Sophie's blog: First day of battle:
Today we went on an interactive audio tour in Gettysburg with a man named Jim who was our guide. He got into our car and took us around Gettysburg telling us every tiny little detail about the civil war. First we saw a house with a little statue in front and Jim told us that the only civilian that was killed during the war lived in that house; we think her name was Anna. She was stuck in the cellar of her house for three days and her whole family including herself was starving and thirsty. She went upstairs and started kneading dough and took a bullet right through her back and into her heart.
Then we went down the road along many houses with bullet holes in it. He explained where the two armies were on the first day and then we drove up to a white barn were we got out and he told us a story. The story was about the first day of battle and the Union Calvary General John Buford. He said that Buford had 500 men and only 6 cannons. There was a group of mountains in the distance that the Confederate army was traveling over. The Confederates began to shoot first and it started the battle of Gettysburg.
The Union was out of cannonballs and had little ammunition left. General Buford went into the cupola to look for General Meade, who was late. In the distance, John saw Meade approaching, even though Buford was a serious man who rarely smiled, at the sight of Meade’s army he gave a slight smile and said ”Where have you been?”
Meade’s army fought against Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General, for the rest of the day. In fact, The 19th Maine regiment and the 15th Alabama regiment were fighting on a hill. Alabama chased Maine in to a huge ditch that they couldn’t get out of; it was tragic for the Union army. The battle ended and the Confederates won. On the battlefield, there was a dog named Sally who belonged to a man on the Union side who got shot but was not dead yet. Sally stayed with this man and gave him warmth from her body. When the confederates came around later that day and tried to collect bullets and items from the dead and dying men around Sally chased them away. She lived until the end of the Civil War and is considered a hero.
Second day of battle:
The Second day of battle, The Union was more prepared and there were many more men including the 20th Maine Regiment and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Every General had a position. But One General, General Stuart I think it was retreated from his position because he didn’t think that his position would help the Confederate’s get passed their line. The armies were fighting a mile apart. The Confederates were in the woods in a straight line while the Union army was on a hill (The defensive position) in almost a fishhook shaped line. A soldier on the Union side noticed that a hill, Little Round Top was unarmed, he told Meade who called in for the 20th Maine who had just arrived to take the hill. The Confederates thinking that the hill was still unarmed ran towards it knowing it was the key to getting to the Union line. The Confederate’s sent Alabama’s 50th Regiment up to the hill.
Joshua Chamberlain from Brunswick Maine was a professor at Bowdoin College so he was very smart, but he wasn’t trained in military as much as other colonels and especially Generals. Although the regiment had trained and drilled for many years so they were definitely ready for this assignment. Chamberlain’s plan was to shoot from the highest point of the hill while the Confederates were running up. His line was shaped a lot like a hockey stick and it was really easy to shoot down. Our guide said that Joshua wasn’t feeling well that day but he fought anyway. The armies kept shooting and shooting until the 20th Maine ran out of bullets. Chamberlain had lost his voice he had been shot in the leg and the arm and like I said before, he was sick. He was yelling at the top of his lungs but it only sounded like a whisper, his friends were wondering what he was saying, but it was Bayonet’s everybody thought he was crazy to order a bayonet charge but he did. The Union chased the army down the hill with their sharp swords! This was a day that would change American History, because the fighting kept going and we won the second day of the Battle.
Third day of battle:
The Union’s confidence has been boosted since the second day, they believed that we could win the war now (which was true) General Lee had a crazy plan for the third day of battle. He started firing all of their cannons! One by one in a row, kind of like a wave, and then again and again! The Union fired back, but not all of their ammunition like the Confederate’s did. This went on for an hour or so and killed a lot of Union soldiers, but not all of them.
Then the confederate’s sent hundreds and hundreds of infantry men out led by three generals, General Longstreet, General Pickett, and General Armistead. The battlefield was a mile long, and in the back of his mind Lee knew that this was a 50/50 chance but it was all he had, or at least that’s what he believed. This was known as Pickett’s charge because he led them. Unfortunately for the South this plan failed and the Union still had plenty of Ammunition left and we won the third day of battle which means we won Gettysburg!
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