Gettysburg in Literature, Film and History: Devil’s Den and Longstreet’s Beard

Title: Gettysburg in Literature, Film and History: Devil’s Den and Longstreet’s Beard

Description: Today Sean, James and I continue our discussion of the real events and background of the Battle of Gettysburg as portrayed through the 1993 film Gettysburg. The forces of North and South have deployed. Attacks have commenced but the outcome still is in doubt. Armies of tens of thousands crash together and heroes are made in Gettysburg!

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Key Battles of American History Podcast

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Begin Transcript:

, [00:00:00] this is beyond the big screen podcast with your host, Steve Guerra. Welcome back to beyond the big screen. We have another installment of Hollywood hates history today. This is the third part of a four-part conversation on the incredible and really classic movie. The 1993 Gettysburg, we are joined by two civil war, Fitzy Denatos and podcasters Sean MacGyver of the common take it, Texas history podcast and professor James early, a contributor to not only be on the big screen, but also the history of the papacy podcast and Scott ranks history unplugged podcast.
Today, we will continue to progress through the battle. We will discuss the major source of the movie, the 1974 historical [00:01:00] fiction novel the killer angels by Michael Shara. And we will also talk about the second day of the battle. We have a ton to talk about today, so let’s get right to it. Of course, if you have a historical movie, you either love or hate, let me know, and maybe we can work together to create a new episode of Hollywood hates history.
I’m beyond the big screen. If you’d like to participate, send me an email to my email, address steve@atozhistorypage.com. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening and I will see you next time beyond the big screen.
Now we’re on today to have the battle. If you want to hear about what happened in the prelude to the battle or day one, you can go back and we have episodes on all those, but I’m, we’re joined again by professor James early, of [00:02:00] course, and Sean, Sean MacGyver of the common ticket podcast. And we’re going to dive right into day two.
James, why don’t you give us a little setup of what was going on in day two and what we can look forward to? Sure. Just to review in case, uh, it’s been a while since somebody listened to the previous part or maybe they haven’t, but if you haven’t, you should stop it right now and go back and listen to it.
Okay. All right. Are you back? Okay, good. So, um, what happened was the union army of the Potomac and the Confederate army of Northern Virginia met, uh, are parts of the army. To the west of the town of Gettysburg, north and west in an almost accidental meeting. And what happened was the union troops. There were heavily outnumbered, but they did a good job under the leadership of general, John Buford and general John Reynolds of delaying the Confederate advance and the Confederates [00:03:00] move the union or pushed them back through the town of Gettysburg.
And onto some high ground, south and Southeast of town. And there, the first days fighting ended, there was a little bit more Confederate probing and attempts to attack, but it was getting dark and the Confederates were not able to push the union troops off of the high ground. The union overnight, gradually filled in more units, came up to the front and they settled into a position that shaped kind of like a fish hook, but I’m going to actually change the analogy here.
I’m going to try to make it as simple as possible. So I’m going to create a mental map here. What happened? Imagine a clock. Okay. A clock. And this is oversimplifying because the union position was not a perfect circle, but, but work with me, people. Okay. I’m trying to make it easy on you. So, um, imagine the, the far right of the union army being at about two o’clock on the two, and then it stretches around.
At [00:04:00] two o’clock at one o’clock you have, sorry, one o’clock you have a Culp’s hill and then at 12 o’clock you have cemetery hill and then going around the other side, down, down the left side, oops, just hit my microphone down the left side. You had a Ridge, some high ground that kind of was a little up and down, but mostly high ground called cemetery Ridge.
And then it continued down to a couple of large Hills. One which today is called little round top. And then the further south one is called big round top. That would be six o’clock. So there you go. That’s roughly the union position and overnight the union troops were digging in and fortifying. What happened on day two?
So, James, yeah, let me interrupt. So I think, I think that’s a really good description. I think another way to look at it would be kind of, would be a reverse question, mark. And so you’ve got starting at cups hill and looping up cemetery hill and then kind of back down and then straight down for cemetery Ridge and, and [00:05:00] it culminates at the end, that little round top, and then there’s a small gap.
And then the period at the bottom of the question, mark would be big round top. Yeah. That’s good. I had also thought of like, imagine if you’re staring at somebody right ear. So it’s an odd shape, but it’s a, it’s a great defensive shape is that it’s a great defensive shape because the union troops are going to be able to take advantage of what’s called interior lines.
That means the union right. Can get to the troops on the union, right. Can get to the union left or the center very quickly, relatively quickly. Whereas the Confederate troops are wrapped around that in kind of a, I don’t know, how would you describe that? Like, almost like the letter C. And so for the Confederate troops to get, say from their left to their right, would take much longer than for the union troops.
Right. And then see there’s difficulty in movement from the Confederate side. And the other thing to remember is that the union army is still marching in, and there’s other, there’s three [00:06:00] cores there at this point, there’s still two more cores coming in and they’re coming straight into this pocket that they’ve this defensive pocket that they formed.
So their reinforcements are on the way. Whereas the only real reinforcements that Confederates are going to get is if their cavalry can somehow manage to make their way back. Yeah. And they’ve got one division pickets division, which is still coming up from the west and they’re not going to participate in day two, but they will definitely participate in day three.
Won’t they? Go ahead, Steven. And what kind of geographic information would the each side had? Did they have maps of any accuracy, a topographical maps? Well, that’s an important part in the second and the second book and let me start, that’s an important part of the whole battle. Is that? Yeah. So the thing is, is that you depended on your, you dependent on either your locals or your cavalry to tell you about the area that you were in.
So the advantage of union [00:07:00] advantage union they’re in they’re in Pennsylvania. So not only do they have the locals, they are supporting them and probably being, you know, they are, they do talk about that. The locals are, you know, they’re buying food. The Confederates are buying food from the locals. They’re staying at their homes, but they probably are reticent about helping the Confederates, whereas the they’re going to help the union.
The other thing is that you’ve got Pennsylvania militia and regular troops in this army. So you may have somebody from their home right in that has a they’ve lived in that area. So they know it. But the most important thing is when you’re in enemy territory, your cavalry is critical to telling you what the field is like, what your ground is.
They’re critical to telling you these Hills can be walked over or written over or climbed easily or difficult. There are passes here. You can. There’s a, there’s a field. There’s the visibility from this heel hill over this field. There’s a Ridge here that you can travel behind and you can’t be [00:08:00] seen in the next Ridge over.