by Cannonball » Fri Nov 20, 2015 6:14 pm
I had hoped that this might be a thread to discuss Lincoln or the battle. What a shame it turned into an argument about who's school is better, etc.
My classes will start on the Civil War in a week. It is one of those things I look so forward to as a teacher. To be sure, Lincoln will be covered extensively as will the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee changed his strategy from a defensive war to offense. Longstreet disagreed but was loyal. Each day was so traumatic and for both sides. I love the movie Gettysburg and will show clips from it. It is so well done. However, with all of the excellent quotes used in the movie, I wish that they would have added one from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. When his lines looked like they might break on the second day, Chamberlain said, "Stand firm you men from Maine. For only once in a century are men asked to do what I am asking you to do today." Just after that came his famous order for bayonets.
On the third day was Pickett's Charge. If you've seen the movie, a Confederate Soldier is singing a song that upsets Lowell Armistead and he makes comments how that song was sung prior to all of the soldiers in California going home to their state for the war. That account is actually from Almira Hancock's Diary. After the song, Armistead gives Longstreet a Bible to give to Almira Hancock that had a message in it. There are all kinds of stories about what is written in the Bible. I've read that he apologizes for attacking her husband and his best friend Hancock. I've read that a Masonic Distress Code is in the Bible. In other words, the stories can get pretty bizarre. Longstreet delivered that Bible and it has not been seen since. No one knows exactly what was written on the inside of the Bible.
Finally, the resolve and bravery of the Confederate Soldier who participated in Pickett's Charge can not be overlooked. In one diary found on a dead Confederate Soldier, the soldier wrote that he saw a rabbit running behind the lines. He wrote, "Run ole hare. If I were an ole hare I'd run too. The page is then blank until the bottom of the page where the Confederate Soldier wrote. "But I'm not." He then marched up that mile long slope and died.
Granny said sonny stick to your guns if you believe in something no matter what because it's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you're not.
CoachB25 on other boards.