Gettysburg: The Most Important Day?

John Heckman, The Tattooed Historian, joined Joey to talk about the "most important day of the Battle of Gettysburg- The Second Day.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Talking about it's over history, and I am joined this
evening by my friend John Heckman, the tattooed historian, And uh,
this is gonna be kind.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of like the the I guess the third installment. Yeah,
this will be the third installment, third part of our
series on the anniversary of Gettysburg. So by now you've
heard from Melissa Winn about experiencing Gettysburg. You've heard from
Andrew Dalton, the President and CEO of Adams County Historical Society,

(00:59):
about this is the in the town during the battle,
and tonight we're going to talk about really it's the
only battle episode we're doing, because the next thing that
you'll hear it will be from John Tracy about Camp
Letterman in the aftermath. So we've kind of just concentrated
all of our fighting on the single most important day

(01:20):
of the three day fighting. Maybe me too? How's that? John?
I like it? I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's a strong introduction to this.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Think it is the most important day.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I'm going to have to go yes. I'm gonna have
to go yes on July second being the most important
day at least in my opinion from the Union Army's perspective,
it's the most important day.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I mean, it's the only day where you can clearly
say it's not just a strategic or not just a
tactical draw like there is a an overall swing in
the balance. Day one is pretty clearly going in Bobby
Lee's favor. Day two throws things a little bit more,

(02:11):
and then there's the great question of what happens next.
I was gonna do a little intro here from I
would argue probably one of the best books on the
second Day. It's Harry Fans' book. Okay, the Second Day,
just the way he introduces this, July second was a

(02:32):
day when many men of both armies performed deeds of
great valor and made personal sacrifices that were worthy of
the best of their mutual American and European heritage. Much
of this aspect of the battles chronicled below. But even
the greatest of these men were human and made mistakes.
Preparations for the attack and the defense began before dawn.

(02:54):
There were reconnaissances that supplied incomplete information. There was some
indecision and much anxiety. There was misunderstanding, if not in subordination,
and the upper echelons of both armies, and tempers became short.
In addition, there was hard marching, tiresome waiting, and usual skirmishing. Finally,
the Confederate brigades chosen for the assault stood poised to

(03:16):
attack a vulnerable Federal position, and their long delayed advance
began in accordance with the flawed plan. I mean, it's
it's got I think it's the most dramatic of all
three days. And you can say what you want about
pickets charge and like the lead up to it, and
you know there's the is it Faulkner, the the the

(03:40):
poem about every Southern Boy, all these things like that's
all the romance, right, but this has got like an
actual feeling of a real human drama. M H.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
I also love how Fonds points out flaws. There's flaws
and people. There's flaws in the way they conducted themselves,
the way they thought, you know, they were going to
fight that that battle that day. They were flawed individuals
like we are. And I think that really needs to
be underscored a lot in our research, because sometimes we

(04:17):
tend to put people on a pedestal or or something else.
Will look to our ancestors and put them on a pedestal.
Funds comes right out in that quotation and says they're flawed.
They made they made mistakes and and July second, there
were a lot of mistakes made. Obviously because it's a
fluid situation. There are a lot of mistakes made on
the first, there's a lot of mistakes made on the third.

(04:39):
That's not me being a Monday morning quarterback. That's just
battlefield environments. There will be there'll be decisions that were terrible,
and there'll be decisions that were amazing. So yeah, that's
a great way to begin in this episode with that quote.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
So John, I want to ask what kind of your
attachment to get is very And I know you were
constantly kind of there. You were always on the ground
and you know now you're in Canada, but you spent
a lot of time and a lot of energy and
effort in Gettysburg. So what drew you to it.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
I grew up twenty five miles from the battlefield, and
when I was around eight years old, that was the
first time I was on the battlefield. I was actually seven.
My father randomly took me on a visitation with him
to Gettysburg, and just so happened to be the one
hundred and twenty fifth anniversary weekend, And I remember being

(05:38):
on little round Top as a kid and seeing the
ten pounders there at Weeds artillery line and stuff, and
just being enthralled and thinking, why are all these people
so interested in this? And why are these monuments here?
And why are these here? And I just remember being
overwhelmed by it originally. But then when I got to
be about twelve years old, I had I had actually

(06:01):
gotten so into it that I was over there like
every weekend. I beg my grandparents, who really looked after
me as a kid, to to take me over there,
and you know, every weekend I seem to be at
the visitor center and that kind of stuff. So this
has been a thing that has been with me since
I was eight.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Uh ish.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
I started patting at eight because I was a nerd
and and you know, I was a owner. You know,
I don't have a brother or sister, so uh yeah,
it was It's something that stuck with me and and
I have tread many miles over that battlefield and walked
the undulations and over the rocks and stuff to try

(06:45):
to think about what they experienced when we read about
we we duck behind this knoll, or we went we
went behind this pile of rocks, What are they talking about?
What are they thinking? So so it really impacted my life,
and it impacted when I started the Tattooed a Story
in because in twenty fifteen, when I started, what's the

(07:07):
place I can go easiest to go do filming and
introduce people, and let's go to Gettysburg, you know, or
Antietam wasn't that far. But it just really impacted my
life in so many different ways and even impacts my
my scholarship to this day and that I studied Civil
war photography and now I'm studying how we're seeing visuals

(07:29):
in modern day conflicts. So it all goes back to
that battlefield in many ways.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
And that's one of the things that I've really enjoyed
about the series that we've done so far is whenever
guest Bow and I have talked to they've all said
kind of the same thing. You know, I grew up
going to the battlefield, or you know, I've explored it,
you know, fifty sixty times. I go with different tour
groups every summer, and you know, just yesterday or the

(07:58):
day before yesterday, one of our guests and friend of
the show, Evan Portman, put on the Emerging Civil War
blog his you know, kind of childhood memories of going
to Gettysburg, and he said, you know, I don't think
I've ever really lost the interest. The childlike wonder might
be gone, but that's because I've fallen so hard in

(08:21):
love with this battlefield that it's just in my blood now,
and there's like a it's almost like a sense of ownership,
like you've been there so long. And whether that's right
or wrong, I guess that's a debate for another day.
But you feel as though your life is there, and
so you've given a piece to it. I know, I
can certainly say that about a lot of the battlefields

(08:43):
that I've visited over the years, and I feel like
there's a piece of me at Shiloh, there's a piece
of me in Franklin, a piece of me in spring Hill,
a piece of me in Mobile and Alabama and all
these different little places that get the attention. But you know, Gettysburg,
I think occupies such a large chunk of real estate

(09:05):
in the Civil War world. Right. We talked about this
in an earlier episode and an earlier recording is that
it lives in the imagination, and I think so much
of it has to do with some of the myths
that come out of it, right, But then the other
part of it is it is the largest engagement. It's
so well documented. There's so many different accounts from so

(09:26):
many different angles, from so many different units, and it
seems like almost all of them could arrive at the
same conclusion that we did starting out, is that Day
two seems to be a focal point for most of
these accounts. So what's the morning of July second, what's
it shaping out like? Because we know what happens on

(09:46):
the first day. You know, Federal cavalry squares off against
Aphill holds back Confederate infantry assaults all across the town.
Eleventh Corps is sort of routed and pushed in retreat
through the town. There's heavy f in and around this
town in Gettysburg, and then the sun sets. Confederate troops
aren't necessarily moving into defensive positions. They're not capturing critical places,

(10:11):
saying like Colts Hill, Like you said earlier, this is
Monday morning quarterbacking. This is simple fact that they didn't
move on the heights and so then they have to
struggle for these things on the second day fare fair assessment.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, absolutely, you know you have the Confederate perspective of
trying to figure out what the next move is and
where's the weak point on the Federal line and where
can they attack, you know, first or simultaneously. And for
the Union army, I'd say one word describes the morning

(10:46):
of July second. That's consolidation. Everyone's coming quickly to the
battlefield and to figure out where they're going to be
deployed and what's the ground they're going to be on,
what's the ground look like in front of them, what's
the look like behind them? And to be able to
really think about what this line look like, at least

(11:10):
from the Union perspective, is really important because this traditional
thing we always talk about all the Union fishook the Unionficialok.
This goes back to Germany, and Germany had really thought
a lot about different formations and this is a classic
line with interior lines through it. So meat is anchoring
this army in such a way from the heights that

(11:33):
it's it's going to be a blood bath to try
to dislodge it. If you try to do it piecemeal,
and I think for the Confederates, they're thinking, you know,
they have to if they're going to hit, they're going
to have to hit everywhere. And is that going to
happen simultaneously? Is that going to happen, you know, one

(11:53):
part hitting first, one part hitting second. I think that's
what's being considered. On the morning of the second. Lee's
definitely aggressive because he SAWID July one was You're starting
to really see the Union Army though, thinking about the
fact that they are on home turf. I mean, this

(12:14):
is truly home turf. This isn't Maryland eighteen sixty two,
this is Pennsylvania. They are ready for a brawl, and
there's something different about it. There's just something different about
it for the Union Army where they realize they're on
home turf, a Pennsylvania man is leading the army of the Potomac.

(12:35):
There's something bigger about defending this position then we see
in other ones. And I really think that's what it's
about for the Union Army, though here it's just about
consolidating on the morning of the second and figuring out
where the Confederates are going to go, What are they
going to do? And where are they going to attack
if they're going to attack.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
And then through the Confederates, there's a lot of confusion
and even like some fighting and in fighting on the
morning of the second, which I think caters to some
of the maybe the interest, right. We we love stories
where there's some mystique, there's some fighting, there's some you know,

(13:19):
covert kind of backroom dealings, and I think the Confederate
high command is looking a little shaken up on the
morning of the second. And you know, for all of
the work that's been done on Lee and on Longstreet
and their management of the Gettysburg campaign and all these things,
everyone cycles down on July second, because it seems like

(13:42):
that's the day where there's this big break between Lee
and his war horse, the old war horse, in that
Longstreet did not want to fight, there was no interest
on his aspect of fighting, and Lee hands him this
plan to go and launch it all out of assault
on the Federal line. And long Street has no choice

(14:07):
as a soldier now but to follow these orders and
execute them. But would you argue that maybe long Street's
right and Lee is wrong.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
M They'll get me in trouble with a lot of
lead people. I mean, when are we not in trouble
with the selling group.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
True, it's true.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
It's Civil War history. You're going to be in trouble
with somebody along the way. I think I think long
Street has got the right idea. I think he's seeing
what's before him. He understands what's in front of him. Uh,
there's already you know, some people who in the army
who have already said he was kind of slow at
Second Manassas, and so they don't really some people don't

(14:51):
trust him. There's, like you say, there's infighting going on. Now,
you have two new core commanders. You have a lot
of new divisional commanders because the two commanders have had
to move up. So there's a lot of green command
going on at this fight. But the one person who's
not a long Street and obviously Lee, they they've been

(15:13):
in the saddle a while and they know what to expect.
And you know, long Street's just this man. When I
think of a soldier's soldier, one of them is long Street.
He's so good when he's on, he's so good, and
everyone has their off days.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I'm not saying that.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
But man, he's he's got the right idea.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Here.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
He understands that. But look at the position they're in
on that map. If long Street wants to move further
south and possibly turn the Federal Army or get between
the Federal Army and Washington, look at how much ground
you're going to have to cover. Now, if you're mule,
you got to swing way around because you don't have

(15:56):
interior lines, right. But I think blonk Street's idea is
pretty good, like he sees what's before him and understands
what the long term goal may be, or at least
putting pressure on the Federal Army a little bit more.
But Lee's coming off of grand victory on the first

(16:17):
of July and he's pushed them back several miles and
pushed them through town. And so you know, when you
have that aggressive spirit going and you have audacity, it's
no wonder that Lee shows what he did.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
In my opinion, and that's one of my my go
to is when we look at the Civil War and
people criticize aggressive commanders, He's like, well, you know, you
only criticize them for being aggressive when it doesn't work.
It's there's only one person that gets away with being

(16:53):
aggressive and never being criticized, and it's lee well until recently,
which is good because at least there's some balance and
there's some fairness in the field now. But people criticize
Meed for not being aggressive enough on the in the
aftermath of Gettysburg and pursuing, people criticize long Street for

(17:16):
not being aggressive enough and attacking all out on the
second day. But he does eventually. Now, I like what
Carlton Smith, the Park Service says. You know, lawn Street
wasn't slow, long Street was deliberate. I think that's that's
probably the best way to sum up his performance on

(17:37):
the morning of the second is he's got to move
in a position. Then all of a sudden he gets
a real wrench thrown in his plans when the Third
Corps or the Army of the Potomac and the command
General Dan Sickles shows up and they're almost a half
mile in front of the entire rest of the Federal line,
holding out on these heights near Emmitsburg Road, near the

(17:59):
Schurfey Farm, down towards the Wind's Fire Wheat Field. All
the places that you hear about and that you see,
Stickles is just there sticking out like a thumb, and
that's a whole core of infantry and artillery and a
lot of guns. A lot of guns are brought up there.

(18:20):
That's all of cables, guns, all of Freeman mcgilvery. You know,
you know it's saying something when Major General Henry Hunt
is looking to consolidate his command and he's got to
go out there to find all of his guns.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, hunts my guy.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
But I grew up.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
I grew up firing Civil War artillery, so obviously I'm
gonna like Hunt. But it also means when I would
go to Gettysburg, I saw how beautiful that plateau was
at the peach Orcher for artillery. It's like when you
go to the hill overlooking the Dunker Church at Antietam.

(18:57):
That artillery plateau that's there is just beautiful. But that
also means everyone can see you. You know, you got
a good arty plateau, Everyone is going to see you.
And the peach Orchard is that way. It's it's an
amazing position. But I don't believe they really realize the

(19:22):
length of the Confederate line. Once Long Street completes the countermarch.
Now Long Street is far to the left of Sickles
and Sickles is only understanding. I believe at the time,
he's only understanding there's some firing going on around the
Pitser Woods area. It's off to his front and right.
He doesn't really you know, that's all he's heard from reports.

(19:44):
He doesn't really know obviously what's going on behind that
ridge and Long Street moving into position with Hood and
mclaus and obviously now he's in a different position, not
physically but on paper than he was when he deployed.
I think, you know, I try. I try to give

(20:08):
Sickles the benefit of the doubt. I really try. I'm like, hey,
if you were to put me in front of little
roundtop at the bottom of How's Ridge and said you
need to hold this valley, I'd say absolutely not, because
all he got to do is pop up the ridge
in front of me, and now we are, we're exposed

(20:28):
and trouble. His only way to kind of figure this
whole thing out was to advance. Where's it going to
deploy his artillery back that far? It's all rocky other
than the ones you see a devil's den. Where else
you're going to deploy your already? H I can't blame

(20:50):
him for the move forward. Now, hindsight's a wonderful thing,
as we've been saying. But Longstreet tells him him later
that he was basically a thorn in his side for
a little while because he was supposed to come up
the Emmittsburg Road. Well, who's now sitting on the Emmitsburg Road.
It's Dan Sickles.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about because you just mentioned
something and I know that we realized we hadn't talked
about it at all. Longstreet's counter march. What happens with that?
Because this is the thing that everybody says, this is
the slowness, this is the indecision, this is long Street.
I've actually heard a historian, a licensed battlefield guide, and

(21:32):
a park ranger all three people use almost the exact
same expression that Longstreet was dragging his feet or my favorite,
throwing his toys and stomping his feet about making this attack.
And that's why he takes so long on the counter march.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
It sounds like the influence of the Lost Cause narrative
to me. You know, I think we need to move
on from that.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Boys.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
I would love to see people who think that way
try to move what thirty thousand men.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
I can't remember of infantry.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, you're you're talking, you know, I mean, we have
three corps here, so you're you're moving a whole core,
and you're moving them one direction, and then you figure
out you could be spotted and you have to turn
around and go back. And I wish people understood the
logistical issue with doing this. This isn't a reenactment field. Yeah,

(22:33):
there's a lot going on when you have to turn
a core around. This is a logistical nightmare. It takes time.
I think there's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going
on with some people where they think, oh, you could
you could counter march like we did at the one
hundred and fiftieth reenact.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
You could know, you can simply halt them and have
them all turned around and march back down the road.
But then you run into the problem and this is
a failure. I think to understand linear tactics and the
ways that armies function in march in the Civil War
is that everything is about alignment and whether or not
you're inverted, and if your backwards in your formation, none

(23:14):
of your movements work. You can't wheel properly, you can't
change your faces. You can't turn if you're facing the
wrong direction. So to just say, oh, they should have
just turned around and march back, and what have mcclaus's
division entirely backwards right, with everyone facing a the wrong way.

(23:38):
And then somehow you have to find a way to
move them back into positions so that when you deploy
them they can actually be of some use. That would
take more time than Longstreet simply turning the entire core
in a countermarch back the other way. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, And then you have men who thought they were
going to go in first in this direction, now going last.
And then and then there's all these people now who
have who will say, well, this commanding officer doesn't know
how to do this or they don't know how to
do that. They have these things pop up again because
they're like, well, obviously we're getting turned around. We're going

(24:15):
to be the last in morale drops. People start dragging
their feet. That's not Longstreet's fault. That's that's war everybody.
It doesn't work out sometimes, And to have the position
scouted ahead of time like they did, and they were
supposed to know where to go, and they had scouts

(24:37):
go out the morning of the second down along the
far left of the Union line, at least as close
as they thought they could get to them, to know
where they were supposed to go, and then to find out, well,
now we can be seen because there's some people on
little round top, you know, signal corps up there.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Game change.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Now we got to do this a different way.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, mentioned a core of infantry with multiple artillery batteries
facing him.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Now yeah, yeah, and they're deploying or they have been
deployed in certain spots. And now what do you do
because now you are in not a line of battle.
You are you are bunched up, and you are all
marching and you just can't go left face. Let's get them,
you know, that's not how it works. Yeah, it's I've

(25:30):
talked with many people about that. They many of us
don't understand what that would have been like to move
tens of thousands of people in nineteenth century linear tactics
and do it. I'd say, just in a couple hours,
you know, a few hours until you get down there
and get back go around do this. That's not an

(25:53):
easy thing to do. And to say he was dragging
his feet, why would he drag his feet because he
doesn't want to do it. Well, the enemy is fortifying
their position, So you're telling me he wants more of
his men to get killed. That doesn't make sense, Which
makes no sense? Ye, no, Yeah, so he lives. Longstreet

(26:14):
finally is ready to attack and he's in position. He's
got mcclaws and he's got Hood. Now, I think listeners
of the show will know that I've spent a lot
of my life dealing with John Bellhood. So we're gonna
spare anyone that. Right, Let's just say they're a crack division.
They're good soldiers, they're tough, they're hard fighters. Next to them, though,

(26:39):
Lafayete mcclau's.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Division, and I would say that they're just as good,
especially when you get down to men like William Barksdale
on his brigade, or William Wafford and his Georgians and
Rock Benning and his Georgia's. Like, you've got a real
thrust of power with these two divisions. So when Longstreet
unleashes them, Sickles knows what's coming his way. And I

(27:04):
want to go back to something you said, you know
about giving Sickles the benefit of the doubt when we
were kind of talking about this in our group chat,
think about what we're going to talk about, what we're
gonna hit on. One of the things that you pointed
out is, you know, there's cavalry that should have been
where Sickles was right. They had been there from the
first day. They had been deployed kind of his pickets,

(27:27):
but they've taken off now. So when Sickles goes out
there that morning, it's because there's no one else in front.
So I give him the benefit of the doubt on
two things. I'm not going to call myself a Dan
Sickles apologies, not yet yet. One day, one day, maybe
I could be converted. But Sickles goes out there because

(27:49):
someone needs to be able to see beyond the Emmitsburg Road,
So why not move a whole core. That's that's a
part of it. I get that. The other piece of
it that I tend to side with him on is that,
like you're saying, it's very difficult to try and defend
a piece of low ground, especially when you've got this,

(28:12):
as you've described, a beautiful ridgeline right in front of you.
So I think what we'll do is we'll take a
quick commercial break and we'll come right back and kind
of get into some of what happens in this I
would say decisive action. Has that be a good plug
for it, John, this is a decisive action near the wheatfield.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Oh yeah, I would say that the peach orchard wheatfield
is a decisive action in this, in this day, and
possibly in the entire campaign.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
So we'll see you. We'll see you back in about
two minutes.

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Hello, that's the first time I've made that work in
the show. I like it, like it's very professional. I'm
very ahead and pat for that. We were talking about
the most.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Decisive action of the second day. Let's let's go ahead
really over sell it here, John, the most decisive action
in the history of American worker.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Let's not kill that fun. I mean, you know, there's
a few other I could I could bring up, but
not for this particular episode. This is a decisive moment though,
on July second, eighteen sixty three. It's and like I say,
I would go so far as say it's one of
the most decisive moments in the campaign.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Mhm.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
That's why I always started towards at the peach orchard,
because I was like, lay of the land, here's where,
here's where we are. But that man that mcclaus, guys
like you were saying they don't get enough credit or
for what they had to do to cross that field.

(32:37):
When you when you stand where they started and you
look above you, because it is above you. It's a
rise in front of you through the Emmitsburg Road. The
peach orchard is on a rise, the Surphey farm is
on a rise. When you look at that and you think, okay,
I have to cross that ground up uphill and attack

(33:02):
guys who are now behind felled rails because torn down
the rails of the fence and are now behind that.
So it's it's a good position. You have to wonder
what went through their heads because from an artilleryment standpoint
where they start from is point blank yeah, yard near

(33:24):
and it's like, there's no way you would miss when
they come out of those woods.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
And if you've got those guns that are over near
the Schurfy farm, and I can see if I can't
pull up a better map, but when you've got artillery
batteries right near the Schurfy farm positioned along the Emmitsburg Road,
all they need to do is pull the lanyard and
they're not going to miss. They will hit something right.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
That is such a strong position. So this is why
I say I can't blame Sickles for everything that's going wrong.
On July second, does it throw the battle plan off
for George Meade absolutely is it throws things to the
wind and who knows what's going to happen. Hancock is

(34:12):
kind of like, I don't know what the hell that
guy's doing, you know, and the career military manner, like
I have no idea why he do that. But maybe
you need a little bit of eccentricity. Maybe you need
that politician to get out there and see what the
heck is going to happen here. But he knows high ground,
and from mcclau's perspective and mcclaw's men who are going

(34:34):
to be coming across there, like Barksdales men, et cetera,
that's a pretty formidable position. This isn't just a cake walk.
I think too many times old documentaries and some other
people believe that they just swept the field immediately. This
is a long drawn out struggle.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
I be this field. Yeah, I think this is a
little bit a better of a map. But I mean,
you think about marching against regular killery batteries with rifled guns.
You've got a bunch of smooth bore guns which are
great at firing canister and all of that is going
to be directed right towards you, especially if you're the

(35:11):
front rank. So Joseph Kershaw's brigade wait and Barkdale's brigade,
and then of course Kershaw's men get all kinds of
tangled up because of confusion amidst orders. So a portion
of his brigade swings one direction. The rest of them
march off into right into our artillery battery fire with
their flanks exposed. And then you've got barksdalesmen who just

(35:31):
slam into that shurfy farm area. And I would put
the fighting that unfolds there in some of the bloodiest,
hardest fought moments of the American Civil War. I mean
the accounts of the up close hand to hand struggle
that breaks out in the Peach Orchard and adjacent to
the Peach Orchard along the Mitsburg Road. It makes what

(35:54):
happens at the Angle the very next day almost look tawdry.
It looks so much smaller in scope when you compare
it to this.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Yeah, definitely that what we see at the Angle on
the third day is, as far as hand to hand
combat and things like that, is a lot quicker.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Than what happens here.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
And remember these are Pennsylvania boys. Holding the line here
on Pennsylvania soil. They're not going to give it up,
and they're taking it personal. So when you walk that
line along the Emmitsburg Road and you're basically standing where
this amazing painting is, you can see how much of

(36:39):
a rise you're on, then you have to take into
account that people are coming at you up that rise
and you're firing down on them. There's a lot happening
there where. If you don't walk the field, you may
not realize what it actually looks like. And I say
this for everybody you ever study military history or anything

(37:03):
like that, do the best you can to get to
the battlefield. It doesn't matter it Jettysburg, it doesn't matter
if it's Vicksburg, whatever, you know, Saratoga, go and walk
the field. Because when we read their accounts of what
happened around the Shechurfy Barn in the Churfy Farm, you
can think about it and you can try to visualize it,

(37:25):
but getting out of your vehicle and walking that ground
is truly a remarkable thing because that's when the connection starts.
Where you're like, there's that depression in the ground they
talked about, there's where they first took fire. There's where
they held the line, there's where they broke And walking
around the Churfy farm is one of my favorite things

(37:47):
to do because there are little pockets of history there
where you see it in the topography where the soldiers
talked about what we advanced to this depression in the
ground and that's where we first met the rebels. Well,
if you go back where this painting is, if you
go behind the house, you'll see the depression where it was,

(38:08):
and you wouldn't know it if you never got out
of your car. I love those kinds of moments. And
Day two around the peach orchard and the wheat field,
that's one of those times where it really hit me
about topography and sickles men talk about it a lot
because they're saying, we're in amongst rocks, We're in these depressions,

(38:31):
these hollows, these things, and to think about what happened
here with Barksdales men coming across there and meeting these
amazing Zwalves who are in this depression behind the Shurfey
house originally and get pushed back. It's an amazing story.
But like you say, it's so personal and it's so

(38:52):
upfront and right in your face.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's incredible. I think some once Barkfield's men clear this
area around Shurpy, all of a sudden it seems like this,
there's like this, this break within the federal line where
one unit runs and then all of a sudden, you know,
you see the one hundred and fourteenth Pennsylvania go so
then all of a sudden, the rest of the regiments

(39:15):
start to break all along the line. The guns are
very quickly being captured, and Barksdale's men are closing across
the Emmitsburg Road, and for just a second it looks
like Longstreet and lee. They may end up turning up
the Emmitsburg Road. But this attack, because of the ground

(39:37):
that they've had to cover, because of the fighting that
they've already been involved in, has taken away so much
of the muscle of this of the assaulting force. I mean,
you think about it. Already, Barksdale himself is probably wounded
in on the ground by the time they cross over
the Emmitsburg Road. He's been shot to pieces, you know,
a shelf fragment here, a bullet to the chest. You know,

(40:00):
he's no better off than when he started. Right, You've
got his command is kind of falling apart. There's not
the punch anymore. So then you know, the next wave
of the Confederate assault comes forward and it's kind of steinied,
and it seems as though they're losing their momentum. And

(40:22):
I think a lot of this has to do with
what's happening with the artillery batteries, the Federal artillery batteries.
I've been thinking about this piece and thinking about writing
this story, is like, you know, who is the hero
on the second day, And I mean, for my money,
I'd say it's Lieutenant Colonel Freeman mcgilvory for his action

(40:46):
that he takes on the afternoon of the second to
try and get all of his guns safely off the
field and redeployed to try and stop this assault. I mean,
you look at the Massachusetts battery that gets kind of
in the live as they make their way off the field.
And yet the Federal gunners are the men that are

(41:07):
actually going to end up being this kind of blocking
force to slow down the Confederate assault. Uh. And then
we've got what's happening on each side of where a
Humphrey's Division had been. You know, we haven't even talked about,
talked about the other place. We haven't even haven't even
mentioned this, you know, we're still talking about the.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Right right, and and and Barnsdales are excuse me, mclauses
attack is it is powerful also because it hits the
weakest part of Sickles line. It overlaps that point in
the line, and where are they most vulnerable at that point?
And if you can collapse that point, it's game over.

(41:50):
And guess what the point collapses. The corner of the
line collapses, and it's like opening a funnel and that's
and that's it. They're they're all breaking. It's like what
they would say is that it was like rolling up
a wet blanket.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
But then you know the benefit here, though, if you're
in the Army of the Potomac, is that there's a
whole other core of infantry that's still coming onto the field. Right,
And you mentioned it earlier talking about the fish Hook.
You've got great interior lines, so you've got this weak
spot where Sickles is, well, you simply borrow from someone

(42:25):
else and plug them into the line. And that's what's happening.
A little bit further off from where Barksdale's men are
hitting the line. You know, you've got Ambrose Rights Brigade,
and you've got the Confederates with David Lang charging across
the field there and that's all third core ap Hills guys.
But it's almost as if Winfield's got Hancockers over there,

(42:48):
a big borrowing and stealing any unit he can find
and just throwing them across the field, throwing them to
try and basically just put a stop gap. But one
of the things I I've it just continues to confound me.
And we can talk about this if you want for
a minute, is you know, we talk about sickles as
the line being so far forward now it's a disaster

(43:10):
and all these things. Well, if you look at where
he ends up again at the end of the day,
it's almost like the Federal Army is no better, no worse,
because he falls back effectively to his original position.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah, I mean, like like you said, you gave a
nod to the artillery. Uh, the artillery are checking this
advance hardcore. I mean they're they're they're retreating by prolong
they are they are firing and the recoil is how
far the gun's going to go back, And they're loading
it at the same time as you know, it's rolling

(43:49):
or it's stopping, and and they're and they're firing into retreat,
which all of them were trained to do and did
a fantastic job. You mentioned the Ninth Mass Chiefs Battery.
I love reading about those guys so much because this
is their first battle, and imagine this being your first battle.

(44:11):
There were guys in that is.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
The largest land engagement in ministry.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Right right right, yeah, yeah, home by Christmas. They said
there were there were guys in the unit who are
at least in the ar Tory line who said that
they could see, uh, the enemy reaching for the guns
as they pulled the lanyards. That's how close these guys are. Now,

(44:40):
imagine the guts that it would take to stand there
knowing that they are on top of you and you're
pulling the lanyard in your retreating and that fifteen twenty
feet buys you a little bit more time until they
slap that line shut and keep coming, and then by
that time you've got our double canister in there and

(45:01):
you are firing and other around. I think we concentrate
so much on the infantry attack and the infantry defense
that sometimes we forget how important the artillery is at
this point. And that's not just because I have this,
you know, passion for civil war ar Tory. It's because

(45:23):
they do a damn good job. They do a hell
of a job. Hunt Hunt does an amazing job here.
But I think about those guys in the ninth so
much because I'm like, they've been in Washington, d c.
For months and months and months, and now they are
committed to the Reserve artry and they're being deployed out

(45:44):
there and this is their first action. And look at
everything they lost, you know, and the casualties that they inflict,
not just what they take, but what they inflict is countless.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
That's what I was going to say, is, you know,
you think about the assaulting force that Barksdale goes in with.
He's got what four or five regiments under his command,
and save for the twenty first Mississippi under Benjamin Humphries,
the majority of his regiments are eaten up by the artillery.
You know, they try and turn and start to move

(46:18):
away from it, but when they do that, all they
do is expose their flank to it, so they're raked
by artillery fire. Kershaw's men moving through the peach orchard.
You know that is just artillery hell if you're an infantryman,
because you're just taking round after round after round from them.
And then yeah, and then you move down into the

(46:40):
wheat field, you move down into the area near the
Rose Farm where now Hood's division is assaulting. Hood, of
course is wounded over closer towards like the Slider Farm area.
But then you've got Evander Law taking command of the division.
Maybe who knows, he doesn't really know for a little
while that Hood's out of action. But you've still got

(47:01):
Robertson's Brigade, and and and Laws Brigade, Alabama's Texans Arkansas
troops all hitting the works, Rock Bennings Brigade hitting the works. Uh,
You've got all these troops piling in through Devil's Down
across Hopped Ridge and starting to make their way up
towards the roundtops. And I think we pay so much
attention to that piece of the action that we forget

(47:25):
about what happens lower down on the ground near the
road near the Rose Farm. Uh, that infantry fighting in
the wheat field, at the triangular field, that whole area.
Hobart awards men the way that they just absorbed the casualties,
slowing down, slowing down Hood's advance. I mean, when you

(47:46):
read some of the accounts, not only riveting, but there's
a little piece of you that almost, you know, it
kind of aches for them in a way.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, it's it's it's incredible. This is why I think
July second is the most important, because the action at
least on the far left of the Union line the
far right of the Confederate line, is consistent. It is
a constant brawl. When things get rolling, it is a

(48:20):
constant brawl. And the Federal Army has been able to
you know, basically stymy the attack along the road at
least by being in a position that the Confederates didn't
think they were going to be in. And then when
Hoods men are swinging around and trying to find that flank.

(48:44):
Is just an incredible thing to think about, because your
commanding officer, if you're in Hood's division, your colonel, your brigadier, whoever,
you have no idea where the Federal flank is, and
you're going out there and trying to find it and
trying to move around and trying to turn their flank.

(49:07):
It's just something that. I don't think people really realize
how emotional and uh, how barbaric men could be towards
each other in this fight. I think too often we
allow movies and and the battlefield itself to kind of

(49:29):
erase this nature of war from our psyche. Maybe Wafford's
brigade coming across the road then behind Barksdale, maybe they're
slow because there's so many dead bodies. Yeah, they got
to They gotta meander through the detritus of battle, and
that slows people down. People at Devil's Den are being

(49:51):
slowed down because there was an regiment in front of
them and they have to get around the fallen And.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Not to mention the kind of flow of wounded men
and shattered regiments fleeing off the field. That's going to
slow your advance too.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah, yeah, and and yeah, these these armies are are
starting to be I always get in trouble with some
people by saying this, but but it's true. These armies
are starting to get to be hardened killers. They're starting
to know how to if they're not green, if this
isn't a green unit. Uh, They're starting to understand what

(50:28):
that musket can do. They're starting to understand what that
artillery can really do and are we seeing that at
this time? Because for the Union Army at least, this
is such a personal fight on their home ground. For
the Confederate Army, they're thinking this could be it, we
could we could end it. So both sides are really

(50:52):
coming together in this you know, hardened way of war
and passionate way of war. None no good way, like
like this is a passionate brawl. They have something to
lose here, And does that make this fight more personal
for memory because of that?

Speaker 2 (51:12):
You know, and that he does. I mean, when you're
able to lock into these accounts and we were talking
about it a couple of minutes ago. We're talking about
long Street and you know whether or not he stomps
his feet and all these things. I mean, just that
story alone, and this idea that you have lieutenant general,
a core commander arguing with his boss and disobeying orders

(51:36):
because he's upset with his orders. All these things that
is immediately grabbed upon. You know. I was giving a
talk last week about the eighteen seventy four Canal Street Coup,
where James Longstreet commands an integrated police force against a
white supremacist militia. And one of the great quotes that

(51:58):
I came across in my reading for this was it
was an article an essay called the Day Long Street
Lost Gettysburg September fourteenth, eighteen seventy four, and is the
battle livery place in Canal Street is like when did
he lose the war? The day that he was no

(52:20):
longer a Confederate general and was then a Republican, then
a reconstruction, reconstructions. But he's becomes a scapegoat in this
sense that well did why did me? And why did
the Confederates lose? It? Get it? Well, it's Long Street
and that has informed so many people's understanding of the battle.

(52:45):
I mean, you think about the movie, even it's so
informed by that understanding of Longstreet League, even if sometimes sympathetic,
it still makes it very clear that long Street is
clearly the bad guy. Lee is. You know, he never
did anything wrong and he was never wrong, and it's
just it was just for long Street and lack a

(53:07):
try and that they didn't work. And then you have
a character like Dan Sickles involved on the other side
of it. You know, it makes it easy to turn
this into well you know, he was just a you know,
a politician. He didn't know what he was doing, and
it gives political generals then a bad name. So anytime
you have a politician who's in command of an army,

(53:31):
people throughout historiography and today, when you come to talk
about politically appointed officers, they go, oh, well, you know
he was he didn't know what he was doing. He
was just a politician. You know, I would dig a
different There's some damn fine political officers that go into
the army in sixty one, you know, John Logan being

(53:52):
like the buying example of a great soldier. But even
someone you know, as much of a thorn in the
side as he can be for just about everyone. Nathaniel
Banks performed pretty well in Louisiana and the Red River campaigns.
I would also put into discussion Benjamin Bomber, but you
know whatever, Yeah, but you can't just throw the baby

(54:15):
out with the bath water. But that I think, because
of what unfolds between Long Street and Sickles on the
second day, that informs our understanding of the first, the second,
and the third days. And if Gettysburg is the biggest, baddest, mediest,
juiciest steak, in Civil War history. Well, then clearly that

(54:37):
also informs how we think of the Civil War and
also thinks about how we also reflects on how we
think about the war today. Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah,
it definitely does. I mean where we are, we see
passions run high when we talk about this kind of stuff. Right,
people take it personal, even though we weren't there, people

(54:58):
take it personal. I had to answer sers who fought
it at Gettysburg, and uh, I don't think they get
enough credit. But that's just me.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Uh, that's personal. It's it's we are so amped up, though,
I think, to not only study what they did, but
to have an opinion all the time of what they did.
And I think that's the flaw. I think the flaw
is we tend to think that if we don't have
an opinion based upon everything they did, we're missing out

(55:31):
on the argument or whatever it is. And some people
in the post Civil War period felt the same way
about I need to have an opinion of what happened
at Gettysburg with Longstreet, and I.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Can use the National Tribune and right, this isn't this
isn't anything new.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
What's new is we're so connected now that we can, right,
you don't have to have a subscription to the National
Review or whatever whatever it may be. That's that's where
you really start to see memory existing in these different ways.
So we think about Gettysburg in different ways maybe than
another battle, and a lot of it is also based

(56:12):
on casualty numbers. When you look at it, they're like, oh,
this battle must have been more important because more people
died there, and it's like, well, that's not really true.
Although we are being kind of hypocritical in that point,
because we were saying that July second was the most
important day of Gettysburg and it is by far the
deadliest day of Gettysburg.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
So that conclusion without thinking about casualty, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
I don't think about it. I don't think about casualty numbers.
When I think about most important moments of or turning
points or whatever else, I never think about casually numbers.
I think about other things. It just so happens with
this one. It does link up, you know where it
is the bloodiest day of the battle.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Mm hmmmm hmm. I think we've done a fair service
to the second day. I think I think it's finally
going to get its light here.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
I do want to say one thing though, Okay, one thing.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Well, we still have bou Hicky and what's in your cup?

Speaker 3 (57:15):
So well, I just I just want to say I
had an ancestry who fought at culps Hill.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Oh, we didn't even talk about Coulps Hill.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
I haven't talked about coulps Hill and h But the
thing was he was at coulps Hill and then they
said there's trouble at the Troussel Barn. Can you go
down that way and be deployed down that way? So
the U So, yeah, you have the colps Hill thing
going on. But again the interior lines come into play.
People are being taken from colps Hill and old General

(57:45):
Green is still holding the line at coulps Hill. Everyone
else has kind of been well not everyone else, but
most of others have been deployed down to the this
end of the battlefield because of Barksdale's breakthrough, because of Wallford.
And this comes into play though with the positions on
July third on culps Hill. Got to give plenty of
love to culps Hill because it never really got enough

(58:09):
and it still doesn't get enough, and that there is
a whole other brawl.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Yeah, I mean that's another hour at least. Yeah. Yeah,
we started with a quote from Harry Fans. I think
we finish our discussion. We'll jump into some Boohicky and
some other stuff here into a second. But I think
the way he ends is perfect. General Lee's opportunity to
win a decisive victory Gettysberg had all but passed when

(58:37):
complete success had eluded his attacking divisions on the afternoon
and evening of the second of July. We still hoped
for ultimate success on July third, that hope would rest
with pickets charge. I mean, you talk about setting somebody
up to buy your third volume on that's good authorship.

(58:58):
I mean.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
I might argue with fonts, I mean, come on.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
But uh, you know, with something so epic and something
so grand as the Second Day, and I mean grand
and just in terms of scale, Uh, and as much
as it's been written about there, there has to be
some Boo Hickey involved in John. You're a friend of
the show. You know what boo Hicky is. And I
can't explain it nearly the way that Bow is. I'm

(59:24):
really missing having him here right now. But uh, what's
the biggest piece of Boo Hickey that goes with the
Second Day.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Oh man, hmm, the biggest piece of Boo Hickey. So
so I want you to to describe this to me
in a new way. We don't have bow here to
do this. I want I want your take on your
description of Boo Hickey, because I've heard Bo's. I want

(59:56):
to hear yours.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
I think it's just just a trashy ryanstone covered myth.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
I like rhyanstone covered myth. I like that, man, else
you wouldn't pay any attention to it, a rhinestone covered
myth about the Second Day at Gettysburg.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
I mean, I can give you mine because I've been
thinking about it for a couple of hours.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, I've had this sprung on me and I have
like three So I want to hear yours, and I
won't pick that one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
I mean, it has a lot to do with this picture.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Damn it. Why'd you say that? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
It's I think it's because it goes back to our
talk about historical memory, right, right, people attach the Second
Day to Little Roundtop and Little Roundtop alone. And if
you're talking about Little Roundtop, it's just Joshua Chamberlain and
like five guys in the twentieth Maine and in the

(01:00:58):
rest of the war is fought and won by them,
you know, depending who you read, what you watch, and
where you visit at the battlefield, and what history you
take in and what Civil War Facebook pages you follow,
which if I can give a shout out real quick
to our friend Sarah and the never Call Retreat Civil

(01:01:21):
War page, Sarah does a great job of keeping up
that page and kind of bunker busting Bouhicky all on
her own. And I know she's a listener of the show,
so good on her. But you know, you think about
what happens across the rest of the battlefield on July second,
and because you get Chamberlain's memoirs, which are well written,

(01:01:44):
and you get good pr for chamber on On in the
twentieth main this becomes it and nobody thinks anything of
the New Yorkers or the Pennsylvanians that were next to
him and stretching back towards Devil's Den, who were likewise bloodied,
likewise assaulted. Yeah, so I guess that would be my

(01:02:06):
boo Hicky is maybe take the emphasis off of just
a little roundtop and move it literally anywhere else.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Yeah, I'm in total agreement with that. And I remember
when I was a kid that first kind of visit
in nineteen eighty eight. I remember that there were so
many people who were surrounding the Warren statue out there
because Governor Warren was still the hero of Little round

(01:02:38):
Time right right, the movie and the ken Burn series.
It wasn't until the movie and all this sort of
stuff came out here we see historical memory changing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Now. I say all of this as the kid who
when I went to Gettysburg, I had to have a
blue CAPI I had to have a blue sack coat
and a sword, and I of course ran down the
front of a little round top with my sword, like
you know who. I mean, I think you have to
do that. It's right of passage.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's popular culture one oh one right.
I mean, it's gonna make you want to do these things.
It's why people go to see where Easy Company of
the Bandon Brothers was in the Ardent. I mean that's
they want to go to best Own because this. People
want to go to Gaysburg because of this, and or
at least talk about July second because of this. I

(01:03:35):
am in total agreement with you, and I'm not using
it as a cop out, because this has been the
thing that's been sticking in my crawl for a long time,
is that people think that, you know, Chamberlain was the
hero of the Union Line on July second. There were
a lot of Chamberlains on that field. And there were
a lot of people who did not get in the
papers because they were dead, or they couldn't write their memoirs,

(01:04:00):
they couldn't go back home. There were a lot of
unknown Chamberlains are too often overlooked. And I really am
passionate about that, and I stand on that. On that ground,
I I you know, I stand firm on that ground.
That's my pun for for the twentieth Maine's good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
That's good. I think about. There's a I can't remember
what podcast it was. It might have been addressing Gettysburg
where maybe it was Lewis Trott, one of the guides,
was talking about how you know, when he first started
guiding the it was the first Minnesota, First Minnesota, that

(01:04:48):
first Minnesota, that first Minnesota. Here, first Minnesota is great,
and all of a sudden the movie came out like
the first Minnesota. All of a sudden was like the
who you want to go see? Where? Why would you
go see that? Go see the twentieth Maine. That's so
much cooler.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Yeah, yeah, and or or we were we were talking about, uh,
not to go off July second, but we were talking
about like the Iron Brigade, yea, more than anything else.
It was John Reynolds and the Iron Brigade and stuff,
and thank god people still think about that. But that
that was like the heavy hitters. It was Reynolds, it
was Warren and Hancock. Yeah, and uh, we're totally forgetting

(01:05:26):
the commanding Officer of the Army of the Potomac, you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Know, George Meadana. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Uh, I've often said that it's everyone wrote books about
why did we lose Gettysburg, and they weren't writing books about,
you know, how did mead wing Gettysburg? Right, that's what
we need to be talking about. And uh, but I'm
a Pennsylvania boy like him, so I'm kind of biased.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Hey, So at least Kent Brown finally did it meet
at Gettysburg. And it's a great book.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
Yes, And and Jen Murray's book is going to be
coming out relatively soon. I hope I think it's I
think it's Yeah, I believe it's July.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I believe.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Don't quote me on that, but I believe so.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
So Tim. Yeah, absolutely, it's good for book sales.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
I am really looking forward to that because I've often
thought that Meade was never got his just due. I
can't mentioned some Brown did a fantastic job defending him
with the Retreat. I'm looking forward to seeing what what
Jen Murray has to say, obviously about him, because you know,
I've been talking to Jen for a long time and

(01:06:36):
it's time for this book to come out, and she'll
be happy when it's done. But I am in total
agreement with you about Little Roundtop. And you know the
other the one thing I will throw in as far
as bu Hicky is everyone thinks they could put artillery
on Little Roundtop and like fire down their union line.
I'm like, please go look at this, you know, yeah, yeah,

(01:06:59):
Oates was a little bit wrong about that one. So yeah,
that a lot of the boo Hickey of the second
day Gettysburg you can find it on Little round Top.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
And now it's time for a staple of homeber history.
And now John, you and I bring something special to
the table and that neither of us drink. So I
know it's great, isn't it. What do you have in
your cup?

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Well? You know, I thought I would do something a
little different. I remember previous times on this this podcast
where you and Bo would have something to drink when
you were still drinking and and he was drinking obviously too,
and I'm like, I'll do something a little different and
try to fit in a little bit. So I had

(01:07:42):
root beer a W Canadian A and W root Beer.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
An W is a supreme root beer.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
It is a supreme root beer. We still have plenty
of A and W burger joints up here from you know,
you can come in here and get a nice frosted
mug of an W root beer with your burgers and fries.
And yeah, so I'm a big A n W root
beer guy, and I would love to know what are
you drinking tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Uh So, in keeping with my being very boring, right,
I'm having a Topo Chico. Topo Chico saboris very nice.
This is the raspberry and lemon flavor. Now, I would
be a bad Louisiana And if I didn't argue that
there is a better root beer in Barks root beer

(01:08:34):
because Barks has bite. So I must I must say that. Okay,
I like, not a sponsor, and at least neither of
us are drinking mug. That's the wind, that's all. The
lug is just terrible, don't don't. Yeah, I see it
on the shelf. I'm like, who is keeping them in business?

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
I have no idea, but it's probably someone who lames
Long Street for being slow.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
You know, age demographic of people I see drinking mug.
You're probably not wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
I'm telling you. I'm telling you. I'm not wanting to
make generalizations, but there's something there. There's something there. You know,
the people who miss drinking a Coca Cola at the
pharmacy counter, those are the people who are drinking mug
and complaining about James long Street.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Yeah, they can't drink at the Coca cola counter, so
they switch to a pepsi product. And that's what's keeping
Mug in business, is that they're lying on the pepsi model.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Yeah, exactly. So that's your that's your message for this
evening from me. Everybody be a new age outlaw. Don't
let don't let the Long Street haters ruin it for
you and don't drink mug. Don't drink mug. You've made
it her first folks. That's right, John, this has been
a pleasure. We hope everyone has enjoyed this kind of

(01:10:00):
four parter on Gettysburg.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Remember, if you're a listener, you get all of these
all at once. So if you finally made it to
the end of this and you're like, you know, next time,
I'm just gonna give them five bucks so I don't
have to sit through a month of episodes waiting for
the end, this is your opportunity to visit the buy
me a Coffee page. You can find a link in
the description of the episode, either on YouTube or wherever

(01:10:23):
you get your podcasts, and for five dollars a month,
you make sure that we have enough. Whatever that means.
I took it straight from a World War Two propaganda poster,
so it means we'll have enough. John Always a pleasure
visit John's page The Tattooed Historian. The work that this
man does with photography and media and warfare is one

(01:10:48):
of those things that makes you constantly think about what
we're watching when we see updates from the front and
the moral question of whether or not we shouldn't be
seeing some of the things that we're exposed to. John,
you push people to thinking for that. I appreciate you,
uh and always a pleasure to have you on Homebrow.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Thank you so much, my friend. It's always a pleasure
to be with you. And I hope everything is nice
and cool in Louisiana. It won't be, but until next
time that talking about home.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Everybody goods great pod past, going.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Back to the past with the little past invite leading
you a yes, are you invite?

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Inspired?

Speaker 5 (01:12:01):
But you'll never get tired up.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Whole group, that whole grow Top Scholars one

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Show with Joey and O That whole group, whole Root