Before saying anything else about this movie, let's get out the nit-picks and do a bit of nit-picking. First, all the Confederates are too fat. Contemporary comments (1863 that is) report the scarecrow like images of the gray columns moving up from the south. Too much pork and beans on these boys. There are too many trees on Little Round Top. True, the film was shot on the same ground, but again contemporary accounts and pictures show a hill that was covered with scrub at best. Remaining on the Round Top issue, during the defense by the 20th Maine, there should have been a rain of leaves, twigs and splinters onto the heads of the defenders. Diaries and letters home from the front reported being covered with bits of tree whenever fighting took place in forested areas. The filmmakers seem to have felt that smoke is good. As a result, men cannot be killed by grape and canister - not enough smoke — and just to add some more, the Confederates seem to be using rockets. This is Gettysburg, folks, not New Orleans or Fort McHenry. Finally, there are at least two myths that hang on even though history offers no corroboration. The first is the shoes of Gettysburg and the second is the death of Reynolds. But so much for the nits. Now on to the good stuff. GETTYSBURG is the best Civil War movie ever made, and in all likelihood it will remain that way for the rest of time. Let's for a moment take a look at the story as it is cast — as a work of "fiction". After all Shaara won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for The Killer Angels as a work of fiction, and fiction consists of "a planned series of interrelated events, propelled by a conflict and leading to a climax and a denouement." To many seeing "Gettysburg" as fiction, the accidental bringing together of Heth and Buford outside of Gettysburg has an aura of planning conceived either by an author or the Almighty. "I could not hold them back," Heth tells Lee; "They're are arrogant people. They came right at us," says Gamble reporting to Buford. Hairsbreadth escapes abound throughout the movie beginning with Reynolds' arrival with I Corps and "the men in black hats." There will be several seen in the course of the film and others which never made it to the book or movie. Certainly there are conflicts. On the grand level, they fall between two political entities (note I did not write "two nations" since the "nation-ism" of the Confederacy was one of the reasons for the war itself) and the armies that represent them. But the conflicts also appear on the personal level and are particularly represented by those evident among Lee's lieutenants and within Lee himself. Chief of these, and overriding all others, is between the real tragic hero Dutch Peter Longstreet and his concept of the aggressive defense against Lee's desire for the aggressive attack. But others force the collision of the two armies: Lee vs. Heth that brings on the action of the first day; Trimble and Lee over the conduct of Ewell as the first day came to a close; Hood vs. Lee and the actions of the second day; Alexander and Longstreet as the great final charge is to begin. Climax. Well if you want climax, you will never have a better one than that which begins when 12,800 men step out on the long march from Seminary to Cemetery Ridge. A friend of mine, a Canadian, who had no knowledge of the Civil War and no understanding of things military, told me she read the book as if it were an action mystery. She said her blood was pounding as Pickett's men began their advance. For those with knowledge, the movement and its inevitable results have the makings of Greek tragedy. Beyond the obvious recording of the story is the underlying artistry of the film. How deftly the Winslow Homer painting of an officer interviewing Confederate prisoners of war suddenly comes to life when young Tom Chamberlain finds three Rebs taken during the first day. Then there is the use of leit motif, the repetition of words or phrases to reinforce a point. How many times are the words, "Good ground" repeated, strengthening the idea that the Union, for the first time in the Civil War, was calling the shots. Lee's almost manic refrain, "The enemy is there and I intend to strike him," and the plaintive, "Has anyone seen Stuart?" Knitting the two forces together is Lewis "Lo" Armistead's love for Winfield Scott Hancock and his bride. Art, other than the art of war, is there. The motivation developed for the Confederates is shallow and vain. To many, exemplified by Pickett, the war is a grand lark, something to do for the glory of it. Lee sees it otherwise, but the overriding motive force found among the Confederate Officers is glory, honor and fun. Union motivation is different and more complex. Two bits of dialogue filled with emotion but delivered almost without any, give force to the Union position. both are given by the major hero of the story, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine. The first is his explanation of why soldiers fight delivered to the mutineers from the 2nd Maine. The second is between Chamberlain and Buster Kilrain, his First Sergeant, and the only enlisted man with a consistent voice in the film. Except for the stars and the stuntmen, both armies are made up of Civil War re-enactors, men who dress and drill as their counterparts did more than a century ago. As a result, what you see on screen of movements, formations, cannons and rifles are all "real". When Pickett steps off, there are over 12,000 men in the charge. When Alexander opens on the Union lines, fifty guns — the largest group of Civil War cannon present at one time since the final parade of the Grand Army of the Republic — open fire. Some events were staged, others just happened. When Martin Sheen decided to take a coffee break, he mounted his horse and rode toward the canteen, the men in the woods saw not Sheen but "Marse Robert" and poured out to salute him. The cameras rolled and caught one of the most spontaneous outpourings of emotion ever seen on film. That is why Sheen / Lee looks so surprised as the scene begins. When the men began the final charge over the actual ground — an event never before allowed by the U.S. Park Service which is responsible for the ground of the National Park — many had tears in their eyes. The movie crews did not understand. "This is hallowed ground," one of the re-enactors declared. A final note. I saw the film in the movie theater in Brunswick, Maine. Brunswick is an interesting town. It is the headquarters of the 20th Maine re-enactors and the location of Bowdoin College where Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain taught and — after his command of the 20th Main, wining of the Congressional medal of Honor, battlefield promotion, chief officer for the surrender of the Army of Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse and service as Governor of Maine — he returned to be the college president. We knew whom we were watching as the 20th Maine deployed on the far left of the Union line on the second day. You could feel the audience slip down behind the seats in front of them as the first Rebel charge came up the slope, feel them shift left as Chamberlain extends his thinning line to cover his exposed flank, feel the tension build as we were ordered to fix bayonets and sense the slight forward motion of men and women in their seats as the 20th Maine, swinging like a gate on a post, poured down the hill. Go see this movie. Then read the book. Then go see the film again. Back to Cry Havoc #10 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com