Hancock on Pickett's Charge | Eyewitness Account/Official Report 

He was never the same person after Gettysburg. That charge haunted him for the rest of his life. A classic case of PTSD. Sad.

@@alienlife7754 If Gettysburg hadn't messed him up, Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse definitely would have. It must have been horrible to witness.

It is, have family there

Very underrated.

Hancock did more at Gettysburg than Meade!

My late Dad was a 6 yr WW2 Vet, Lieutenant in artillery, Australian Army, and he had a big interest in the Civil war, he had a soft spot for the Confederacy. The men who made that ill fated charge, like your relative, were very brave indeed. great courage to do what they did, their sacrifice for what they believed is admirable indeed. Sadly the lessons from that charge were not learned, and were repeated even worse again, in France in WW1, useless carnage and death, for no result. Grant was right, war is hell. It is.

Mine died from wounds incurred at the Battle of Chancellorsville, VA.

My great grandfather was flanked by Jackson’s men @ the Wilderness. Grandpa told me: “Dad said, ‘I invented running that day, only back then they called it “desertion”. 😀 true story.

Do you know of any other engagements for your grandfather? Respect to your family.

My Great-grandfather fought at Gettysburg in the peach orchards. He was 20 years old and belonged to the 62nd Volunteers of Pennsylvania. Fortunately for me, he survived the battle or I wouldn't be here today. He had a lucky streak. He fought at Antietam also and was wounded at Fredericksburg. Proud to say his name is on the Pennsylvania Monument with the rest of his unit. He passed in 1905. He was Issac Smith.

I'd love to visit that cemetery and pay my respects to them.

Not totally accurate, but close. Hunt had his guns return fire for awhile but had them drastically slow down after an hour to make Lee think the Confederate fire had had a greater effect than it actually did, though both Meade and Hancock were well aware of, and in agreement with Hunt’s rouse, which appears to have worked to draw the Confederate infantry out.

Run! Run old hare! If I was an old hare, I'd run too!

Jennifer LePage yep but so many were life long friends and such that they were worried more about being seen as cowards than dying

@@kirkmorrison6131 How could you show your face "back home" if you ran and left your comrades in the heat of battle.

I agree and that explains so many retreats having men walking backwards so as not to be shot in the back. They didn't want to be shot in the back and thought a coward

@@kirkmorrison6131 Troops going AWOL, bolting, desertion, etc. was not uncommon in the Civil War with both sides.. That possibly contributed to a relatively sizable "missing" category for Civil War casualties from battles at the time.

Thank you so much.

No he did not forgive General Lee.

The Union calvary that day was led by general Custer . With a smaller force he attacked the southern calvary and defeated them . An unsung hero of the battle

@@JBG1968 No, Custer was a brigadier under General Judson Kilpatrick, who outranked him in the cavalry. However, it was General Gregg who directed Custer and his Michigan brigade to attack Stuart's superior force and broke them. Custer was one of the youngest generals in the war at only 23!

Custers rank was a brevet rank

Undoubtedly Lee had some of the greatest infantry in history but I think there are 2 things that you are not realizing, for one they were contemptuous of the Yankees, with good reason, the battle before Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, was Lee’s greatest victory. The rebels knew they were vastly outnumbered and outflanked yet they won. Second they thought the artillery bombardment would rattle them. It was until WW1 the greatest artillery bombardment in history, they underestimated the Union troops, I think there is no doubt of that. They also overestimated the bombardment, it was mostly an overshoot and did not have the effect they thought it would.

Jeff Smith Here is another thought regarding Pickett’s charge. Let’s take into consideration that Lee’s only chance of winning the civil war was for the North to come to the bargaining table. And he knew that if he could inflict the north with heavy enough losses, even if the South was suffering just as much as the North, the North might decide to call it a day. That was his plan. But it failed. Lee wasn’t a traitor to the South but he knew right before Pickett’s charge that the North could not be beaten. Therefore why does he order the charge? We are meant to think that Lee lost the plot but I don’t think he did. If Longstreet knew the charge was doomed to fail, then so did Lee. So what’s the deal? What was that fiasco all about? Maybe this is the answer. When Lee knew he couldn’t beat the North he also knew that whilst it would be wise to surrender, and he’d like to do that, he couldn’t do that because the South didn’t yet want to give up. They needed a lot more punishment before they’d see the writing on the wall. Therefore Lee in order to bring the war to an end as soon as possible, he desperately starts the process of inflicting pain on the South with Pickett’s charge, knowing full well that it’s a suicide attack, all for the purpose of reducing the will of the south to fight. I don’t think Lee wanted to see anymore useless carnage. And although Pickett’s charge was carnage on an epic scale, nevertheless maybe it shortened the war, because without it the South might have still thought they could win. Herein is the summary of what I am saying. I am saying that maybe Lee ordered the charge to shorten the war because it would help the South realise that their cause is over.

@Doug Bevins You comment on everything don't you, Cornpone?

@@paulwilfridhunt at a cost of 3 divisions and over 12.500 men? That's too HIGH a price to pay to shorten the war. Besides the south was winning up to Getteysburg, Lee had chalked up victories , 2nd battle of bull run, battle of south mountain, battle of antietam, battle of fredricksburg, battle of chancellorsville, that may be why Lee had the character, he seemed unbeatable.

@JAG there was no opposition to slavery in Northern states. Why did you fail to mention that? Are you just dumb?

This is known as "malicious obedience." It's well known that Longstreet didn't like Lee.

Which brings up a serious moral dilemma: What do you do if you know, or at least suspect, and order is impossible? Disobey and be Court-Marshaled?

@@valeriegriner5644 that Longstreet undermined Lee is one of those great Lost Cause chestnuts that doesn't hold up to actual scrutiny.

I agree to a point. I think the amount of infantry and interior lines made the Union line at Gettysburg under his command more stable than most people think, even without artillery.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for supporting the channel. I try to help people understand the war better and I'm glad that you enjoy them.

@@HistoryGoneWilder Thanks for the response....you have taken on quite challenge. However, consider if your chosen path had been writing fiction, you could never have dreamt of the horrendous details of the American Civil War - or any war for that matter (20 million civilians in WW2). Best wishes

@@robertthompson6346 thank you so much. Stay tuned for more history videos.

People are stupid. They keep repeating the same mistakes under different circumstances.

@@georgesakellaropoulos8162 Not quite stupid as ignorant. Each generation has a responsibility to teach the following generation the lessons they've learned, and no generation in history has ever done this to a satisfactory level. We're not born with wisdom--we need to be taught it, or else learn it through difficult experiences. Just remember that before you judge a younger generation harshly, that it was your responsibilityas their elders to educate them, and their faults partially lie on your shoulders.

Thank you. I love it too. I want to do a few more from the union side.

Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the support.

You are right. By 1863, the Army of the Potomac was a lethal fighting force and with commanders like Hancock, they were successful.

They remembered the effective positions taken by the confederates at Fredericksburg. Payback’s a bitch.

@@markproulx1472 - It wasn't rocket science!

@@randallwhite536 You would think that, and for the most part you are right, but history is full of armies and generals who never learned anything.

@@markproulx1472 thats why they chanted Fredericksburg as the rebels retreated

Thank you so much for watching. Hancock was brilliant and a true inspiration to his men and that is what drew me to him as a commander. I can't wait to do a series on the Battle of the Wilderness and Hancock will take center stage in my videos.

@Chin Brumback you need to do some research on what hancock accomplished throughout the war i.e. no. Of battle flags no. Of prisoners etc. Also how he is still regarded by military historians today. After you have done that then I'd defend my answer. Until then I'm wasting my time

You must read it Gardner Barnes!

​@Gardner Barnes I'd say the events are historical, and the dialog is largely fictional, but the dialog is based on the views expressed by the men themselves. And it is one of the best books I've ever read. The opening chapters on the spy, Longstreet/Lee, and Buford are some of my favorite literature. I think it won a Pulitzer in '75 or thereabouts.

Gardner Barnes Another excellent book is “Hardtack and Coffee”. It is more in the line of the day to day life of a common soldier. The Southern counterpart would be “Company Aitch”.

@@samiam619 I read Company Aytch many years ago as a kid. It is still one of my favorites. I had been to Gettysburg many times growing up. But it wasn't until I read Killer Angels that I finally gained a basic understanding of the flow of the battle across the three days. Two of my favorite Civil War books.

My maternal Grandmother was Ada Mae Eubanks born in Adams County Ohio around 1902. Wondered if you might be kin. I'm trying to trace her line for any Union veterans.

Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel. I went to LMU for my bachelor's degree. I was born and raised in the area and still live here.

Thank you so much.

And even though I knew very little about the Battle of Gettysburg at the time, being the veteran wargamer I already was, I found that pressing on with Pettigrew's excellent brigade at McPherson's Ridge (I think) I would steamroller those Union cavalry and even the belated Iron Brigade couldn't do much. Playing as the Confederates, it wasn't that hard to win at "Sid Meier's Gettysburg" (the computer game, not the historical battle!). Playing as the Union, it was extremely difficult not to become utterly discouraged as my troops broke time and time again. Then later I found out that deploying masses of skirmishers on the Confederate flanks during an assault, would usually soften them up so they wouldn't always break through. To the regular Union soldier back then, in the midst of all this bloody firing and hand to hand combat (or bayonet and rifle stocks), it must have been utter hell. As a wargamer playing it on my PC, it was hard enough even with the excellent overall view. Knowing that most of my regular lines couldn't stand up against Confederate lines when going up against each other.

From all accounts it was very intimidating. I have an account of a north carolina soldier describing it that I will read one day.

@@AudieHolland I never played that game but I did play Civil War Generals 2. It was a really great game. Just never historically accurate.

The rebel yell was heard all over Gettysburg as the rebels were being shot in the butt as they ran from Union troops.

I've read somewhere a Scottish writer who witnesses and heard the rebel yell, equated it to the howling battle cries of the Scots in centuries prior. I've spent alot of time trying to find more on this, specifically who the Scot was, but as of yet I've only found anecdotal stories with little to no proofed references.

Thank you very much! I've got many more videos. Please check them out.

Not sure, but that is something to ponder. Gilded Age political history is very complicated. I think Hancock would have made a good president. Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel.

If his area of support came from the South, I’m glad he wasn’t elected.

He was one of the north’s best generals

That’s certainly true, but his politics sucked.

He would have been a more ethical president than Grant. Unfortunately, the Indian Wars were not kind to him.

They are also old, the reenactors seem to be 40-60 years old when the actual soldiers were teenagers or 20ish.

There were older soldiers on both sides contrary to what other posters say. And, they had surprisingly young guys in command positions. There was a 19 year old major in the artillery in Ewell's Corp wounded on Benner's Hill. The Union Army had a 19 year old artillery officer. Custer and Farnsworth were brigadier generals in the Union cavalry at 24 and 25 respectively. You're right about the re enactors being too heavy. There were no fat boys on either side. Keeping the troops fed was a constant struggle. To be fair, the Southerners had been eating a lot better for two weeks prior to the battle and had regained a lot of their strength. However, nobody was sporting a gut.

@@jangiel3103 You only have to go back to the 1970's to experience nobody sporting a gut. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mfLFCrKhiHo.html Today at Walmart; most are way overweight. We have lost the healthy battle.

@@wutzg.owenon5869 Welcome to the only time in human history where poor people are fat and rich people are skinny.

@@MrFlossinlawson And the rich pay for gyms, trainers, Peloton bikes, etc . Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

I liked how they always asked about each other when I watched Gettysburg. No greater love between to brothers in Bond

I believe they served together in Mexico.

@@alienlife7754 I believe they did as well

Before the war they were both stationed in a sleepy town in southern California called "Los Angeles."

@@calguy3838 there were actually 3.i believe union general Reynolds was the 3rd.

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@@HistoryGoneWilder I have with exception of a couple (no reasons) I'll get to them. I also enjoyed your video on Gen. Hood explains Gettysburg....also well done! Keep'em going.

Yes, Hancock was portrayed beautifully in the movie. It represented his military qualities well. Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel.

@@HistoryGoneWilder Absolutely! I'm so glad I found your channel. Please keep doing a great job!

Will do. Thank you. I appreciate all the views. Please feel free to share the video to get the word out about the channel.

I truly love the account of the wonderful friendship between Lewis Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock.

Detroit native Brian Mallon did a masterful job portraying Winfield Scott Hancock, He even bares some resemblance to Hancock.

Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel. Please check out my other videos.

@@HistoryGoneWilder I have watched a half dozen or so in the last couple of hours. Chickamauga (I live in Atlanta any have been there many times); Hood at Franklin and Nashville (there are efforts to rehab his reputation, as the negative quotes about him are poorly-sourced); Barksdale's Charge; Jackson at Fredericksburg; and the other Gettysburg ones. I admire your use of primary sources. If I had one suggestion it would be dating the memoirs as opposed to the after-battle reports. I believe E.P. Alexander had a long, long time to think before he wrote his description of Pickett's Charge.

Sadly, Hancock would've been the commanding general at Gettysburg but being that he was replaced due to being put in charge of a beaten and resting army, that Jackson ended up routing, he wasn't trusted to do the job. Thing is, that wasn't his fault, Burnside screwed things up so badly any one taking over would've had the same kind of difficulty, but the newspapers see a terrible defeat it must be the man in charge to blame.

@@skipper4126 Burnside was horrible, as were most of the Eastern Federal commanders. Hancock, Chamberlain, and few other standouts were all that redeemed the eastern Federal. The Eastern War and the Western War was an exercise of opposites.

Yes he was. When you look at his actions in the Wilderness, you can tell he truly cares for his soldiers under his command.

@@HistoryGoneWilder I recall in the movie Gettysburg, Longstreet saying 'thats Hancock over there, and he won't budge' or something like that... Meaning even Jim Longstreet admired the man.. I think were they both Hancock and Amistead friends with Longstreet before the war...?.!

@@jbearmcdougall1646 the Army back then was so small that most prewar soldiers knew one another.

@@HistoryGoneWilder literally, brother against brother as it were.. it's also a great change to be able to speak with a RU-vidr.. :-)

@@jbearmcdougall1646 Yup and he even mentioned the Federal Army being behind the stone wall, Like the Rebs were at Fredricksburg meaning that it was futile to even suggest attacking that position.

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I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel.

Thank you so much for sharing that family history. I've got a video of an eyewitness to Pickett's charge coming out today or tomorrow. Please check it out. I think you will enjoy it.

Salute from Alabama to your Confederate ancestor

I will be doing a series on Hancock in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned for that. Please consider subscribing if you have not done so already and check out my other videos. I think you will enjoy them.

Trite, facile, and ahistorical. Perhaps you feel the same way about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe? By British standards they were traitors too. Perhaps you would have felt differently if you had grown up in the South during the Antebellum period.

The narrator does.

wise1 Lee was over confident. If he’d listen to Longstreet.He was totally against it. He wanted to move to the right. So he could have the high ground. The Union would of had no choice but to attack .

No men ever made could take that hill.

Many civil war generals made this sort of mistake at one time or another in their careers. Grant's assault on Cold Harbor and some of his assaults on Vicksburg fall into this category, I think.

@@zanzibart3 doesn't make it any less dumb. That's an "everybody's doing it" argument. Besides, Grant could afford to make those mistakes. Lee could not. Lee unfortunately placed too much faith in god and destiny instead of listening to his brain.

Lee was in poor health during the battle. He was suffering from angina and fatigue from his heart condition. His back ached and getting around was difficult for him. His back and heart prevented him from climbing into the steeple of the Seminary where nearly the entire battlefield other than Culps Hill was visible.

@@johngaither9263 And? You go to war with the army you have. Disease was endemic in war. If Lee was that sick, he should have either not commenced battle or temporarily turned over command to someone else. He did neither, so the fact he may not have been 100 per cent is on him. If we are to credit Lee's brilliance, let us also own up to his defeats. All generals in that war resorted to frontal assaults and nearly all of them were fruitless wastes of men. If we are to cry "butcher" when Grant does it, we must certainly do the same here when Lee does it and do so without making excuses. Otherwise, we aren't really celebrating Lee -- we are elevating him above his deserts. But he did his share of butchery and Pickett's charge should be the most infamous. It certainly was the most costly as his army never really could go on a sustained offensive ever again.

Thank you so much. I am truly thankful for supporters like you. Hancock was a great commander, very level headed. I would have loved to have seen what he could have done as commander if the Army of the Potomac.

@Patrick Brinkmeier According to the video by the US Army War College it had plenty to do with it. Stuart was held up by a local militia

Historians will debate that for generations to come. Vicksburg had a definite strategic impact with Texas and Arkansas and Missouri (and all their resources) cut off, but after Gettysburg Lee could never take the initiative again, he could only react.

Vicksburg was a great Union offensive victory, Gettysburg was a great defensive victory. Amazing that the two generals from these battles won arguably their greatest victories at the exact same time and then would work together in the Overland Campaign.

@@TheBargles true. And that Grant had the vision to turn Sherman loose. I don't think he could've come east to deal with Lee did he not have confidence that whomever was out west didn't need hand-holding.

@@TheBargles true. And that Grant had the vision to turn Sherman loose. I don't think he could've come east to deal with Lee did he not have confidence that whomever was out west didn't need hand-holding.

@@Putaspellonyou Part of the reason why Lee never really took the initiative again is that Grant never let him have it.

Longstreet told him it would fail.lee wouldn't listen.

Well, there was at least Malvern Hill. But Lee's biggest mistake is the one no one thinks about. After November 1864, with Lincoln safely re-elected, the war was 100 per cent hopeless. There was no victory possible. Lincoln was going to persist until it was finished, no question and no doubt. That's not hindsight. That is what everyone knew would happen prospectively. He should have told Davis to sue for the best peace he could get while he still had armies in the field and so some leverage, however slight, over the peace. War is not just for the heck of it. It needs to have a point. It lost all its point by November 1864 at the latest. Lee did nothing of the kind. He did the opposite. He fought and bled his army until they were on the verge of starvation. Even three days before Appomattox, he told his staff not to consider surrender. . .yet. Butchery, pure and simple. Pointless butchery. Every soldier in every theater that died after November 1864 was on Robert E. Lee and Jeff Davis for refusing to face the inevitable. Did they obtain better peace terms for all that carnage? No, they did not. Lincoln already knew what he would impose and he did exactly that. Every soldier died for absolutely nothing. People forget that had Lee held out even longer, Sherman was going to come right up his ass and do to North Carolina and Virginia what he did to Georgia. So, it was actually a blessing, of sorts, that Lee ran out of gas in April. Because it would have actually gotten worse than it already was for the south.

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Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel. Please consider subscribing to the channel if you have not done so already. Also, please check out my other videos. I think you will enjoy them.

Steve Stringer Probably so, don't remember who suggested it. But one thing was for sure, Burnside wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer...

Tripp Bloodworth he wasn’t dumb, he just had no confidence. He didn’t want to take chances. There were always options for audacious maneuvers when your force is larger, and better supplied. Burnside didn’t think like that, so a frontal assault it was.

There was actually another bridge, unguarded by Confederates, further downstream.

@@springfield03sniper considerin McClellan had en entire corps he didn't commit at Antietam and Burnside's bullheadedness later that year at Marye's Heights I'd say he was merely just not that inventive as a tactician.

I'm not sure. I will have to look into that. It would make for a great video.

Thank you

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Yeah he was hit in that fight

He was very effective.

It is definitely worth a read. Most generals wrote something, whether small or large. Thank you for watching and supporting the channel.

I though it was a report that he wrote to his superiors such as Gen. Meade, the Secretary of War, or even Pres. Lincoln himself.

@@freakyold this account I read was his official report.

He is very clinical, but when you hear how his men cared for him, his emotion comes out through his actions.

It was a Movie! Cold and clinical only works with Vulcans in Star Trek. And he writes as a 19th Cent. gentleman - occasionally fulsome, with a bit of poetry.

That's about the best guess.

@@HistoryGoneWilder Trudeau's research uncovered that a 'second wave' was planned by the rebels. As I recall, only one other historian asserted that. Of course, my reading is not that extensive, and there may be other historians who discovered that there was to be a second wave. There are several accounts of rebels, both officers and others, lamenting that 'supporting troops' never appeared. Accounts of other battles reveal that Lee employed at least 20,000 men to assault Federal positions. After 160 years plus, the mysteries of Gettysburg remain!

Thank you, General. If only you had been there to set him straight.

Talk about hindsight being 20-20 lol.

Thanks for clearing that up chief.

All his decisions were made upon the information he had in hand, and of the accepted tactics of the day.

@@useyourbrain3765 Oh, come now. Frontal charges had been done to death by that point and they uniformly failed no matter who did them. The only one I remember working was when Sherman had a 10 to 1 advantage over some small southern force or other in some minor battle. The rest all ended as they did in WW I -- with loads of casualties and no success. Generals in both wars kept at it, apparently unable to learn from their mistakes. What really won civil war battles, offensively, was to outmaneuver your opponent with various flanking maneuvers that compelled them to retreat. With or without battle. Charging into enemy artillery should have been retired as a tactic by 1863 at the latest. Look at Grant's underrated Vicksburg campaign. It is actually brilliant, but the bits that failed miserably were his frontal assaults on entrenched confederate positions. It succeeded where he surprised and outmaneuvered the rebs who didn't know where he was and couldn't see him coming.