Civil war veteran soldier footage, captured between 1913 and 1938.
Showing posts with label Gettysburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gettysburg. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sunday, July 4, 2010
FRIEND TO FRIEND
Friend to Friend Masonic Memorial at Gettysburg
Gettysburg is resplendid with monuments, depicting the units that fought there, heroes of the battle, and notable deeds. The Masonic Memorial depicts a remarkable incident that occurred at the climactic point of Picketts Charge, on the third day and final of the battle. It is a moment that epitomizes several aspects of the War Between the States; the Highwater Mark of the Confederacy, "Friend against Friend, Brother Against Brother", the sadness and irony that hallmarks that terrible conflict. - Sean Linnane
From the monument:
Union General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead were personal friends and members of the Masonic Fraternity.
Although they had served and fought side by side in the United States army prior to the Civil War, Armistead refused to raise his sword against his fellow Southerners and joined the Confederate Army in 1861.
Both Hancock and Armistead fought heroically in the previous twenty-seven months of the war. They were destined to meet at Gettysburg.
During Pickett's Charge, Armistead led his men gallantly, penetrating Hancock's line. Ironically, when Armistead was mortally wounded, Hancock was also wounded.
Depicted in this sculpture is Union Captain Henry Bingham, a Mason and staff assistant to General Hancock, himself wounded, rendering aid to the fallen Confederate General. Armistead is shown handing his watch and personal effects to be taken to his friend, Union General Hancock.
Hancock survived the war and died in 1886. Armistead died at Gettysburg July 5, 1863. Captain Bingham attained the rank of General and later served 32 years in the United States House of Representatives. He was known as the "Father of the House."
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Saturday, July 3, 2010
THE MOST SPECIAL FOURTH OF JULY
The din of muskets and cannon had faded but the stench and pall of battle still hung in the air; two American armies stared at one another in a heavy rain across bloody fields on the Fourth of July in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863.
Both armies began to collect their remaining wounded and bury some of the dead. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties of the three-day battle. Union casualties list 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing), while Confederate casualties are estimated 23,231 (4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing).
Bear in mind this was an era when anything more than a simple flesh wound meant certain slow death by infection, and prisoner-of-war captivity was almost a death sentence.
Gettysburg Day 1: Union dead along McPherson Ridge.
Nearly 8,000 Americans were killed outright; the bodies lying in the hot summer sun needed to be buried quickly. A proposal by Lee for a prisoner exchange was rejected by Meade. Nearly a third of Lee’s general officers were killed, wounded, or captured in the Gettysburg campaign. Total casualties for both sides during the entire campaign were 57,225.
Gettysburg Day 2: Union and Confederate dead near the Emmittsburg Road.
Gettysburg Day 3: "Harvest of Death" - aftermath of Pickett's Charge.
Lee started moving the Army of Northern Virginia late in the evening of July 4 towards Fairfield and Chambersburg. Meade’s army followed, although his pursuit was half-spirited. The recently rain-swollen Potomac trapped Lee’s army on the north bank of the river for a time, but when the Federals finally caught up, the Confederates had forded the river.
Also on July 4, 1863 the Vicksburg garrison surrendered to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant; another significant turning point of the war when the Federals regained control of the Mississippi, an important supply route.
GETTYSBURG IS SPECIAL
On July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, more Americans fought and died here than any other battle in American history. Although the Battle of Gettysburg did not end the war, it was the turning point when the ultimate victory of the North over the South – and the preservation of the Union – was determined.
As brilliant as the Founding Fathers were in establishing the Republic, they knew their work was not complete as long as the question of States Rights could not be resolved, in the areas of commerce but most visibly with slavery. This struggle was addressed and postponed for almost seventy years until things finally came to flash point at Ft. Sumter.
The Civil War was not only the most important war America ever fought, it was also the most stupid; because it was Americans killing Americans. What occurred at Gettysburg was not simply a key battlefield victory of a single war but THE pivotal battle that preserved our Republic from a tragic war that had to be fought, and just as importantly had to be won. Without a Union victory at Gettysburg, the Confederacy may possibly have prevailed; had such a circumstance come about, America as we know it would not exist.
This point was driven home by Lincoln’s brilliant Gettysburg Address, given five months later on the same battlefield:
Despite my sympathies for the Southern Cause - particularly regarding States Rights – I am aware that the Union had to ultimately prevail. This is the sad irony of this terrible war. This Fourth of July I will travel with my family to pay my respects at Gettysburg. - Sean Linnane
Both armies began to collect their remaining wounded and bury some of the dead. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties of the three-day battle. Union casualties list 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing), while Confederate casualties are estimated 23,231 (4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing).
Bear in mind this was an era when anything more than a simple flesh wound meant certain slow death by infection, and prisoner-of-war captivity was almost a death sentence.
Gettysburg Day 1: Union dead along McPherson Ridge.Nearly 8,000 Americans were killed outright; the bodies lying in the hot summer sun needed to be buried quickly. A proposal by Lee for a prisoner exchange was rejected by Meade. Nearly a third of Lee’s general officers were killed, wounded, or captured in the Gettysburg campaign. Total casualties for both sides during the entire campaign were 57,225.
Gettysburg Day 2: Union and Confederate dead near the Emmittsburg Road.
Gettysburg Day 3: "Harvest of Death" - aftermath of Pickett's Charge.Lee started moving the Army of Northern Virginia late in the evening of July 4 towards Fairfield and Chambersburg. Meade’s army followed, although his pursuit was half-spirited. The recently rain-swollen Potomac trapped Lee’s army on the north bank of the river for a time, but when the Federals finally caught up, the Confederates had forded the river.
Also on July 4, 1863 the Vicksburg garrison surrendered to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant; another significant turning point of the war when the Federals regained control of the Mississippi, an important supply route.
GETTYSBURG IS SPECIAL
On July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, more Americans fought and died here than any other battle in American history. Although the Battle of Gettysburg did not end the war, it was the turning point when the ultimate victory of the North over the South – and the preservation of the Union – was determined.
As brilliant as the Founding Fathers were in establishing the Republic, they knew their work was not complete as long as the question of States Rights could not be resolved, in the areas of commerce but most visibly with slavery. This struggle was addressed and postponed for almost seventy years until things finally came to flash point at Ft. Sumter.
The Civil War was not only the most important war America ever fought, it was also the most stupid; because it was Americans killing Americans. What occurred at Gettysburg was not simply a key battlefield victory of a single war but THE pivotal battle that preserved our Republic from a tragic war that had to be fought, and just as importantly had to be won. Without a Union victory at Gettysburg, the Confederacy may possibly have prevailed; had such a circumstance come about, America as we know it would not exist.
This point was driven home by Lincoln’s brilliant Gettysburg Address, given five months later on the same battlefield:
Despite my sympathies for the Southern Cause - particularly regarding States Rights – I am aware that the Union had to ultimately prevail. This is the sad irony of this terrible war. This Fourth of July I will travel with my family to pay my respects at Gettysburg. - Sean Linnane
Monday, May 3, 2010
TECHNO-GEEK QUESTION
I recommend the Yum Pla Muuk - S.L.ON THE ROAD AGAIN . . . this time in my favorite state north of the Mason-Dixon line - PENNSYLVANIA! (Not far from Gettysburg, in fact; I'll be posting from there over the Fourth of July weekend which of course was when the battle was fought).
ANYWAY I recently upgraded my Blackberry device and am using the Verizon Navigator application. Right away I notice its capabilities in the signal reception department seem superior somehow to the Garmins I was using - a couple generations back.
MY QUESTION IS - how does this thing work? Is it a true GPS system, receiving from satellites? Or is it similar to the old LORAN; triangulating off towers?
The reason I ask is it seems to be receiving even when its tucked into the center pedestal of the car, even when the car is under overhead cover . . . the engineer in me wants to know; I want to understand the mechanical nature of the system . . .
HAVING SAID ALL THAT the thing appears to be a true GPS after all, as it does not receive from within this fine Thai restaurant "Lemon Grass" (which I recommend to anybody) here in Lancaster, PA.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Saturday, July 4, 2009
ANOTHER FOURTH OF JULY
These images are from the aftermath of the great Battle of Gettysburg, fought 1 - 3 July, 1863.
Dead Union soldiers near the Emmittsburg Road portion of the Battlefield.
Fallen Union and Confederate soldiers lay intermingled from the Living Hell that was Devils Den.
Union and Confederate dead lay where they fell at the Little Round Top, where the extreme left of the Union line was held on the first day of the battle.
Thousands of horses shared the same fate as the soldiers of both Armies.
Aftermath of the famous charge of Pickett's CSA Division.
The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was the High Tide of the Confederacy and the turning point of the Civil War for Union. In the space of three days in July a total of 17,684 Union soldiers were killed and wounded; 18,750 Confederate soldiers killed and wounded, in a monumental struggle that began as a forage patrol for a shoe factory. The significance of this battle was codified by the words of Abraham Lincoln, who redefined the cause and meaning of America in his great Gettysburg Address:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate . . . we can not consecrate . . . we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The reason why the outcome of Gettysburg was so important are contained within these words, carved in stone upon the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. - S.L.
Dead Union soldiers near the Emmittsburg Road portion of the Battlefield.
Fallen Union and Confederate soldiers lay intermingled from the Living Hell that was Devils Den.
Union and Confederate dead lay where they fell at the Little Round Top, where the extreme left of the Union line was held on the first day of the battle.
Thousands of horses shared the same fate as the soldiers of both Armies.
Aftermath of the famous charge of Pickett's CSA Division. The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was the High Tide of the Confederacy and the turning point of the Civil War for Union. In the space of three days in July a total of 17,684 Union soldiers were killed and wounded; 18,750 Confederate soldiers killed and wounded, in a monumental struggle that began as a forage patrol for a shoe factory. The significance of this battle was codified by the words of Abraham Lincoln, who redefined the cause and meaning of America in his great Gettysburg Address:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate . . . we can not consecrate . . . we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The reason why the outcome of Gettysburg was so important are contained within these words, carved in stone upon the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. - S.L.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
BATTLE OF WATERLOO
Today is the 194th anniversary of the great Battle of Waterloo. 25,000 Frenchmen killed or wounded, 7,000 captured, 15,000 missing; 22,000 Englishmen, Dutchmen and Germans killed or wounded; all in the space of an afternoon.
Lord Arthur Wellesley the Duke of WellingtonSeveral myths and legends surround the Iron Duke; he was English coolness-under-fire, personified. One anecdote has him napping under a tree with a newspaper over his face when his subordinates alerted him to the nearby presence of the Emperor of France, Napoleon himself. "Shall we shoot at him, sir?" The cool-as-a-cucumber-reply, "Certainly not! Generals have far more important things to do than take potshots at each other."
Other notables include Prince William of Orange, future King of the Netherlands. This is back when royalty earned their titles, apparently; Prince William was wounded during the battle.
Prince William of OrangeGebhard Leberecht von Blücher arrived late in the day. His Prussian Legions tipped the balance of power on the battlefield and decided the issue.
Field Marshall Gebhard Leberecht von BlücherAt the height of the battle, the French cavalry charge the British lines:
The British Infantry squares held, of course. Here's how it looked to the oncoming French:
My neighbor in Stuttgart, an elderly gentleman who remembered the French coming to town at the end of World War II, said this of Napoleon: "Only Hitler was worse!"
When my youngest daughter was one, we used to joke and call her "Napoleon" because she had a curl like this in the middle of her forehead. She used to sulk just like this, as well.
Waterloo is a tiny village in Belgium, just south of Brussels. I was able to visit this place when I was stationed in Germany.
Viewing the great panoramic painting of the battle, inside the ancient museum. The panorama was painted by Demoulin at the turn of the century.Team member VA Shepard once remarked, "Napoleon had his Waterloo, we had Gettysburg. The difference was, after Gettysburg our war still ran on for two more years."
I cannot imagine combat on this scale.
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