For years Hollywood and historians have painted “The Great Charge” or “Pickett’s Charge,” but more correctly referred to as “The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge,” at Gettysburg as a mass rush up Cemetery Ridge without ever giving the viewer or reader a total perspective of the tactical movement, individual thrusts or the vital role of specific battlefield geography.
Our speaker this month, John Beckendorf, will present Don Ernsberger’s CD-Rom presentation of “The Great Charge” which includes minute-by-minute visual mapping with wartime photos, paintings, music and dialogue to explain each step of the assault. John will punctuate this presentation with information regarding the 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers, who occupied the field in front of the Copse of Trees at the Angle by the High Water Mark of the Confederacy, including the sword of Lt. William F. McNamara in command of Company I (the right flank company) that July 3rd day; a sword which bears the mark of his wound received at Fredericksburg.
If you’d like to do some advanced reading in preparation for this talk, please refer to D. Scott Hartwig’s excellent article “It Struck Horror to Us All” which may be accessed and downloaded from the internet at the following weblink:
http://www.gdg.org/Gettysburg%20Magazine/scott1.hl tm
John Beckendorf is a member of the Los Angeles CWRT, and is President of a commercial insurance brokerage in West Los Angeles. He has been a serious student of the Civil War for 13 years, collecting many identified artifacts through which stories about the War can be researched. He is a founding member of West Coast Civil War Collectors, a collecting and study group (www.westcoastcwc.com). He has had a number of articles published in magazines dealing with the Civil War.
Come join us as we learn more about one of the greatest charges in military history.
Janet Whaley
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