read, they call them fiends. It
turned normal, I think it said it turned normal Christian boys.
I'm paraphrasing here into fiends. What happens is when you're
already in combat, you're adrenaline's going through the roof, everything's
going nuts. Fire brings out something different in men. I've
(29:55):
read stories in Vietnam of sog guys green Berea looking
for NVA troops in some big bamboo field, and the
field gets lit on fire, and all of a sudden,
they're running side by side with each other trying to
get out. They're not even fighting each other anymore. That's
what fire does. Fire. Now everything is full of smoke,
(30:16):
everything's on fire. Men are now screaming, men are burning.
And remember what I said about the medical care. It
already wasn't great getting these guys out. Now you've got
wounded men who can't move, laying in the underbrush, watching
as the flames come their way, with no hope for
(30:38):
anything in the world. It is horrific to think what
that must have been like. And as you and me
we sit here on Memorial Day, and I hope, I
sincerely hope you have enjoyed yourself today, enjoyed your family today.
(30:59):
Trust me, the men who fall in for this country
would want that. There's nothing wrong with having a barbecue
and some family time. Take a quick moment and remember them.
But as we as we sit here, I mean I'm
sitting here in the air conditioning. I got a large
cup of coffee sitting beside me. Chris and me just
knocked out some breakfast tacos. Yes, we get those at
night here. It's Texas. Anyway, men seventeen eighteen years old
(31:25):
on both sides burned to death in the woods in
northern Virginia. That's how they lost their lives. It was
I mean, it was so freaking bad the Confederates as
they were trying to retreat. The battle went on for
two days. The Confederates ended up losing. It's a fascinating
little conflict if you want to dig into the details
(31:47):
of it. Essentially, the Union had enough troops to keep
pouring men in and Lee really didn't that the South
was they just didn't have the man power. And after
Lee loses this battle, which he does at the end
of day two, he never gets to launch another offensive operation.
From there, he's on the defense of the rest of
(32:08):
the war. That's it. That this was the turning point
that really put the South on its heels, and from
this it was over. I mean, it was just a
matter of time. Now, I don't want to say it
was over. There were a lot of men who still
had to die still, but from this point on, the
South was not going to win the war unless you
Lincoln lost the election or something. But as the Confederates
are running out, running away, trying to get out of
(32:29):
the woods, they're taking Union troops and this happened on
both sides, I should point out, and propping them up
in front of the trees, using them as human shields
to try to get the Union to stop shooting at them,
and they didn't. So you may have been propped up
in front of the tree and been shot by your
buddy as he's aiming in the Confederates. That is the
(32:52):
Battle of the Wilderness. And look, obviously it's horrible. I
read it because it's horrible. We're gonna move on to
World War two stuff next hour, a naval battle actually
battle of Tsavo Island. But I read this because it's horrible,
because it really hits me, especially on days like today.
(33:12):
It hits me so hard that these men have gone
through such horrible things and lost their lives so early
so we can be free. And I'm so appreciative of it.
You don't have to feel bad if you're one of
the vets out there who lived and your buddies didn't.
You need to let that go. You need to let
it go. But man, today's the day to honor them.
(33:34):
Philip Neil, First Lieutenant Philip Neil Kia, IRAQ, Pfc Boyd
Kimri Kia World War Two, Dennis van Buskirk Vietnam, Harvey A.
Fowler World War Two Europe Corporal Dunk and Charles Crookston, Iraq.
We'll get to more and some World War Two stories
(33:56):
next hour. For now, we're gonna send you off this
hour with taps b b b b b b b
(34:42):
bab
Host
Jesse Kelly
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.