I had heard this in only one other place. The last time I was in Gettysburg about ten years ago, a buddy of mine and I were drinking at the Herr Tavern. On the stool next to be was a guy from Alabama, wearing Confederate kepi and all, drunk as hell and buying us rounds.
He went on and on about how the “Alabama boys” that day had to march over 25 miles before they were told to charge up a wooded slope into Chamberlain. He slurred his words even more and said that on any other day “Alabama boys would whip Maine boys.” The guy was obviously very knowledgeable about the battle as he told many other stories and gave many tidbits. He also worked part-time as a battlefield tour guide.
I’m sure he was at least partially full of shit and drunk, but he was interesting to listen to. Especially since he was buying the booze.
But that is the only other time before this post that I have heard about how exhausted the Confederates were during that charge.
Also, I never understood why one single regiment was of such importance. Let’s say that the 20th ME broke and ran. Why would it follow that the whole union line would roll up? Why couldn’t that brigade, division, or even whole corps drop back a few yards/hundred yards and refuse the flank just like Chamberlain did?
The Confederates didn’t have the numbers to press the advantage had they taken that one slope on the far side of Little Round Top.
Because the next unit down was also under attack at the same time, and you can’t reposition your troop in the middle of a firefight. If the 20th had folded, they would have come under attack from two directions, dooming them. And as soon as *they *folded, the *next *unit would be attacked from the front and side, too, and so on.
Plus, panic is contagious. When soldiers see the guys to their left running away, they start thinking that maybe they have the right idea.
Well, no. The sixth one ultimately killed him although it took some 50 years. He died of complications of a through and through gunshot wound to the hip suffered at Petersburg.
At Gettysburg there were a number of crises, the resolution of which might have tilted the Second Day from a close fought repulse of the attack on the Union Left and Center into the collapse of the Army of the Potomac. The stand by the 20th Maine (and Strong Vincent’s Brigade ) along the south face of the Little Round Top was only one of them. That engagement required cool leadership on the part of Col Vincent (who was mortally wounded) and all four of the regimental commanders and a detachment of Sharpshooters, not just COL Chamberlain.
It was COL Oates’ claim as the commander of the two Rebel regiments confronting the 20th Maine that he had fought his units to their breaking point and that he was in the process of falling back when the 20th Maine staged it’s counterattack. No one on the up-hill side of the fight could have known that, of course, and it may have been an improvable rationalization for the Confederate commander. Oates’ after action report dated August 8, 1863, may be found in Official Records, Series I, Vol. 27 (Part II) P.392. It is an interesting read.
Chamberlain had the great advantage of surviving the fight, which can’t be said for Vincent, O’Rorke, Weed or Hazlet and of being a very competent commander and a good writer as well as being a generally highly accomplished educated gentleman of conventional morals and piety.
LTG Ewell is reputed to have said that it took a great number of mistakes to lose the Battle of Gettysburg and that he made most of them himself. By the same token it took a lot of people ranging from a high private in the rear rank to the commander of the army doing something right to win that fight. Chamberlain was only one of the many who did right but he indisputably did do right on Thursday, July 2, 1863.
I understand the basic premise, but what is special about the size of a single regiment that would make this so. For example, what if one of Chamberlain’s companies (the one on the extreme left) broke, then wouldn’t it then follow that the rest of the line would roll up?
And, being ridiculous, wouldn’t it follow that if the very end man fell, then the next man would be attacked on two sides, causing him to flee, etc.
IOW, Chamberlain’s regiment was able to refuse the flank while the whole regiment was under attack. Why couldn’t the whole brigade do the same thing?
Doing that under fire is difficult enough. Doing it in a panic situation, with an active attack underway is damn near impossible. Remember, Chamberlain disposed his troops that way during a break in the action, not at the height of the battle.
The easy answer is that it is a lot simpler to have two or three companies of 50 or 70 men change front by 90 degrees while still maintaining contact with the companies keeping the original line than to have a whole regiment of some 250 to 500 men do the same thing, especially on sloping and broken terrain.
The more complicated answer is that the officers on the far left end of the 20th Maine’s double ranked line saw that Oates’s people were shifting to a position beyond the Union line to where an attack on the Union flank could be mounted. At the moment the 20th Maine’s position was not under active attack – the shifting was going on while Oates was reorganizing after a repulse. This allowed enough time for Chamberlain to extend his firing line by having the double rank become a single rank and extend to the left – the second rank soldiers stepped forward between the first rank soldiers and every one side stepped to their left while still maintaining a front with the 83d PA on the 20th Maine’s right.
While refusing a flank was a standard tactical maneuver in the days of linear firing line warfare, it was a hard thing to do while under fire and on broken ground. In addition Chamberlain was helped out by a detached company off on his left flank along with a detachment of Sharpshooters. The presence of those separate detachment caused Oates to conclude that he was being attacked in front my one regiment while also being attacked in flank and rear by two more regiments.
At the height of Pickett’s Charge the next day the 69th PA attempted to refuse it’s right flank as Armistead’s followers came over the fence while it was being being attacked in front and on its right flank. That maneuver was not successful and the company at the hinge was overrun in the confusion. It was only a rush of troops from further down the line that plugged the hole. The same thing could have happened to Chamberlain but the circumstances were enough different that the 20th Maine was able to pull it off.
In addition, while Vincent’s whole brigade could, I suppose, rotate it’s front by 90 degrees, the whole point of Chamberlain’s stand was that it protected critical ground. The shifting of the whole brigade, or of any significant part of it, would have given up the Southwest face of Little Round Top. Holding that ground was critical, thus COL Vincent’s order that the position was to be held at all cost and at all hazards.
IMO: The great colonelship Chamberlain displayed was actually doing something. It may not sound like much but Ewell is remembered *(perhaps erroneously) as the General who lost the war for the South at Gettysburg by doingnothing.
The other question is, even if the hole hadn’t been plugged, were there enough Confederate troops that made it that far in the first place to exploit the hole? My impression has always been that, unlike with the events at the far left end of the Union line on July 2, too many of Pickett’s troops went down before making contact with the Union line to give much of a chance of success to those who made it to the top of the hill, regardless of how things played out with those who broke through the line.
While this is a bit off the main point it is worth talking about. Because Cushing’s Battery took such a beating in the pre-assault bombardment, as did Rorty’s and Arnold’s, there was not much artillery fire directed at Garnett’s Brigade or Armistead’s follow up brigade. Picket’s right flank, Kemper’s Brigade took a horrible beating from the single battery of rifles on Little Round Top and from the line of guns posted well south of the corpse of trees and Pettigrew’s Division likewise was under heavy fire from the guns in the cemetery.
In addition the shape of the Union line along the Second Corps front meant that the right flank of the 72d PA was in the air. When the 72d fell back from the fence as Garnett’s troops approached their line and Cushing’s Battery was wiped out (which for all practical purposes it was) the right of the 69th PA was exposed. While not many Rebels followed Armistead over the fence and through Cushing’s position, 400 at the most, it was enough to break up the 69th right flank companies. Since the 69th was engaged in front with elements of Kemper’s Brigade at the time the Pennsylvanians were plenty busy and exposed to a vicious cross fire from their right. Had the balance of the disorganized elements of Armistead’s and Garnett’s followed there might well have been a serious problem and the Union line might have been rolled up from the trees to the south.
The potential disaster, however, was avoided because the next brigade to the south filled the gap between the 69th and Webb’s second line and Cowan‘s Battery came into position just south of the 69th, thus discouraging any more Rebels from following Armistead into the contested ground just north of the corpse of trees or Kemper‘s men from pushing their attack. At about this time the Union troops north and south of the attack managed to shake out lines of fire and started tearing at Pettigrew’s left and Picket’s right. The expulsion of Armistead’s people, the repulse of Pettigrew in front of Hayes’ Division and those flank attacks pretty well ended the thing.
One thing that’s worth pointing out is that it was Chamberlain’s first battle! The 20th Maine missed Antietam because they weren’t there in time, and they missed Chancellorsville because of smallpox.
I’m too lazy to dig through The Killer Angels right now, but my recollection is that Shaara places Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Fredericksburg. (I know TKA is technically fiction, but AFAICT Shaara stuck to the historical record with respect to stuff like that.)
The 20th Maine was engaged at Fredericksburg, not in the main and futile assault on the wall position but during the following night when it lay in line of battle among the dead and wounded until the position was abandon before dawn. The point is that by the summer of 1863 the regiment counted as a veteran outfit, having been with the army since the late summer of 1862, well drilled and well led.