sometimes it's the little things (revisited)

("Kobra" wrote)
What great folk aviators are to each other. How trusting and caring. God
bless them and I hope one day I can repay their kindness for saving our
trip and allowing my father-in-law to have such a cherished memory. His
greatest moment was standing on Little Round Top just at sunset looking
out on the hallowed battleground of Pickett's Charge.


I have got to get out to Gettysburg next summer!! Thanks for the post.

http://www.brotherswar.com/Gettysburg-2k.htm
The First Minnesota at Gettysburg ...and Pickett's Charge.
[What Hancock had given us to do was done thoroughly. The regiment had
stopped the enemy, held back its mighty force, and saved the position, and
probably that battle-field. But at what a sacrifice! Nearly every officer
was dead, or lay weltering with bloody wounds--our gallant colonel and every
field-officer among them. Of the two hundred and sixty-two men who made the
charge, two hundred and fifteen lay upon the field, struck down by Rebel
bullets; forty-seven men were still in line, and not a man was missing. The
annals of war contain no parallel to this charge. In its desperate valor,
complete execution, successful result, and in its sacrifice of men in
proportion to the number engaged, authentic history has no record with which
it can be compared.]

(From Wikipedia)
Gettysburg
The men of the 1st Minnesota are most remembered for their actions on July
2, 1863, during the second day's fighting at Gettysburg, resulting in the
prevention of a serious breach in the Union defensive line on Cemetery
Ridge. Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, commander of the II Corps of the Army
of the Potomac, ordered the regiment to assault a much larger enemy force (a
brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox) in an effort to buy time
while other forces could be brought up. During the charge, 215 members of
the 262 men who were present at the time became casualties, including the
regimental commander, Col. William Colvill, and all but three of his
officers. The unit's flag fell five times and rose again each time. The 47
survivors rallied back to General Hancock under the senior surviving
officer, a captain. The 82 percent casualty rate stands to this day as the
largest loss by any surviving military unit in American history during any
single engagement.

Despite the horrendous casualties the 1st Minnesota had incurred, it
continued the fight the next day, helping to repulse Pickett's Charge. The
surviving Minnesotans just happened to have been positioned at one of the
few places where Union lines were breached during that engagement, and, as a
result, charged the advancing Confederate positions one last time as a unit.

As a direct result of its actions defending against Pickett's Charge, the
1st Minnesota captured the colors of the 28th Virginia.[1] The flag was
taken back to Minnesota as a prize of war and is displayed at the Minnesota
Historical Society. In the mid-1990s, several groups of Virginians
unsuccessfully sued the Society to return the 28th Virginia's battle flag to
the Old Dominion State.


Montblack
They want their 28th Virginia flag back. Ain't gonna happen!
[1] http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us%5Ecvcap.html
[2] http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/flag/vote.html
[3] http://www.mnlegion.org/paper/html/zdon.html