Soccer Dad

Gettysburg - Military Monday 10

A few weeks ago, my father-in-law and two of my sons and I visited Gettysburg.

I hadn't been there since high school, and I found this visit wonderfully informative. Before going on a tour of the battleground, there's an electronic map. In an auditorium with a large map of the area in the middle, a narrator tells of the troop movements and engagements over the July 1 - 3, 1863.

The main visitors' center also has a museum of the war including many of the weapons at the time (including a video presentation describing the use of cannons) and profiles of many of the soliders who participated.

I'm not going to pretend that I understand or know everything about Gettysburg. I'm just going to share a few items and people that I learned about.

Picketts Charge

This was the turning point of the war on July 3. The Confederate army charged accross a wide open field in a vain attempt to overwhelm the Union line. Looking out over the terrain, you can't help but wonder why the Confederate army could have chosen such a dangerous and seemingly foolhardy approach.

Had the Confederate generals overestimated their advantage at the time? Had the Union ploy to stop firing fooled the Confederate forces into thinking that they were out of ammunition? It's a real mystery.

Equestrian Statues

I had once been told that equestrian statues - those with soldiers on horses - told a story based on a code. If the horse had all four feet planted on the ground it means that the rider survived wars and died in bed. Lee and Grant are both on horse with all their feet on the ground.

If one foreleg is raised it tells the rider was injured in battle, but that he survived war. Longstreet's horse had one leg raised.

If the soldier died in battle then the two forelegs of the horse were raised. Or so I had heard. However when we passed a statue of Gen Sedgwick. Sedgwick's horse had all four feet planted on the ground, but Sedgwick was killed about year later near Warren Virginia.

What's most interesting about Sedgwick's death were his (nearly) last words. He was chiding soldiers for seeking shelter from Confederate snipers and said, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Shortly afterwards a sniper hit and killed Sedgwick.

My father-in-law's observation about Sedgwick, made me look up that convention. It is an urban myth (Word document) as they call them. There's no correlation between the posture of the horse and the fate of the rider.

Gen Daniel Sickles

Sickles had no military experience but was commissioned as a General out of political considerations. A congressman from New York, Sickles was most famour prior the war for having killed his wife's lover - in broad daylight. (And you think that that Congress is bad nowadays.) Amazingly he was acquitted.

During Gettysburg, Sikles made a mistake. Unhappy with his position he disregarded his orders and repositioned his troops. His line, defending the higher ground of Little Round Top, was compromised and the Confederates were able to break through. Reinforcements prevented major damage.

Though he was injured in the battle, he outlived nearly every other commander from the battle. (An injury then, often meant amputation. The medical science of the time hadn't yet advanced to be able to save limbs that were severely injured. Sickles lost a leg at Gettysburg.

After the war Sickles returned to Congress. It was he who led the effort to federalize the land of the battlefield that led to the creation of the National Military Park at Gettysburg.

One of the fascinating aspects of Gettysburg is that there are memorials not only for the victorious Union troops but also for the Confederate troops. Ornate statues commemorating the armies of Florida or Virginian or North Carolina are just as common as statues commemorating troops from Delaware or Massachusetts or New York. It would appear that Sickles efforts, perhaps, contributed to a reconciliation between North and South.

One would think that mending the wounds of the Civil War would have been difficult. But though the country was divided, remembering everyone's contribution served as a mechanism for reconciliation.

This is just speculation. But I wonder when I read what Yossi Klein Halevi wrote (registration required) after the ceasefire between Isreal and Hezbollah

Still, in the Jewish calendar, the summer weeks after the fast of the Ninth of Av, commemorating the destruction of the Temple, are a time of consolation. "Be consoled, be consoled, my people," we read from the Torah on the Sabbath after the fast. And so we console ourselves with the substantial achievements of the people of Israel during this month of war. First, our undiminished capacity for unity. My favorite symbol of that unity is the antiwar rapper, Muki, whose hit song during the era of Palestinian suicide bombings lamented the absence of justice for the Palestinians but who, this time, insisted that the army needs to "finish the job" against Hezbollah. Second, our middle-class children, with their cell phones, iPods, and pizza deliveries to their army bases. In intimate combat, they repeatedly bested Hezbollah fighters, even though the terrorists had the advantage of familiar terrain. This generation has given us some of Israel's most powerful images of heroism, like the soldier from a West Bank settlement and father of two young children who leaped onto a grenade to save his friends, shouting the Shema--the prayer of God's oneness--just before the grenade exploded. Along with the recriminations, there will be many medals of valor awarded in the coming weeks.

Is it the nature of war that is both destructive and divisive to plant the seeds of unity in its aftermath?

Technorati tag: Military Monday.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 21, 2006 5:34 AM