Today is the anniversary of the third day of the battle.
The Battle of Gettysburg: Day 3 🧵
— Manifest History (@ManifestHistory) July 3, 2025
1/ On July 3, 1863, Gettysburg reached its climax, with 140,000 troops locked in a desperate struggle. From Culp’s Hill to the fields south of town, Day 3’s battles—culminating in Pickett’s Charge—produced over 15,000 casualties, deciding the… pic.twitter.com/jVvFZhHIQR
Vicksburg fell the next day, on the Fourth of July, marking the beginning of the end for the South. Vicksburg refused to celebrate the holiday for seven decades.
I remember touring Vicksburg when I was a kid, with my grandparents, sister and some cousins. We had learned a little about the Civil Was in school starting in first grade. I remember the tour because the guide was this really hot Southern belle, a blonde who I imagine was no more than 18 years old (I was six or seven). Though I don’t remember the specifics of her speil, the tone of it was clearly disdainful of the Yankees. She did cheerfully talk about the future, when the South rises again. I remember that phrase. My wife had relatives who had been born in the South not long after the Civil War. She remembers that they didn’t believe the South had lost. One great great aunt would say “Lee didn’t surrender his sword. He thought Grant was a blacksmith, and gave it to him to sharpen.” They were serious. And in retrospect, I see that the general mood where I grew up (St. Louis) as late as the 1950s was more sympathetic to the Confederacy. Much of my elementary school lessons about the Civil War were from the Confederate point of view. It’s really odd, if you think about it.
That’s interesting. I would have expected that in further southern and central Missouri, but not St. Louis.
The border states could be very mixed. I grew up in the Arkansas Ozarks, about 10 miles south of the Missouri state line. One town could be pro southern, and the town 10 miles away pro north. It was like that back to the Civil War and probably before.
The defining battle west of the Mississippi was at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in March 1862. (Five miles from where I grew up. It’s now a national military park.) The North won, and there wasn’t much action west of the Mississippi for the rest of the war.
These lines about the Confederate viewpoint on the end of the Civil War remind me of the American view about the War of 1812!
The wife and I have been to a lot of Civil War sites, including Petersburg, Manassas, Chattanooga, Shiloh, Fort Donelson, etc. But the most spectacular are Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The latter reminded me of the western front in WWI, and the display of the USS Cairo is absolutely amazing.
The >4 hour long movie Gettysburg is definitely worth seeing, and it was filmed on location. You couldn’t make that film today.
I went to Stonewall Jackson high school in Manassas in the 1960s, within walking distance of the Battlefield. Also played with snapping turtles by Bull Run, which was a nice creek.
I’ve always considered the reconciliation between the North and South after the Civil War near miraculous, however imperfect and not withstanding Jim Crow. So many examples of how much worse it could have been throughout the world and history.
My ex (formerly known as Twitter) wife and I toured Gettysburg around the 3rd of July in 2010 or 2011, I don’t recall which. What I do recall is how miserable I was in the heat and humidity, while wearing shorts and T shirt. I couldn’t imagine being dressed in woolen uniforms, lugging Civil War battle gear and supplies, and fighting in that kind of heat and humidity.
I also recall giving her my take on the place. It was an ideal place for a battle, in my estimation. After all, there were all of these monuments, everywhere, which would provide ideal cover for infantry. I told her that I thought that it was probably why Generals Meade and Lee picked it.
Just another reason she’s my ex.
So sorry to hear that your wife stopped finding your jokes to be funny. That kind of personal rejection can hurt a lot.