Question for your consideration

Monument to the 20th Maine at Little Round Top.

          The idea behind the topic of this issue of Speedyleeway is to spark debate. Your loyal blogger has an opinion on the question to be introduced and that opinion will be posted at a later date.

          There is no right and wrong here, only questions and opinions. Readers with opinions already formed are encouraged to render said opinions. Readers new to the question are urged to consider the background notes and then render your thoughts. Thoughts and opinions are welcome, so long as they are written politely. Political correctness is less important than plain, old fashioned good manners.

          Below is the background for the question, the question itself and a short list of pros and cons.

          Background: There is a small hill near the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania named Little Round Top. On July 2, 1863, the second day of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia attacked along a broad front the defenses of the United States Army of the Potomac. The far left flank of the Union defense was on Little Round Top.

          The left-most Union regiment, the 20^th Maine, endured a determined effort by the Confederate 15^th Alabama regiment to crush the flank and take the high ground from the Union Army. To be sure, other Confederate regiments attacked other Union regiments at other locations on Little Round Top and Confederate regiments from Texas and Alabama actually succeeded in driving off the Union defenders in front of it. The timely arrival of reinforcements saved the day for the Union.

          For the purposes of this debate, all that matters is the fighting between the Maine regiment, commanded by Joshua L. Chamberlain, and the Alabamians led by William C. Oates.

          More complete information on the struggle is available in numerous books or websites, but we can sum the action up by saying the Confederates pressed the Maine defenders hard and failed to move Chamberlain’s men off the ground they defended.

          Chamberlain went on to make a career out of being the man who led the defense of the left flank at Gettysburg and eventually became the governor of Maine. Oates, a lawyer before the war, returned to the legal profession when the war ended but later went into politics and was elected the governor of Alabama.

          There is a memorial to the Maine regiment where those men so fiercely held their ground. While serving as Alabama’s governor, Oates wrote Governor Chamberlain of Maine to learn whether Chamberlain would fight against Oates’ desire to place a monument to his Alabama regiment on Little Round Top. Chamberlain did not oppose the idea until the old warriors got to discussing the location of the proposed Alabama memorial.

          Oates wanted to place the monument on the spot where, Oates said, his brother was killed. Oates described the desired spot to Chamberlain. Chamberlain was adamant that the Confederates did NOT penetrate the Union lines that far. The politicians agreed, the old soldiers did not. No monument to the 15^th Alabama was ever erected on Little Round Top.

          Roughly 150 years later, your loyal blogger found two notes next to each other in the 20^th Maine area of Little Round Top. They are pictured here and that brings us to the question.

Marker for position of left flank of the 20th Maine July 2, 1863.

          Question: Should there be a memorial of some sort to the 15^th Alabama somewhere on or near Little Round Top?

Messages in favor of 15th Alabama monument on Little Round Top.

          Pro: The 20^th Maine area is among the most visited locations of all the Civil War battlefield parks. Adding a marker for the 15^th Alabama would enable better understanding for the fighting that was done there. Even Chamberlain was not against the idea, he was in disagreement with Oates over the location where Oates wanted the proposed marker to go. The politics of history should not determine the answer to this question.

          Con: It is too late now to do so because little would be served by putting the money or time into the effort. There are very few positions reached markers at Gettysburg for Confederate units, though there are a few. We do not know today where Oates wanted to locate the memorial to his regiment. Today we find the Confederate cause (the continuation of slavery) repellant, with good reason, and a monument to a Confederate unit would be the same as blessing the Confederate cause.

         

          Blogger’s answer: Your loyal blogger feels a position-reached marker or at least a plaque representing the pathway the 15^th Alabama followed should have been erected decades ago, if for no other reason than to more clearly detail the history of the location. There are left and right flank markers for the Union regiments that indicate where the defenders were on Little Round Top but there are no indications of where each attacking Confederate regiment went up against those defenders.

          Given the popularity Little Round Top has among Gettysburg visitors (new and old), you would have expected that there would be more attention to detail about where each Confed regiment was. Look at it this way: Those Union regiments were fighting somebody. Why not delineate the attacking force?

          Having said that, it is certainly easy to spend someone else’s money. A marker for the 15^th Alabama would cost money. The location would have to be determined, the type of marker/monument/statue would have to be decided and someone would have to pay to have the thing created, moved and erected. For this observer, the same thing would have to be done for the 48^th Alabama, 4^th Texas, 5^th Texas, 4^th Alabama and 47^th Alabama because those regiments also attacked Little Round Top on July 2, 1863.

Right flank marker for the 16th Michigan on LRT.

The 48^th Alabama and 4^th Texas succeeded in dislodging the 16^th Michigan from the Union right on Little Round Top. Only the timely arrival of the 140^th New York saved the Union defenders from defeat. Certainly a position reached marker for those regiments would be in order, similar to the North Carolina marker pictured here near the wall on Cemetery Ridge.

However … it is too late now for the work to be done. The history of the location would be richly served, but historic accuracy has given way to political correctness in American society. The uproar over placing such markers would be damaging to the National Parks Service and this blogger cares too much about the good work the NPS does to risk the backlash that would certainly come.

With regret, the opinion here is that it will never happen.

Snowless in Ohio

          When we moved from California to the American Midwest, we knew the winter weather would be different. We prepared for the terrors of winter time in Northeastern Ohio and, for sure, the first three winters have been difficult.

          We’ve had our share of snow over the years since we moved. Snow is pretty, I’ll grant you that, but it brings ice with it and ice represents a chance to wreck your car or crack your skull without doing anything wrong.

          Nobody likes ice on the ground.

          But this winter has been different. We haven’t had a single flake of snow. Not one flake. We’ve had some grapple, which is sort of like snow. We’ve had frost on the roof and lawns. We even had a little rain last week.

          But snow? Nope. Nary a bit of it.

Above is a view of what the backyard should
look like this week. Instead, it looks like
the image below.

          Understand, we were really ready this year. We bought some of those orange sticks you see in the ground around construction sites and we put a few along the sides of our driveway and along the sidewalk in front of where we live. When the snow comes, we’ll know where the driveway and walkways end.

          If the snow comes, that is.

          You start getting confused when the snow is a no show. Mrs. Leeway assured me that we had not magically teleported back to California without warning. She used logic to prove herself correct.

          “This would be a 40 million dollar house,” she asserted. “This place isn’t worth that. You bought gas today for both cars and spent less than 40 bucks, right?”

          “Well, yeah.”

          “In California, we’d be paying an extra half a dollar a gallon. And do you see the state building a train set over perfectly good farm land around here? No, you don’t. I mean, when Jerry Brown says he’s going to railroad you, that man doesn’t fool around. But it isn’t happening here.”

          Solid points, all. With her evidence, Mrs. Leeway convinced me that we were still in Ohio. But that still did not explain where all the snow went.

          “The snow,” she explained, “is in Colorado. The really cold weather is in Canada. I saw it on the TV news.”

          “So they finally closed the Canadian border,” I guessed aloud. “Trump got his way.”

          “No. There is a high pressure system hanging over us and it is keeping the snow and really bad weather away.”

          Suddenly, I was triumphant. I had evidence that she was wrong, after all. Sensing victory, I charged forward with my verbal assault.

          “Hah!” I cried. “That’s what you always hear about in California. A high pressure system.”

          “No,” Mrs. Leeway said with strained patience. “In California, they have a system for getting high.”

          Darn it, she was right again.

          Thanks for reading.

Liar Temptress Soldier Spy

Recently finished reading the book Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, about four women during the Civil

War. This is an interesting look at the War from a very different perspective. I felt there are a few questions left unanswered but the author (Karen Abbott) doesn't guess at things. Important note: Do not expect to like all four subjects of this book. Two of them supported a cause our generation finds repellant. Still, the history itself is interesting and I recommend the book.

Winner speak

          Have you ever noticed that the first thing a winner does is try to make the loser look good?

          Think about it. A football coach is interviewed seconds after the game ends and one of the first comments the coach makes is, “That’s a heck of a football team we just beat.”

          The score was 34-0. The starters for the winning team did not play beyond the first half. Three managers played in the fourth quarter. The losing team was in the midst of a 15-game losing streak. Make it 16 games.

Lee: Great but lost

          But the winners always praise the losers. It goes beyond sports. Who is the best-known general of the American Civil War? Robert E. Lee. What side was he on? Well, that country doesn’t exist today.

          But who looks good? Seriously, if Lee was a genius, what does that make Ulysses Grant? Whatever the word is, it means Genius Beater.

          Go read a few books about the Second World War. Read about the German general, Erwin Rommel. Every third word about Rommel is either “genius” or “brilliant.”

Rommel blitzed the African continent, then lost it. Given command of the Normandy beaches, he managed to be away from the front when the allies launched the largest amphibious assault in history. Rommel was involved with the plot to kill Adolf Hitler (which is to Rommel’s credit), but even that didn’t work out.

Montgomery: Beat Rommel

Well, winners write military history. We won and we’ve written that Rommel was a brilliant genius.

The British general, Bernard Montgomery, thought Rommel was a genius. So did US commander George Patton. Montgomery beat Rommel in Africa and Patton was part of that theater. Thus, they beat the brilliant genius. So Montgomery and Patton must have REALLY been something, huh? (Not together, you understand. Patton and Montgomery were not friends.)

Watch the next US Presidential election. It does not matter who wins, they’ll say the same thing the night of their victory. Almost word-for-word, they’ll say, “I’ve just called (the loser) and congratulated (him/her) on conducting a tremendous campaign.” Translation? The winner is really saying, “We beat those losers easily but I want to look good, so I’ll pump them up.”

Watch a NASCAR race sometime. Frequently, after a close finish, the winner will say, “We probably had a fifth place car today, but we won.” In other words, the winning driver is saying, “I carried this sorry sled around for 500 miles and I’m a better driver than the rest of those guys.”

So keep an ear on what people are saying. Are they gracious winners? To be sure. But what are they really saying? Think about it: They might be saying, “Look at me!! I won!! I won!!”

That other blog is tremendous, too. Thanks for reading this one first.