Gettysburg on History Channel

[cdcox]

Heads up they are doing an encore of this Thursday night. Very interesting 2 hours.

[chris]

The fact that blew me away: 6,000,000 soldiers died when adjusted for current USA population.

[Frazod]

I saw it the other night. Brought some fresh perspective to the story.

On a related note, I picked up the director's cut blu ray of the movie Gettysburg last week. Has about 17 minutes of added footage. Some of it was fairly interesting. Great movie.

[ClevelandBronco]

The fact that blew me away: 6,000,000 soldiers died when adjusted for current USA population.

I'm used to seeing economic stats restated in today's dollars, but it never would have occurred to me to restate Civil War battlefield deaths in today's lives. That's an astounding percentage of the U.S. male population. In fact, it's so astounding that I'm going to have to go double check it now.

[ClevelandBronco]

The fact that blew me away: 6,000,000 soldiers died when adjusted for current USA population.

Double checked. That figure isn't even close to accurate. It's more like 6,000,000 men fighting a battle today. Not 6,000,000 dying in it.

[cdcox]

Double checked. That figure isn't even close to accurate. It's more like 6,000,000 men fighting a battle today. Not 6,000,000 dying in it.

I think that stat was total Civil War dead, not just Battle of Gettysburg.

[whoman69]

Its nice to see history channel actually showing some history this week. Tried to tape it the last time it was on, but my signal to that cable box went down.

[Miles]

Looks interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

[ClevelandBronco]

I think that stat was total Civil War dead, not just Battle of Gettysburg.

Ah. That would make an enormous difference. Still, all service-related deaths would have to be counted to approach that figure. KIAs strictly defined wouldn't account for anything like that figure.

[cdcox]

I saw it the other night. Brought some fresh perspective to the story.



I always pictured Pickett's charge as soldiers running full speed. Watching them march methodically into the Union cannon fire was insane.

[ClevelandBronco]

All numbers aside, I've always liked this from Shelby Foote in Ken Burns' The Civil War:

"William Faulkner, in 'Intruder in the Dust,' said that for every southern boy, it's always within his reach to imagine it being one o'clock on an early July day in 1863, the guns are laid, the troops are lined up, the flags are out of their cases and ready to be unfurled, but it hasn't happened yet. And he can go back in his mind to the time before the war was going to be lost and he can always have that moment for himself."

[siberian khatru]

I always pictured Pickett's charge as soldiers running full speed. Watching them march methodically into the Union cannon fire was insane.

Have you ever walked that ground? You should. It's quite breathtaking. They could hear the commands for the Union artillery as they approached, knowing they were about to get hit with grapeshot. If you place yourself in that position as you "march" over that area .... it's just wow.

[siberian khatru]

BTW, I'm (somewhat) distantly related to Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead, who was mortally wounded during Pickett's Charge. There's a monument there to where he fell.

[cdcox]

Have you ever walked that ground? You should. It's quite breathtaking. They could hear the commands for the Union artillery as they approached, knowing they were about to get hit with grapeshot. If you place yourself in that position as you "march" over that area .... it's just wow.

Yeah, I've been there a couple times. Very cool.

I also have a pretty authentic war game of the battle. Even moving those little cardboard squares around a map covering my dining room table and rolling dice, I can really get the sense of how brutal that war was. I realize that last sentence sounds ridiculous but when you watch the Union lines dissolve or a confederate division liquidated in the course of an hour, you get a good sense of the casualty rates, and how brave those guys had to be to not just turn tail and run (of course some soldiers did run).

[58kcfan89]

I had the privilege of visiting the battlefield last year, it was something I've wanted to do for a long time as I've been a Civil War buff since about the 5th grade. Thought the History documentary was good, too, wish they'd do an entire week of Civil War stuff instead of replaying their Monday & Tuesday shows....

Speaking of which, did anyone watch the Lee & Grant show on Tuesday? I didn't like that one as much as Gettysburg but still found it interesting.

[spanky 52]

I've been there twice. Once as a kid and just a couple of years ago with wife and adult son. Had a NPS guide on our tour bus. Incredible story. What a terrible loss of human life.

[PhillyChiefFan]

I'm lucky, I live about 20 miles from Gettysburg. And I still go all the time.

If you ever get the chance to go, I would. it's a beautiful place, and it's hard to imagine it's the site of the worst battle on American soil.

I have started in the woods of Pickett's charge and walked the whole ground, and I can't imagine what they were thinking when they charged. It's just amazing what human beings will do when they completely dedicate themselves to a cause.

[gblowfish]

What was considered amazing bravery then would be seen as unbelievable stupidity now.
Weapons way ahead of the tactics. Mini-balls were ultra nasty. Almost like flying land mines. Mini Ball shots were a main reason for so many amputations. Just nasty stuff.

[MOhillbilly]

VALOR IS NEVER STUPID.

[gblowfish]

Marching headlong into grape shot in an open field is pretty stupid.
The Union sending wave after wave of guys at a fortified stone wall at Fredricksburg was equally stupid.

Both sides did stupid stuff with combat losses that would now be considered totally unacceptable.

[MOhillbilly]

Marching headlong into grape shot in an open field is pretty stupid.
The Union sending wave after wave of guys at a fortified stone wall at Fredricksburg was equally stupid.

Both sides did stupid stuff with combat losses that would now be considered totally unacceptable.


Thats like saying the Ranger who received the Medal of Honor for picking up a live grenade and throwing it to save his buddies was stupid.

Now and then. Valor is what it is. No man can deny that.

[gblowfish]

Thats not the same at all. The Ranger reacted to a situation to save his friends. They didn't march out in the open in direct line of fire. Both sides were using Napoleonic battle tactics with weapons that was closer to what was still being used in WWI, especially artillery. Do you think if the Gattling Gun had been developed in 1860 and used at Gettysburg, they still would have lined up and walked head first into it? Maybe. I don't think commanders held the same value of a soldier's life that commanders hold today. The civil war would have had a lot of death even if tactics were modified, but just not as bad or as reckless.

[gblowfish]

This is what I'm trying to say, only mo bettah:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarweapons.htm

Infantry tactics at the time of the Civil War were based on the use of the smoothbore musket, a weapon of limited range and accuracy. Firing lines that were much more than a hundred yards apart could not inflict very much damage on each other, and so troops which were to make an attack would be massed together, elbow to elbow, and would make a run for it; if there were enough of them, and they ran fast enough, the defensive line could not hurt them seriously, and when they got to close quarters the advantage of numbers and the use of the bayonet would settle things. But the Civil War musket was rifled, which made an enormous difference. It was still a muzzle-loader, but it had much more accuracy and a far longer range than the old smoothbore, and it completely changed the conditions under which soldiers fought. An advancing line could be brought under killing fire at a distance of half a mile, now, and the massed charge of Napoleonic tradition was miserably out of date. When a defensive line occupied field entrenchments-which the soldiers learned to dig fairly early in the game-a direct frontal assault became almost impossible. The hideous casualty lists of Civil War battles owed much of their size to the fact that soldiers were fighting with rifles but were using tactics suited to smoothbores. It took the generals a long time to learn that a new approach was needed.

Much the same development was taking place in the artillery, although the full effect was not yet evident. The Civil War cannon, almost without exception, was a muzzle-loader, but the rifled gun was coming into service. It could reach farther and hit harder than the smoothbore, and for counterbattery fire it was highly effective-a rifled battery could hit a battery of smoothbores without being hit in return, and the new 3-inch iron rifles, firing a 10-pound conical shot, had a flat trajectory and immense Penetrating power. But the old smoothbore-a brass gun of 4.62-inch caliber, firing a 12-pound spherical shot-remained popular to the end of the war; in the wooded, hilly country where so many Civil War battles were fought, its range of slightly less than a mile was about all that was needed, and for close-range work against infantry the smoothbore was better than the rifle. For such work the artillerist fired canisters tin can full of iron balls, with a propellant at one end and a wooden disk at the other-and the can disintegrated when the gun was fired, letting the iron balls be sprayed all over the landscape. In effect, the cannon became a huge sawed-off shotgun, and at ranges of 250 yards or less it was in the highest degree murderous.