It may not have impressed a lot of New York film critics, but the Ted Turner/New Line Cinema epic Civil War movie “Gettysburg” has brought forth a new birth of excitement and interest in this most significant of American battles-especially among those who’ve been inspired by it to see the hallowed, blood-consecrated ground first hand.
No exact attendance figures are as yet available, but what appears to be record numbers of American and foreign visitors have been descending upon the town and surrounding Gettysburg National Military Park since the movie’s release Oct. 10.
“October has always been our best month, but I never saw so many people here before,” said Emma Blocher of the Gettysburg Travel Council.
Filmed on the battlefield and nearby farmland during the summer of 1992, the movie may not be an urbane critic’s idea of brilliant cinema, or even the kind of introspective, soul-searching war drama found in the Audie Murphy and Richard Thomas film and television versions of Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage.”
But, based on Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novelized account of the engagement, “The Killer Angels,” it is a painstakingly authentic and magnificent-indeed, breathtaking-wide-screen re-enactment of the battle. The filmmakers employed no fewer than 15,000 historical “re-enactors”-including paid extras and volunteers-from all over the United States, most of whom have been restaging Civil War clashes and events for years, with a sharp eye to exactitude and historical accuracy.
By itself, or when coupled with a visit to the actual fighting ground, the film provides an unequaled educational experience-a means of making dusty history come splendidly and ferociously alive, particularly for young people. Many school teachers in the region are offering extra credit to students who see the film and/or visit the battlefield.
A lot of hyperbole has been attached to the various slaughters that have accumulated in the history of American warfare, but there is little exaggeration in the claim that Gettysburg was the country’s most decisive battle-a contest that made the eventual outcome of the war inevitable and made the United States an “is” instead of an “are.” Its consequences settled not only the question of slavery and whether this continent would be the geography of one or several republics; it was-as Lincoln noted in his now immortal “Gettysburg Address”-a clash between the principles of democracy and equality and those of a system of aristocracy, oligarchy and caste.
There is some speechifying on these matters in novel and movie, but both works concentrate mostly on the fighting, and the burdens carried by the men who led it.
By July 1, 1863-the first day of the battle-the North was sorely weary of the losses and defeats its armies had suffered in two years of war. Confederate commander Gen. Robert E. Lee, having failed in an invasion of the North the previous year, attempted it again this summer in hopes that the Northern war weariness could be turned into acceptance of the Confederacy as the price of peace.
His goal was to scare the North badly and, if possible, draw the Union Army out into the open in the countryside of Pennsylvania, defeat it in the field and then drive on Washington as Confederate President Jefferson Davis offered terms of peace. Gettysburg was where the two armies collided.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s worst aberrational moment of the war was the bloody battle of Shiloh, part of which he spent drunk while his floundering forces suffered terrible casualties. Lee’s one great aberration was Gettysburg.
He didn’t choose the ground, but happened upon it. His favorite cavalry leader, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, was off adventuring and failed to provide Lee with intelligence on the Union Army’s movements, and Lee declined to send any other of his cavalry units to do Stuart’s job.
Lee failed to press his initial advantage in the first day of fighting and sweep through the town to occupy the heights to the east and south. He failed to seize the key high ground of Big and Little Round Top when they were lightly defended. He ignored the advice of his chief lieutenant, Gen. James Longstreet, to abandon Gettysburg and sweep south, drawing the Union forces into a position more advantageous for the South.
And, on the third, final, cataclysmic day of the fighting, he ordered Pickett’s Charge-what proved to be a suicidal and gloriously unsuccessful infantry assault by more than 12,000 men, of whom 7,000 fell dead or wounded, against the Union center.
Lee at this point, convincingly portrayed by actor Martin Sheen in the film, was as much a spiritual force as a field commander-a man who very much saw himself and his opponents as instruments of divine will. He had won so many battles, he had come to view his ragtag army as invincible. He thought this battle so important, and wanted so badly to win it, that he threw his troops into the struggle as though he could will their success. Confronted by the horrible reality of the battle’s conclusion, he cried to his men, “This was all my fault! It is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it the best way you can!”
Of the 160,000 Americans on both sides who clashed at Gettysburg, more than 7,000 were killed, more than 23,000 were wounded and nearly 11,000 were listed as missing.
For the avid and knowledgeable Civil War buff, there are easily a week’s worth of things to do and see in and around Gettysburg. But even a single day’s tour can impart a full sense of the battle if one starts at the battlefield park’s Visitor Center and Museum-which is extraordinarilly rich in artifacts and has one of the best electric map shows known to the National Park Service-and then concentrates on the three military actions that dominate novel and movie: the first day stand by Gen. John Buford’s cavalry by the Lutheran Theological Seminary just west of town, the savage fighting in and around the two Round Tops and the Pickett’s Charge assault on the Union center on Cemetery Ridge.
The resistance put up by Buford’s dismounted cavalry against a far superior force of Confederate infantry bought time for Union infantry to move up and secure much of the high ground behind the town. The seminary building, with rooftop cupola used as an observation post, still stands and figured prominently in the movie. The cupola is not open to the public, but the seminary building is, and contains a small museum. An observation tower to the north of the seminary provides an excellent view of the ground crossed by the Confederates who attacked the doughty Buford.
The fighting on and around the Round Tops was among the most savage and important of the battle and war. Perhaps the most heroic, and important, was that of the 20th Maine Regiment, which held the extreme left of the Union line on Little Round Top. Commanded by Col. Joshua Chamberlain, in civilian life a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College, the outnumbered, under-munitioned 20th Maine repelled assault after assault by superior Confederate forces, and, when it ran out of bullets, finally drove them off their heavily wooded hill with a bayonet charge. Movingly played by Jeff Daniels as the major hero of the movie, Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor for his effort.
Both hills stand today largely as they were in 1863. Cleared of trees but strewn with huge boulders, Little Round Top offers a view of the fighting ground that includes the famous Peach Orchard and Wheatfield, and explains the carnage. One wonders how any army would have dared attack up that hill. At the same time, one sees how vulnerable the Union officers at Little Round Top were to the Confederate snipers firing from Devil’s Den just below.
Its a wearying climb to the top of Big Round Top, but worth it. Just below the summit and to the right of the ascending path is a monument to Chamberlain and his men. The thick woods on the slope around it are just what you see in the film, and would have during the battle.
To truly experience the full enormity of this engagement, one should follow in the footsteps of Gen. George Pickett and his Virginians in their magnificent if vainglorious charge, starting at the Virginia Monument, with its fine equestrian statue of Gen. Lee, at Seminary Ridge, and crossing the mile of open field across the Emmitsburg Road up the slope to Cemetery Ridge, where massed Union infantry and artillery ended Southern hopes in a bloody massacre.
The clump of trees that was the focal point of this walk through hell still stands, guarded by an iron fence. Nearby, a tall tree growing by a somewhat tumbled down stone wall marks the only section of the line where the confederates broke through. Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead, a close friend of the Union general who held this ground, Winfield Hancock, fell mortally wounded here. In the film, he’s played with great emotion by actor Richard Jordan, who himself died of a brain tumor shortly after the movie was completed.
The walk back from this “high water mark of the Confederacy,” especially when the sun is low in the sky, imparts strongly the feeling of defeat that surely accompanied the survivors of the charge.
Gettysburg has a bit of commercial glut here and there, especially along Business Highway 15, but it has essentially retained the look and feel of the 19th Century. Except for the numerous stone monuments to military units and individuals, the battlefield itself has been maintained in pristine condition. The chief flaw of this historical park is the obnoxious, 300-foot-high National Tower, with elevators and four observation decks, that looms like a creature from outer space over the Gettysburg cemetery and the battlefield as a whole. It has been disdained by buffs and preservationists from the start, but there’s nothing to be done about it, except to try to keep it out of one’s view and viewfinder whenever possible. Obviously, it does not appear in the movie “Gettysburg.”
The 4 hour and 20 minute film (including intermission), incidentally, is being featured indefinitely at the town’s Majestic Theater, with matinee and evening screenings.
One of the most interesting-and authentic-ways to experience Gettysburg is on horseback. The town’s Artillery Ridge Camp Ground provides rental horses and guides for organized trail rides around the battlefield, and rents bicycles, too. Their number is 717-334-1288. For full information about the battlefield and tourist facilities, call the Gettysburg Travel Council, 717-334-6274.
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The Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center and the Cyclorama are equipped with wheelchair ramps for the handicapped and have wheelchairs available for those without them. The Visitor Center museum lower level can be entered through a ground level side door through arrangement with any park guide. The three observation towers on the park grounds are accessible only by stairs, but the National Tower has elevators. Some battlefield sites such as Big Round Top are on rugged ground inaccessible to the handicapped, but most of the battlefield, including Little Round Top, Cemetery Ridge, Seminary Ridge and the Gettysburg National Cemetery, is easily reachable by car and there are usually level areas and paths suitable for wheelchairs. The hearing impaired can call for further information via Telephone for the Deaf, 717-334-1382.
