Gettysburg - the battle and the motion picture

[Roxanne Appleby]

The battle's 144th anniversary was two weeks ago.

I actually saw the Turner movie in a theater. A shortened version of the 8-hour epic ran for a few weeks some months before the cable network started playing the whole thing. I remember groaning when I saw that Martin Sheen was to play Robert E. Lee during the opening credits, and then being extremely impressed in spite of myself. The entire cast was terrific, especially Jeff Daniel's as the movie (and battle's) real hero, Col. Joshua Chamberlain, a prewar college professor who became a citizen-soldier, was wounded multiple times, lost his brother in a different battle, and saved the day when the Rebs were on the verge of rolling up the Union flank on the climactic second day.

Anyway, there are some terrific speeches. I was reminded of this by a minor speech I quoted on the blurt thread in a completely unrelated context. In the following two posts I cite what are probably the two most memorable.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Tell me something, Buster... What do you think of Negroes?

Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: Well, if you mean the race, I don't really know. This is not a thing to be ashamed of. The thing is, you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time.

Chamberlain: You see to me there was never any difference.

Kilrain: None at all?

Chamberlain: None at all. Of course, I haven't known that many freed men... But those I knew in Bangor, Portland... You look in the eye, there was a man. There was a "divine spark," as my mother used to call it. That is all there is to it. Races are men. "What a piece of work is man. How infinite in faculties and form, and movement... How express and admirable. In action how like an angel.

Kilrain: Well, if he's an angel, all right then... But he damn well must be a killer angel. Colonel, darling, you're a lovely man. I see a vast difference between us, yet I admire you, lad. You're an idealist, praise be. The truth is, Colonel... There is no "divine spark". There's many a man alive of no more of value than a dead dog. Believe me. When you've seen them hang each other the way I have back in the Old Country.

Equality? What I'm fighting for is to prove I'm a better man than many of them.

Where have you seen this "divine spark" in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? No two things on Earth are equal or have an equal chance. Bit a leaf, not a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better... But I don't think race or country matters a damn.

What matters, Colonel... Is justice. Which is why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain... And I damn all gentlemen. There's only one aristocracy, and that [he taps his temple] is right here.

And that's why we've got to win this war.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to troops whose enlistments have expired and have refused to fight:

We're moving out in a few minutes. We'll be moving all day. I've been ordered to take you men with me. I'm told that if you don't come, I can shoot you.

Well, you know I won't do that. Maybe somebody else will, but I won't. So, that's that.

Here's the situation: The whole reb army is up that road a ways waiting for us. This is no time for an argument. I tell you, we could surely use you fellows. We're now well below half strength.

Whether you fight or not, that's up to you.

Whether you come along is . . .

Well, you're coming.


(A few minutes later, when the “deserters” have are eating a meal they’ve been given):

Chamberlain: This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There are less than three hundred of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home -- thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. And all of us have seen men die.

This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or -- or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.

America should be free ground -- all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free -- all the way, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home.

But it's not the land. There's always more land.

It's the idea that we all have value -- you and me.

What we're fighting for, in the end, we're fighting for each other.

Sorry, I didn't mean to preach. You, you go ahead. You talk for awhile. If you -- If you choose to join us, you want your muskets back, you can have 'em. Nothing more will be said by anybody anywhere. If you choose not to join us, well you can come along under guard, and when this is all over I will do what I can to see you get a fair treatment. But for now, we're moving out.

Gentlemen, I think if we lose this fight, we lose the war. So if you choose to join us, I'll be personally very grateful.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Gettysburg was certainly the most dramatic battle of the American Civil War, and I believe the most blood-soaked, although the numbers killed were a fraction of the total for whole war. To paraphrase what was said about another dramatic battle in a different war, it marked not the end of the war, but the beginning of the end. Especially since, almost a thousand miles to the west, another battle with a very different character also came to an end, the seige of Vicksburg. That completed the North's encirclement of the main southern states by giving it unchallenged possession of the Mississippi from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico. That really did seal the Confederacy's doom, although although nearly two more years of tragic bloodletting had to occur before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Here's what Lincoln said about Gettysburg four months later when dedicating the cemetery there:

"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 battle-field 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."


And here's what Lincoln said just a few weeks before he was assassinated, and before the war ended:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

 

[Belegon]

I love this movie and I also saw it in the theater... and I own it on DVD. Only the "shortened version". I've never seen the full 8 hour version. As a matter of fact, I watched it last weekend, having been reminded of it by the 4th of July holiday, as I always am.

I have read the primary source material for the movie, Michael Sharra's Pulitzer prize winning "The Killer Angels", many times. It is a fantastic book. The passage that the title references is the source of the lines from Kilrain above.

The other Turner movies (Gods & Generals and Andersonville) are far less compelling, simply because they lack the drama and pacing. In short, they are not as good at being movies. They are still excellent if you are interested in Civil War history, as I am.

Also, Michael's son Jeff wrote The Last Full Measure working from his father's notes and his own research. It tells the story of what happens to the Army of Northern Virginia and of Grant, leading to the end and the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. An excellent read as well.

 

[Belegon]

BTW, Col. Chamberlain was not simply mouthing words. He had the full convictions that went with them and was one of the most beloved leaders on the Union side by those who served with him. Grant promoted him to General at a time later when it appeared he would die from his wounds. He survived to lead his men again.

Later, he became the Governor of Maine. He was a genuine hero, as were the men who served with him and against him.

Remember, the majority of the southern armies were made up of men who believed they were fighting for their own rights and those of their states. The overwhelming majority of those who died were poor men to whom slavery was a borderline issue.

There are many sad stories in this time period. There are also some extremely inspiring ones.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

There are many sad stories in this time period. There are also some extremely inspiring ones.

Indeed. To me the overriding subtext of the war has always been tragedy. The United States was like the hero in a Greek tragedy, with a fatal flaw drawing her inexorably toward a blood-soaked fate. That deadly flaw was identified by Jefferson in a passage about slavery in his 1781 Notes on the State of Virginia: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Colly would have loved this thread. She would have great insights.