Helping Trump with Gettysburg
Former President Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania this week, and some say fumbled a stream of consciousness on the turning point of the Civil War. Some facts are in order.
The usual suspects - stage four victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome - are having a field day over extemporaneous remarks made by the former and possibly future President at a rally near Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, earlier this week. It doesn’t take much.
Schnecksville, not to be confused with Shanksville, the western Pennsylvania town where UA Flight 93 crashed on 9/11, is located in the Lehigh Valley in northeast Pennsylvania, a politically competitive area. For the record, here’s what he said:
“Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was,” Trump stated during a Schnecksville, Pennsylvania rally on April 13. “The Battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable… I mean it was so much, and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country – Gettysburg, wow.”
“I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and watch the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor,” he stated. Did you ever notice it? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake. ‘He lost his big general. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys.’ But it was too late.”
I won’t bother repeating the insults hurled at him on social media. Still, I respectfully wish to share how Trump should have mentioned Gettysburg and encourage you to revisit history. At least, unlike his legion of critics, he is sending a few smarter, more inquisitive people to history books instead of social media.
First, he wasn’t entirely wrong. It was an “unbelievable battle.” It was “interesting and vicious and horrible and so beautiful in many different ways.” All of that was portrayed in one of my favorite movies, Gettysburg, based on the historical novel by the late Michael Shaara. Other historical accounts by true Civil War historians, including Winston Churchill (yes, he was), Bruce Catton, Allen Guelzo, Newt Gingrich (yes, he is), and my favorite, the late historian and novelist Shelby Foote. There are many others, including the late James McPherson and David McCullough.
Foote’s gentle Mississippi accent and pleasant, twinkle-eyed, grandfatherly demeanor were prominent in Ken Burn’s 1990 11-part video series on the Civil War, a must-watch for serious people who appreciate and respect history. You can also watch this terrific hour-long interview (above) by C-SPAN’s legendary founder, Brian Lamb, from 1994. Shaara and his son, Jeff, Foote, and Burns inspired a renaissance of interest in the Civil War that sadly ended with the removal and destruction of monuments, prompted by the horrific reaction to George Floyd’s death in 2020. Many Civil War monuments were constructed in a spirit of reconciliation decades after the war ended. It’s a classic case of presentism - applying “modern” standards, such as they are, to historical figures and actions, often intending to censure or revise history to fit malevolent cultural and political agendas.
I highly recommend a trip to and tour of the Gettysburg National Military Park, a 90-minute drive from Washington, DC, and 2-3 hours west of Philadelphia. While you’re there, travel west another 90 minutes and tour Antietam, along the Maryland and West Virginia panhandle, which was fought ten months earlier. Thirty thousand troops died on a single day at Antietam, and more died at Gettysburg over three days. These battles, and so many others (60 percent of the Civil War was fought in Virginia), including two battles at Manassas, not even an hour’s drive west of Washington, are linked remarkably.
Trump’s reference to Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General who led the South’s Army of Northern Virginia, being out of “favor” also was not wrong. Monuments to Lee have been removed, rather famously, from Richmond, Charlottesville, and other places. Even woke students at Washington and Lee University - where Lee served as president after the Civil War until he died in 1869, resurrecting the school - are trying to erase Lee from its name and more. He, his family, and his steed, Traveler, remain interred there (for now).
Second, Trump’s comments remind me how easy it is to trigger the woke, Progressive Left about the Civil War. Just ask Nikki Haley, who fumbled her initial response about the “cause” of the Civil War. One risks being canceled, or worse, if you stray from approved narratives. If you dare, you’ll be branded a racist. The Civil War is a test, a trip wire, for the revisionist Left, forever seeking opportunities to marginalize the unwoke, especially conservatives and Republicans.
There’s a reason they don’t like being reminded of their favorite political party’s history.
If you really want to trigger The Left, go watch Gone With The Wind, a fictionalized romantic look at the “old South” that would never be made today. The nearly four-hour movie, released in 1939, was epic in its day and stars the late Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland (who passed away in 2020 at age 104). It won an Oscar for “Best Picture” that year. HBO Max has reposted the movie after a several-year absence, but this time, it includes a historian to put things “in context.” Disney also puts “qualifiers” that look like apologies before its old cartoons like “Dumbo” and “Song of the South.”
Admittedly, I skip right over it and head to the movie. I don’t need any “interpretation.” How stupid do they think we are? They indict themselves. I get the history. It’s a classic case of indoctrination.
Third, Trump got sloppy about Lee’s actions and inaccurately quoted Lee regarding “fighting uphill.” There’s no doubt that Lee’s troops, from the charge at “Little Round Top” that made Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine heroes for their successful counterattack to “Pickett’s Charge” across an open field, were “fighting uphill” to varying degrees. Union troops seized the “high ground” along a ridge south of Gettysburg. But there’s no record of Lee saying, “Never fight uphill, me boys.” That’s too Irish (or, perhaps, too pirate-speak) for Robert E. Lee.
I’m also unsure what general Trump referred to that Lee “lost.” Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson died weeks earlier (May 5, 1863) at Chancellorsville in a case of friendly fire, and Gettysburg was Lee’s first major battle without the legendary general at his side.
One of the more interesting aspects of the battle was that the Confederate troops attacked Gettysburg from the north while the Union defended their territory from the south. Despite successfully occupying the town, Confederate mistakes early in the battle denied them a victory. A few historical novels - including Gingrich’s “Gettysburg” - have guessed what might have happened had Lee made different decisions, followed advice from General James Longstreet, and won the battle.
Lee also didn’t want to fight at Gettysburg. His original destinations were York and Harrisburg, the state capital. Still, a decisive act by a Union officer leading a badly undermanned regiment changed that at a bridge over the Susquehanna River in Wrightsville. Confederate invaders turned back and headed to Gettysburg.
For those who know the history of Gettysburg, including how Lee and his generals chose to fight there, how they fought there, and how the three-day battle—fought on July 2, 3, and 4 of 1863—was conducted, it becomes complicated. History does that.
There’s nothing wrong with Trump or any elected official mentioning Gettysburg (which is nowhere near Schecksville), as long as they’re truthful. It represented the war's turning point, and the Union victory contributed to its preservation. Its history, all of it, is worth learning, remembering, and sharing. The outcome led to the preservation of the Union and set in motion the war’s end nearly painful years later.
While Union General George Meade is credited with the victory, President Abraham Lincoln removed him from command for failing to pursue Lee’s defeated army across the Potomac River in Virginia. Gen. George McClellan, who would later challenge Lincoln for the presidency in 1864, was replaced after Antietam in September 1862 for the same reason. The legendary Generals US Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan would brutally and violently finish the job, destroying civilian lives and property in the process, as part of a scorched-earth strategy to destroy the South.
Far worse than anything Trump said has been the removal or destruction of monuments and attempts to rewrite history to push favored and often false or deceitful narratives. Those who do, ironically, are part and parcel of the same political party that enshrined support for slavery in its party platforms for much of the 19th century and gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan, the militarized wing of the Democratic Party. The 1924 Democratic National Convention - celebrating its centennial this year - was called a “Klanbake” for a reason. I wonder how the Democratic Party will commemorate it in Chicago this August? Anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas agitators probably have some ideas, if not plans. Seems fitting, since Arab nations and tribes aligned with Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II to eradicate an unfavored race. Here we go again.
That would be a much more appropriate target for ire and perhaps a nice way to remind Democrats of their sordid history. Trump might remember that next time he mentions the Civil War.
I kind of like what happened after Gettysburg, Lincoln had to move the battle harden troops to NYC, to put down the rioting Irish.
I read the Shaara historical novel Killer Angels last fall and and currently reading the second book of his Revolutionary war pairing A Glorious Cause, preceded by A rise to Rebellion. An excellent overview of that most intense engagement that changed the course of history. I highly recommend any of these excellent histories to anyone that enjoys learning about our American past!!