Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion With JD Baker Pt.6: The Battle of Gettysburg

By July 1863, the Confederate army’s continuing success in battle emboldened General Lee to move the war into the north. While Lee and his troops passed through Maryland into Pennsylvania, Lincoln replaced General Joseph Hooker with General George Meade, who hastily pursued Lee. On the morning of July 1, the two armies finally met outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion, number six with JD Baker and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening JD.

• 0:09JD Baker?

  Good evening Jocko.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  "At 3 a.m. I was aroused from my deep sleep by an officer from Washington entering my tent, George Meade wrote to his wife, and after waking me up, saying he had come to give me trouble. At first, I thought that it was either to relieve me or arrest me, and promptly replied to him that my conscience was clear, void of offense toward any man. I was prepared for his bad news. He then handed me a communication to read, which I found was an order relieving Hooker from the command and assigning me to it."

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  Meade's account suggests an equanimity that may have been more imagined than real. According to the messenger, James A. Hardy, Meade at first became much agitated. He protested that John Reynolds should have been chosen instead, that he, Meade, was totally arrogant, ignorant of the positions and dispositions of the army he was to take in charge, and that it would only make sense for him to refuse the assignment. Hardy patiently explained that all of Meade's arguments had already been taken into consideration, and the president's

• 1:35Jocko Willink?

  decision was final. As Meade absorbed this, some of his dry humor returned. "Well, I've been tried and condemned without a hearing," he told Hardy, "and I suppose I shall have to go to the execution."

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  So that right there is an excerpt from the book Gettysburg by Noah Andre Trudeau. Kind of bringing the union leader for the Battle of Gettysburg. We've heard his name a bit already. General George Meade. How he ended up taking command. Uh, I know this JD, this, this is, this is kinda your. Your recommended book. For Gettysburg.

• 2:24JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  If you're gonna read one, I know you've read 50 books about Gettysburg, but if you're gonna read one, this is a good one to start with.

• 2:30JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, I think we got like, what, like, uh, like 10 books left out here in front of us on Gettysburg, uh. And, and you know, and, and I haven't like officially walked through and like counted how many books there are written on Gettysburg, but I would probably speculate that.

• 2:48JD Baker?

  There's more books written on that piece of dirt than any other piece of dirt in the United States, uh, of Gettysburg and. Uh, of all the books, you know, I've read a ton and this is, uh, yeah, if, if I was gonna go and I was gonna get one book. Uh, to read on, on Gettysburg of the overall battle. So I'm not, so now we can't talk about like individual people at the battle. This is like the overarching. Book of all the events that took place at Gettysburg. This is the go-to, uh, by Trudeau. Uh, it is, uh, to me, man, you know, it's an. It's an easy read.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  How many pages is this bad boy? Few hundred, 500? Yeah, maybe 600 pages. Uh. So getting to the story here. Meade's getting selected as commander. Again, he's thinking he's getting relieved. I mean. Two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, knock on a door. He thinks he might be getting relieved. Instead, he's getting selected as the commander. First of all, is he the first draft pick? He mentioned some other, like, what about Reynolds? Well, you know, where's he at? Why is Hooker getting relieved? What's? Is he the first draft pick? Why isn't it Reynolds? What's going on?

• 4:04JD Baker?

  Yeah, uh, I mean, and of course, you know, Meade is not, he's not the, he's not the first draft pick. Reynolds is, I mean, and Reynolds and Meade, they're friends. You know what I mean? Like, they get along. They've been, you know, now we're coming in. We just finished out in May. Now we're coming into June 1863. Both of them are West Point guys. And even if you look at like Reynolds, I mean, Reynolds was like, like the commandant of cadets at West Point. You know what I mean? Like, he's a big deal. He's also a Pennsylvanian, but so is Meade. Well, Meade was, Meade was raised in Pennsylvania. His dad, he was actually

• 4:47JD Baker?

  born in Spain. And then, you know, his dad was a foreign dignitary kind of type guy. You know, I guess you could like, put like, State Department kind of guy. He's overseas stuff. So Meade's born overseas, but he's raised in Pennsylvania. So they're both Pennsylvania guys. So, you know, just like you talked about it, you know, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I mean, nothing good happens after 10 o'clock at night. Like, unless it's like the birth of a child. You know what I mean? Like, you get a call, but you're kind of expecting that. You know what I mean? Like, hey, you know what I mean? I'm dilated a certain amount. Okay, yeah, I'll take my phone up with me because you could have the birth of a child. That's the only time anything good happens after 10 o'clock at night. And, and Meade, he had written his wife. I mean, that's the cool thing about a lot of the stuff that

• 5:32JD Baker?

  we capture about this behind the scenes stuff that's going on with folks in the Civil War is, you know, back then, they all write letters home. So he's writing a letter home to his wife and, you know, and Meade, Meade, he doesn't get along with Hooker. You know what I mean? Like, he's not, he's not a Hooker fan. And him and Hooker kind of get into it a little bit. So he's kind of like, basically writing his wife saying, hey, honey, I might be out of a job. You know what I mean? Like, I might be coming home. Like, I really don't know what's gonna happen. And then, there he is, you know, he hits the rack and, you know, one of these teenage couriers that we talk about, you know what I mean, comes over, he's got a message, you know what I mean? Knocks on his door, comes in, hands him back. And of course, probably the first thought going through his head is, whoop,

• 6:15JD Baker?

  this is it. You know what I mean? What am I gonna do now? Because it wouldn't be the first guy that's been relieved in the Army of the Potomac. And, you know, Meade opens it up and boom.

• 6:29JD Baker?

  It's from Abraham Lincoln, man, and it's your rodeo now. You're the commander of the army of the Potomac. And of course, his first thought is, is why me? You know what I mean? Like Reynolds, Reynolds capable commander, you know, and Reynolds was the first draft pick. But Reynolds didn't take it. He turned it down. And of course, there's a lot of speculation that is about Reynolds of like, why? Yeah, okay, yeah, he was a corps commander. You know what I mean? He just wanted to stay with his corps. I kind of get that. I mean, we talked about Burnside earlier and some of the other ones. I mean, he was offered it and he didn't take it. And I'm sure just like with, you know, if Lincoln, if we go like how he talked

• 7:14JD Baker?

  to Burnside, he's like, okay, well, Burnside, if you don't take it, we're gonna give it to Hooker. And he's like, okay, I'll take it. So obviously, I'm sure that, you know, Lincoln was like, well, okay, you know, John Reynolds. He's like, okay, John, well, I mean, if you're not gonna take it, I'm gonna put George in. And he's probably like, yeah, dude, I'm good with George. I could only imagine, because they're friends. You know what I mean? So I could imagine like Reynolds is like, yeah, hey, babe, he's a good dude. Now, when you look at it, you know, Reynolds, Reynolds, just to, you know, kind of let, you know, some of the folks kind of know about Reynolds, a huge fan of the guy. Reynolds is single. And when he's out in California before the war, he meets a girl. And her name's

• 7:56JD Baker?

  Kate. Catherine is her name. And they decide that, you know, the war kicks off, they're like, hey, you know, after the war, you know, they planned to get married. And, and he's like, yeah, and if I don't make it through the war, you know what I mean, then you're gonna go to become a nun and you're gonna join a convent for the rest of your life. So that's kind of the deal that they have. And so she takes his West Point ring, which is a big deal, you know what I mean? And then he's got a ring that he's wearing around his neck. That's, that's her ring. And it says, Dear Kate, as inscribed on the inside of the ring that Reynolds is wearing. But nobody knows that Reynolds has a girlfriend.

• 8:42JD Baker?

  And as they're coming up towards Pennsylvania, you know Reynolds being from Pennsylvania, he's, his plan is, is as they're on their way into Pennsylvania, he's gonna take Kate and he's gonna introduce them to his folks and let her kind of meet the family. You know what I mean? They're kind of like secretly engaged. Well, you know, to kind of put you in the content is Kate's Catholic and Reynolds is Protestant. Well, in 1863, it's a big deal. Uh, so that's why they're kind of keeping it like under the wraps and he's not like telling

• 9:22JD Baker?

  anybody, even his staff guys, like most, none of these guys know that General Reynolds has got a girlfriend. And this is, again, this is just shady kind of, you know what I mean? When I kind of look at it, it's like, okay, well, if I know I'm, I'm gonna go home and I've got like this plan kind of thing, and if I stay as a corps commander, I've got the ability to kind of swoop away and, and take Kate and go introduce to the family. If I take this gig as the army commander, I'm probably gonna have to cancel my little trip with Kate and introducing him to the family. I mean, it's just me kind of thinking because I kind of put myself in Reynolds shoes. If I've got this plan, I'm gonna bring my fiancee to come meet the family and I'm like, but I'm gonna get promoted and it's

• 10:05JD Baker?

  like, that's gonna screw up. Like, I'm gonna have to like start formulating plans and you know what I mean? It's gonna overwhelm me. I'm taking over a new position. Uh, and so I think that had a little bit to do, uh, with the fact of Reynolds turning down command. And again, I think that Reynolds is cool with George Gordon Meade being the army commander. Like, hey dude, I'll work for that guy, like any day of the week. So, uh, that's, that's a little bit, you know, we'll talk about like, we'll talk about Kate, you know, a little later, you know, instead of getting our head over ourselves with, uh, with General Reynolds. Um,

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  And, and Meade, you know, you mentioned Meade doesn't really like Hooker. And one of the things you, I know when you and I talk about Meade, we always throw the word, you always throw the word like, he's an engineer. Like this is the kind of personality, you know, you have that stereotypical personality of what an engineer is. This is an analytical person. He's a thoughtful person. He's a cerebral person. And we're gonna see that conduct. He has the mindset of an engineer throughout this, throughout the Gettysburg campaign for sure.

• 11:05JD Baker?

  Right. Yeah, he's, uh, yeah, Meade is, uh,

• 11:11JD Baker?

  I mean, yeah, he's just, he's different. Uh, but the, the thing that, you know, if, if you, if you pull the string a little bit on, on George Gordon Meade, even at the, at the start of the Civil War, of the battles that we've already discovered, like Meade is the, he's, he broke Jackson's lines at Fredericksburg, made it all the way, you know, up the, the, uh, the river road, could have gotten in and behind. I mean, this dude is, is like, shows success. Uh, he's not the guy that gets invited to the barbecue on Saturday, man. You know what I mean? Like, he's not one of those individuals. He's the fun guy to be around. He's an engineer. He's very methodical. You know what I mean? That's just, that's, that's just how he's wired.

• 11:52JD Baker?

  And the cool thing about like Meade is, is he doesn't give a shit. You know what I mean? He just wants to show up and the dude goes to work. He wants to win. Uh, you know what I mean? And, and he's going to support, you know what I mean? You, you didn't hear anything like we talked about, like some of the other commanders, like undermining, you know, leadership and stuff like that. Like of all the stuff, and I mean, we've got another book, of course, laying there, you know, Meade at Gettysburg, uh, you know, a study of him in command, that, you know, and of all the books that I've read, like I've never heard of Meade. Like, yeah, he might be sending a note to his wife, kind of saying like, yeah, hey, I really don't like Hooker. Okay, good on him. Uh, you know what I mean? That he doesn't like Hooker, but he's still following orders. Like, you know what I mean? He's still, you know what I mean?

• 12:36JD Baker?

  Going with the plan. He's not sending folks up to DC. He wasn't jockeying to be next. Which, that says a lot about the character of George Gordon Meade.

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a positive thing. Um, so last episode, we left off at Chancellorsville. The Union had been defeated again. Uh, now this is only, only a month's gone by. This isn't like some huge, you know, last episode, we don't, we're only going a month, fast forward. Uh, but what's going on? We got Meade now went from division to, to corps. Now he's the army commander. There's also, we were talking about how attrition has impacted these two military forces. So, talk to me about how attrition, well, first of all, there's multiple types

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  of attrition, but you know, you can get fired, you can get, you can get, uh, killed, you can get wounded, you can get moved. So, there's, there's things that can happen to an army leader. How is attrition working out for the Union?

• 13:46JD Baker?

  I would say that due to attrition, the Union is getting better. Uh, you know, if you look at it at the, you know, the 1860, 1861, when everybody's kinda jockeying for, like, who's gonna get a general, you know, uh, who's, who's gonna, you know, who's gonna be in charge, who's gonna get a division, who's gonna be the corps commanders and stuff like that. And, you know, when we talk all the way back and, and even on both western side, uh, the western theater and, you know, this eastern theater of the Army of the Potomac that we've been, you know, chit chatting about, uh, over the past time. I mean, if

• 14:25JD Baker?

  you took a photo of the officers of the Army of the Potomac in, in 1861, Meade is like that dude that like, have you ever been in like, like one of those group photos and, and you like, you send it to your folks, like, hey, can you see me? That's my left ear. You know what I mean? Cause I'm all the way in the back. You know what I mean? And like all the other folks like McClellan and Burnside and Franklin and Sumner and all these dudes that like, hm, they're not even in the Army of the Potomac anymore. They're all in the front. So, due to them, like, like you said, I mean, there's multiple reasons. You know what I mean? They resigned, they got moved, they got killed, uh, you know what I mean?

• 15:06JD Baker?

  They got fired, all of those reasons. Now, if you took a photo of the Army of the Potomac in June of 1863, you're not just seeing like the, the left ear of Meade in the back. The dude's sitting front row, man. And he's up there with who else Reynolds Hancock, you know what I mean? Even you know, other guys that you know, we'll talk about, you know, today of Chamberlain. Uh, you know, I mean, some of these folks that are just moving up. So they're getting better. Uh, because finally like the cream is starting to rise to the top. Uh, and it, you know, it's no joke of, of with me that like, I'm a huge me fan. I mean, I like George Gordon Meade and it's not just, not just because of his actions at Gettysburg,

• 15:49JD Baker?

  but like throughout the so far in the Civil War, I like John Reynolds, Hancock. I mean, these guys are proven they they're working their way up and then you look west. You know what I mean? You got a dude that at this exact time that we're talking about, that's going on as they're making this next, uh, away game in Pennsylvania before the Battle of Gettysburg. Vicksburg is under siege by that dude who was selling firewood, man, on the streets of St. Louis. That Grant guy, I think he's on a $50 bill now or something. Uh, so probably he must've been banging it. Uh, and, and where's that other crazy guy Sherman? That started out the beginning, remember like at the very beginning, we talked about like Sherman? And I was telling the story of him and they're going in to like get their rank and he comes out and he's a Colonel.

• 16:34JD Baker?

  And people are like, dude, you could have easily gotten general. He's like, I'll take Colonel. I'll earn general. Well, guess what? 63 Sherman's a fricking general. You know what I mean? So the, the cream is starting to rise due to attrition. Uh, yeah, we're getting the likes of some of these phenomenal leaders, uh, in, in my opinion with the, the Union Army.

• 16:54Jocko Willink?

  Now, on the other side for the Confederates, how's attrition working out for them?

• 16:59JD Baker?

  Well, you know, at the beginning, so again, let's, let's the, you know, you, you peel that back a little bit. You look back in 61, I mean, who was the number one draft pick? Uh, you know what I mean? And if for Winfield, Scott and Abraham Lincoln was Robert E. Lee. So Robert E. Lee, and we talked about like Robert E. Lee, uh, you know, we talked about Buchanan and stuff like that. Everybody, you know, a lot of the varsity folks ended up going, uh, with the Confederacy. And if you look at, at mainly, uh, the Army of Northern Virginia, there's going to be a change here because at Chancellorsville, as, as we know, Stonewall Jackson, uh, ended up dying, uh, of wounds received in the battle, uh, you know, some time later. So.

• 17:44JD Baker?

  Robert E. Lee's got to find her like, okay, who's going to be my, my, my second Corps commander? You know, he's still got the old warhorse. He's got his first Corps. So at Chancellorsville, if you looked at the overall, if you look at the structure of the Army of Northern Virginia, you know, you've got first Corps, James Longstreet, second Corps, Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall Jackson's gone. So you and I would obviously assume that, okay, I'm going to take one of the division commanders and I'm going to promote them up to make them the new Corps commander. Uh, so he's got choices. You've got like A.P. Hill. We heard about him. Uh, you know what I mean? At Chancellorsville. Uh, I mean, he could even, if he wanted to, I

• 18:28JD Baker?

  mean, hell, if, I mean, it's Robert E. Lee. He could go get Stewart and say, hey, did you, you did a pretty banging job as Corps commander. Why don't you give up the cavalry? Now, do I think Stewart's going to give up the ponies? Uh, you know what I mean? And go hang out with the infantry? He's like, nah, I kind of did my bid. I'm going back to cavalry. But he could if he wanted to. He could select anybody he wants. Uh, Robert E. Lee ends up, for some odd reason, he's going to create a third Corps. And he's going to now have three Corps commanders. Uh, so he's going to have Longstreet, then he's going to have Yule and Hill. So he's going to create two more. So remember, you know, in, in the, in the, uh, future, in the, in the episodes, we already kind of talked about at

• 19:10JD Baker?

  the beginning, you know, they were a very flat organization. Robert E. Lee only had to deal with Longstreet and Jackson.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  Who, each of whom he knew very well.

• 19:19JD Baker?

  Yes. Now, it's not saying that like Yule and Hill and some of these other guys, uh, but they've been operating underneath Jackson. And we kind of talked about how Jackson had trust issues. Uh, you know what I mean? And, and Jackson was very close hold with his information. So, you know, when I kind of look at it, uh, you know, and with Stonewall Jackson, um, it seems like he wasn't growing.

• 19:49JD Baker?

  For someone to take his place.

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  He wasn't growing the people beneath him.

• 19:53JD Baker?

  Yes.

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  He wasn't creating subordinate leaders that were ready to step up and take his job.

• 19:58JD Baker?

  Right. I mean, you know, we've talked at numerous lengths of, you know, number one job of a leader, make more friggin' leaders, man. You know what I mean? Make, make, make as many leaders as you can. You can't have enough leaders. Uh, and Jackson, I mean, for some odd reason, he's, it, it wasn't like clear enough to be like, you would kind of think that like Robert E. Lee would already know, yeah, if Jackson goes down, man, Hill's getting the gig. You know what I mean? Like automatically, knowing. Out of the two, yeah, like rack and stack. You know what I mean? Like how it is like modern day in the military. Like you're ranking your people out. You know who's next. Uh, and then, you know, so he's also got this, this issue. Okay. Yeah. He's got a major victory. It's May. We finished out with the Battle of Chancellorsville.

• 20:43JD Baker?

  Greatest tank, uh, flank attack history of the world. JD's opinion. Uh, and now he's got to decide of what he's going to do because he's got a boss. So he's got Jefferson Davis and Jefferson Davis, again, we've got this siege going on in, in Vicksburg. Well, this, the siege in Vicksburg of why it's so important, it's going to take you back to the Anaconda Plan. That waterborne snake, you know, the Winfield Scott kind of plan. This is like the last little piece. If, if we lose Vicksburg Confederate, the Union's going to control the Mississippi. That, and now they can start that constrict of constricting the South. So Vicksburg is huge and, you know, and, and Ulysses S. Grant's down there laying the wood to him.

• 21:28JD Baker?

  Uh, and, and Jefferson Davis is kind of like, okay, yeah, that's great. You kind of dealt with that. Hey, thumbs up, man, on the Chancellorsville thing. Hate to hear about what happened to Stonewall. Uh, you know what I mean? But, you know, who are you going to replace with Stonewall? Who's going to be your corps commander? And I think I'm going to send you down to Vicksburg, man. Cause if I send you down there and you can get in the rear and threaten Grant, that's going to relieve the people in, in Vicksburg and, and we're going to keep the Mississippi. So that's, that's pretty big. You know what I mean? If you're kind of looking at, because you lose Vicksburg, man, here comes that constrictor. Uh, and Robert E. Lee convinces, you know, his boss Davis that, well, how about I go north again, man?

• 22:12JD Baker?

  If I threaten to the north, that might sway it 63. What happens in 64? There's another election. You know what I mean? Some of the former commanders are running on that ticket against Abraham Lincoln, talking about little Mac.

• 22:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, McClellan's running against Lincoln and McClellan politically is like a status quo guy, which we've talked about, and if he wins, probably just like patch things up and we can move forward. Like, you know, much easier to figure out. We know where Lincoln is at. Lincoln's not stopping.

• 22:46JD Baker?

  No.

• 22:46Jocko Willink?

  McClellan, we could probably get, figure out some kind of a deal. We could make this thing work.

• 22:50JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, and Lee, so Lee doesn't want to go down to Vicksburg. I mean, part of that's gotta be just like, hey, bro, I'm from, I'm from Virginia, bro. I don't want to go down to Vicksburg. I don't want to go all the way over there, right? I mean, he's, he's from Virginia. He from that area. He doesn't want to leave.

• 23:07JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I mean, and he's not like a spring chicken either.

• 23:11JD Baker?

  No. Well, I mean, you know, you know, we talked earlier on the first thing, we kind of like, hey, let's get to know JD a little bit. And I told you like eight years old. You know what I mean? First time I go to Lexington, Virginia, and yeah, that's where the Robert E. Lee, the tomb is and that kind of stuff. Uh, in 63, you know, Robert E. Lee is 56 years old. Now, of course, like back then, like I used to look at like 56, like that dude's in his 50s, man. He is so fricking old. Now, sitting across the table from you today, man, like I'm looking at it like, Robert E. Lee, man, that dude's in the prime of his life.

• 23:54JD Baker?

  So it's all, you know, that kind of perspective of, uh, but yeah, I mean, and, and Vicksburg, uh, you know, if, if, if you ever get a chance to, to go down there, it's the second, probably the second most monumented battle, battlefield, military park in the United States. Uh, and it's just amazing, uh, the topography of the terrain, uh, in and around Vicksburg. It's amazing. And what Grant did down there, Grant's ditch and stuff, and we could go on about that forever. Uh, we won't, but, uh, so he convinces his boss, Jefferson Davis, that I'm, I'm gonna go north again, man. You know, now he went north again. We covered, you know, the Battle of Antietam. That took place. There was a draw. Now he's gonna, he convinces the boss, I'm gonna go do

• 24:37JD Baker?

  another away game. Let's get this out of Virginia. Maybe we can help sway that vote coming into 64. We can give some relief to the folks in Virginia because if he leaves Virginia, that means that this army, whoever's in control, whether it's Hooker, me, name it, they gotta, they gotta do something. So they're gonna have to leave Virginia and follow me, he's assuming, to be able to protect Baltimore and Washington. So, okay, yeah, it's gonna give a relief. Like you said, now we're in 63, and here we are again in Virginia. And that second Battle of Chancellorsville, it's Fredericksburg and Ch- man, that region, Spotsylvania County, Stafford County, that whole Culpeper County, dude, I couldn't imagine being a citizen living during, you know,

• 25:20JD Baker?

  61, 62 timeframe, man. It's just got, because you got Union folks there, you got artillery slung in around, you got a lot of lead flying, horses, mules, you know, they got intake, they got exhaust, that's a lot of horse shit, man, in Spotsylvania County. So they're gonna get out, and he's gonna do that. But this is the crazy thing, man, is he's gonna go three-core, and he's gonna go do an away game. So he's completely changing the playbook, man. Like, he's been two-core, and, you know, as he goes north, if you looked at it like us, like, you know, looking at it like a, like a football team, he's 7-0 and 1.

• 26:02Jocko Willink?

  General Lee.

• 26:03JD Baker?

  General Lee.

• 26:04Jocko Willink?

  7-0.

• 26:04JD Baker?

  Army of Northern Virginia, that, that, that 1 is Antietam. Other than that, you know, with the, if you look at the peninsula, you look up, you know, through the battles have been taking place, man, Robert E. Lee's sitting around right around, you know, 7-0 and 1, man, and he's going to go do an away game, but he's got a new playbook of three-core. And that-

• 26:27Jocko Willink?

  Now, now, he can't decide, is it that he can't decide between Ewell and Hill, or is he just thinking, you know what, it'd be really nice to have another maneuver element? Like, hey, why, why- What are the downsides of saying, I had two core, two maneuver elements to move around the battlefield, I'm gonna make three. Now, I understand that there's complexities that come with that. I understand that now we got some relationships that aren't as close. But did he, are the forces plus up as well? So now he has that many more, a third more people?

• 27:05JD Baker?

  No, no, no. So all he's doing is basically, he's just making smaller core.

• 27:09Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 27:09JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? It's not like he's plus-ing up to like 200,000. You know what I mean? Like it's, he's still right around that same size. He's just gonna redistribute the numbers. So it's not like it's, you know what I mean? He's still got the same amount of bodies. He's just adding a layer, which we kinda talked about that with that. You know, when, uh, remember we talked bird side and he creates these like wing division commanders and he's just adding layers? So Robert E. Lee literally added a layer. You know what I mean? And why? Why just pick one?

• 27:42JD Baker?

  You know, then you've still got the old warhorse. You know, these two guys have both been with Jackson. You know what I mean? Or pick somebody else. You got one to hold them, one to skin them. You know what I mean? You got your two core. It's pretty flat and it's worked. Why are you gonna go to, that's like, you know, you went through the playoffs and then you're going to the Super Bowl. You know what I mean? And you're gonna, you're gonna completely change the way you fight.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna start passing now instead of running.

• 28:08JD Baker?

  Right.

• 28:08Jocko Willink?

  We made it through the playoffs, running, running, running, running. Now we decided we get to the Super Bowl, we're gonna, we're gonna start throwing the ball.

• 28:13JD Baker?

  Right. And let, let's bring like three quarterbacks. You know what I mean? And just in case we lose two along the way, I got a third, you know, uh, you know, so that, that's always just kinda, and, and to be, to be honest, brother, I'm like, I don't know, like, why? Why he did that? Other than he just didn't have enough confidence that either one of those two individuals could just solely be a core commander. Like, cause I mean, that is a bump. You know what I mean? Like with any job, e- even in the military, you know, you start out as a team leader. You got three dudes. You know what I mean? You go to the squad leader. You know what I mean? You got 12 dudes. You go to platoon commander, man. You got like 30 of them. You know what I mean? And when you first take over, even though it's just like 30 people, you're like, 30 people?

• 28:58JD Baker?

  That's a lot of people to be like, you know what I mean? But when you've got 30 people, you've got three squad leaders. You know what I mean? So it's not like you're overseeing, you're overseeing three people. You know what I mean? And that's, but that's because you trust your squad leaders are taking care of their people. Well, you know, if you've got Jackson, you know what I mean? Was he getting these folks ready? You know what I mean? For that next step up. And maybe it's gotta be that, you know, Robert E. Lee is assuming that, you know what? Maybe I should, because I mean, I couldn't imagine like taking over 15,000 people.

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And especially when he, when Jackson is such a performer.

• 29:38JD Baker?

  Oh.

• 29:38Jocko Willink?

  And now you're looking thinking, which one of these two guys is going to fill his shoes? Neither. I'm just going to leave them where they're at, make them peers and we'll move forward. Right? Like you're looking at the guys that total stud Jackson's winning battles for you like, like unbelievably. Getting the job done and now he's gone and like, oh shit, who am I going to put in here? Well, you know what? Neither one of them. We'll just kind of keep them neutral and, and we'll, we'll see how this works out.

• 30:06JD Baker?

  Yeah. So that's basically, I mean, he's, he's, you know, he's gonna, right, wrong or indifferent. Robert E. Lee makes the call. He's going to go do an away game. And again, like, you know, we're talking about, we finished this out in May. And when you're, you're reading about George Gordon Mead, man, this is June. So like you said, man, this is a month and, and you know, we're in Spotsylvania, Virginia in May. You know, when you, when, when we're talking about Mead, when you read at the beginning of the book, when he gets that note, dude, that dude's in Frederick, Maryland.

• 30:37JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? Like, because like I, I go to Gettysburg, like I've been there a couple of times. You know what I mean? When I leave my house, dude, it's a two and a half hour drive.

• 30:49Jocko Willink?

  At 70 miles an hour.

• 30:50JD Baker?

  Yeah. I mean, these dudes are walking. It's May. You know what I mean? Coming into June, East Coast, wool uniforms. They got all their stuff. You know what I mean? And now they're in pursuit. So when he gets that note, Mead is already in Frederick, Maryland. Robert E. Lee has already, you know what I mean? He's moving up in, so we're in the latter part of June. And Yule is already up like threatening towards Harrisburg and stuff. And, and the route approach, remember, you know, we had talked in, in other podcasts. You know, when you, when you look at the army of Northern Virginia, they gotta worry about the logistical train, just like they did before when he was gonna go up and they ended up, you know, with the lost order and they ended up with the Battle of Antietam, wasn't

• 31:33JD Baker?

  planned for. He's gotta run his logs up, so the breadbasket of the South is still Shenandoah Valley. So he's gonna run that valley all the way up, and then he's gonna cross over into that Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania. So that's gonna be his log train. So that's how he's gonna like skirt on the outsides of DC and not threaten. So he's right back over there again towards Shepherdstown, Virginia, which now that we get into 1863, something happened in Virginia, now you got this new state called West Virginia. You know what I mean? So, uh-oh, they're not as friendly over there in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. You know what I mean? They, they actually have, West Virginia has Union folks that

• 32:18JD Baker?

  fight in Gettysburg.

• 32:19Jocko Willink?

  What triggered that?

• 32:21JD Baker?

  Uh, just, you know, it's kinda like, it's different, like when you cross over, I mean, I was born and raised, you know what I mean, West Virginia, Virginia, that, that whole corridor, big coal mining, uh, big blue collar, a lot of work and stuff like, you're not seeing farmlands, you're not seeing plantations, you're not seeing that kinda stuff, uh, over in the West Virginia of what we have today. It's all blue collar. I mean, and it's immigrants that are moving it because it's mining, it's working riverboats, you know what I mean? So, uh, you know, they're not necessarily that plantation, white collar, you know what I mean, old Virginia money. These dudes are like being brought over to

• 33:06JD Baker?

  work for that money in the mines. And I mean, you could do like a whole staff ride on just the mining in the Appalachians. Uh, so they're, you know, so they're convinced of like, hey, man, you guys could like join the Union. And that's where you go to like where, like Bath County, Virginia is and Covington, Virginia, and then you hit that Allegheny.

• 33:30JD Baker?

  There and you get into Greenbrier, that's West Virginia. So that's, that's where you're starting to hit that, that mountainous region of West Virginia, all the way through Beckley, all the way down. So those guys are convinced and they, they create a state and they become West Virginia in 63 and they actually stand up regiments and that are going to fight, you know, right up over on Cemetery Hill is the West Virginia monuments, right there on the Cemetery Hill. So that quickly, they've already got folks in action, fighting for the Union in 63. So that's a, another little change that, that kind of takes place, but still, so Robert E. Lee's going to start running. And again, it's almost the same thing when

• 34:13JD Baker?

  we talked about it Antietam of where, you know, with Antietam, hearts and minds. Like when we enter, we, we go to the away game, man, like we're, we're still, we're playing nice with the, with the civilian populace up there, man. And the, the actual, the first person, like Gettysburg wasn't even really on the map. You know what I mean? Like Gettysburg is just like a small little town, but it's got like seven roads that lead to that town. So if you're going in that area of, of Pennsylvania, you're going to kind of have to go past Gettysburg. And they've got a rail station, you know what I mean? It's prominent roads, but it's kind of like on the way of like Carlisle, Harrisburg, you know, Chambersburg kind of area. But so

• 34:58JD Baker?

  it's not necessarily a prominent area like Harrisburg is. So Yule is the lead element. So as, as he goes north, Robert E. Lee's going to lead with General Yule and then he's going to move with A.P. Hill and then bringing up the rear is going to be Longstreet. So you basically got like, if you're, if you're looking at them, you've got second corps, Jackson's old corps is whose Yule has. His new created third corps is A.P. Hill. That's who Robert E. Lee is going to move with. And then Longstreet, first corps, his most competent corps commander is bringing up the rear.

• 35:42Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 35:42JD Baker?

  Yeah, I kind of find that interesting as well, too. Because, you know, we can compare, you know, in a little while of who George Gordon Meade's leading with. Because he's not using his, you'll find out later, he doesn't have Dan Sickles up there leading the charge. It's Reynolds is the lead corps commander for the Army of the Potomac. And as Yule's moving through, he's got to get resupplied and stuff along the way. You know what I mean? So he sends folks into Gettysburg, and they're just there to get shoes and supplies, like literally. They're not there to attack, do anything to civilian folks, but there's a militia there. You know, the little town militia, you know what I mean?

• 36:24JD Baker?

  They're going to grab their muskets, and they're like, here comes the Confederates. They go out, they fire a couple of shots, and they run the hell away. Because they're not, you know, this militia's not going to stand up. Because all like the fighting folks from in and around Pennsylvania, they're in the Army of the Potomac, or they're in the defenses. So, nothing against militia people in Gettysburg, they're just, you're not going to go up against a professional army, especially not the Army of Northern Virginia, 7-0-1. So, these guys are going to come in, and they're going to report out, you know what I mean? Like, every day, you got to send reports to the boss. So Yule reports that, hey, man, we got supplies in Gettysburg, we kind of cruised in, we had a, you know, they had a small militia. Because that's going to play a part later on with another corps commander, because that's

• 37:09JD Baker?

  information that everybody knows of like, hey, like, if I cruise by, I'm going to send folks in, maybe I'm going to go into Gettysburg. The only threat that's there is militia. So that's going to play into how we get into the Battle of Gettysburg a little bit. So, that's kind of Robert E. Lee.

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  So, as this is happening, what's Meade? What's Meade's goal? So they must see this maneuver happening. What is Meade, what is the president, what's Lincoln going to tell Meade to do?

• 37:39JD Baker?

  Yeah, so it's the same thing. So, one, you know, hey, Tag, you're it, you're the commander. And he's got to kind of figure out of like, okay, well, everybody knows Robert E. Lee is moving north. He's already in Pennsylvania. And they know this and I'm sure that with, you know, if you look at the folks that that are in the Army of the Potomac, you know, we talked about me, Pennsylvania Reynolds, Pennsylvania, Hancock, Pennsylvania. I mean, they got a lot of dudes from Pennsylvania and their families live in Pennsylvania. So I'm sure they're all like, yeah, dude, now it's our home turf. Now we're playing tag in my neighborhood. You know what I mean? Like these people like

• 38:19JD Baker?

  me now. And so I'm sure at first they're thinking, yep, we're going up there, man. We're going to get Robert E. Lee out, but he's got a boss and Abraham Lincoln's biggest concern. So his, you know, his, his strategy or in his vision that he's going to give to George Gordon Meade is protect Baltimore and Washington.

• 38:41Jocko Willink?

  That's the biggest commander's intent and the, the number one mission for me is you protect Washington DC and you protect Baltimore.

• 38:52JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 38:52Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting about this, if you're, if you're listening, if you're not too familiar with the battles, that means from where, from where the Confederates are, they would be moving south to Baltimore and DC because they've come up into Pennsylvania and now they would be moving south towards DC. So, so just so you have that in your head, because I know when I first started reading about this, I'd be like, oh, oh, they're, they're not moving north. You know, you think, oh, the South is going to move north to attack. They're already up north. They're north of DC. So now they would be pushing south. So what's, what, what does me come up with for a plan?

• 39:34JD Baker?

  Uh, you know, his, his thoughts are, you know, of course, he's looking at the, at the map reconnaissance of the area. The, the good thing is, is, you know, you know, like there in Frederick, Maryland and that area, I mean, folks have been there, man. Like these guys, you know, these are established roads. They got people that are in the organization that kind of know, you know what I mean? The, the whereabouts. Uh, and then, so he's got to pick a spot because he doesn't know, again, like where's the Army of Northern Virginia going to go? Are they going to threaten Baltimore? Are they going to threaten DC? Because he can't do both. You know what I mean? He's not going to send one corps to Baltimore and two corps to DC. Like he, that's not how Robert E. You're always going to bring the Army together. You're going to go after one.

• 40:20JD Baker?

  So there's a creek, it's called the Pipe Creek. So he comes up with this Pipe Creek plan. I think he actually names it like the Pipe Creek Circular of his thoughts, processes of how he's going to defend Baltimore and Washington. And Pipe Creek is down there in that Maryland area on the Pennsylvania border, but it's so that he can anchor in, he's got good anchor, his left is going to be anchored in and his right anchored in. So it's kind of like a sack. And if Robert E. Lee turns to the south, making his way to threaten Baltimore or Washington, he's got enough maneuver space to block. So kind of like how we were talking about on

• 41:00JD Baker?

  the last podcast of where Robert E. Lee is moving and blocking to keep them out of Richmond? You know what I mean? Now he's doing the same thing, but the only difference with this is, which is kind of crazy, is dude, I mean, how do you think the governor of Pennsylvania is feeling right now? I feel like New Jersey, you know what I mean? Like these dudes and we've got, I mean, if anybody wants to, I mean, you can literally like, you can see all the email traffic of what we would call today, because it's captured in time and recorded. You can go back and you can read some of these letters from governors sending to Abraham Lincoln like, hey dude, we got nobody here to defend our home state because we sent them

• 41:42JD Baker?

  all for your war, brother. You know what I mean? You need to get these dudes the hell out of my fucking state. I mean, you know what I mean? Paraphrase, I'm sure they didn't drop an F-bomb. I would have, you know what I mean? Because if I was the governor of Pennsylvania, yeah, hey dude, I sent you all my able bodies. I've got women and kids back here, man. And I've got the army of Northern Virginia and we all read in the paper what your army did to Fredericksburg, dude. You don't think these guys are going to come back up? Yeah, you want to like, you know, blow our cities to hell and back and loot our stuff? We're in your turf now. You know what I mean? But luckily, you know, Robert E. Lee's made it very clear, dude, we're up here, hearts and minds, man. We're not looting, you're not looking to get a bunch of free stuff, dude. You know what I mean? We're up here, this is a purpose. So Lincoln's getting pressure.

• 42:27JD Baker?

  And I'm sure as an army commander, he's getting pressure like some of these politicians, man, they're just gonna go VR direct. You know what I mean? Like, hey dude, you need to send somebody up here and get these people out of here. And, uh, and me, he's gonna go with the boss. He's gonna think of, he's gonna come up with this Pipe Creek plan, uh, to be able to protect Baltimore and Washington. And he's hoping he can do a defensive operation. So he's not gonna go offensive. And with that, he's gonna have Robert E. Lee hit him. Uh, and, but he's also learning. He's not, you know, in this whole thing, we're not gonna have any flanks in the air.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  What's his anchor points?

• 43:09JD Baker?

  He's got two stream beds. You know what I mean? So he's anchored in, kinda like how he was anchored in on the Rappahannock. So it's a, it's a, a, I mean, it, it's good terrain. He's selecting and he has that time and he also has enough time where he can call audibles and he's got good road systems to be able to move. So he can go laterally as well. Uh, yeah, me, again, he's an engineer and the dude is like wicked smart. So he puts some good thought into this. Uh, the only problem is, is that, you know, he's got, you know, everybody's is kinda pursuing up towards the Army of Northern Virginia. So he's in Frederick, Maryland, but his first corps commander, cause now he's in charge, his

• 43:54JD Baker?

  first corps commander is, is Reynolds. And Reynolds is also like a wing commander. So Reynolds is got, he's, he's in charge of his corps. He's still a corps commander, but he's also got, uh-oh, Howard with 11th Corps is part of his wing. So he's got Howard following in trace. So Howard is kinda following Reynolds.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  And are they maneuvering towards Pipes Creek?

• 44:16JD Baker?

  No.

• 44:16Jocko Willink?

  Is that where they're going?

• 44:17JD Baker?

  Nope. They, they, they're not, they're not privy yet to the Pipes.

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  They're just moving, chasing.

• 44:23JD Baker?

  They gotta keep an eye on where the hell is Robert E. Lee going? So that they're prepared.

• 44:28JD Baker?

  And

• 44:29Jocko Willink?

  And out in the lead of Reynolds, the lead element of Reynolds is his cavalry.

• 44:37JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's got his reconnaissance. Yep, he's got a, he's got a general that's up there and he's running reconnaissance to basically to report the Reynolds of like, he's got eyes on the Confederacy. He's the dude that's reporting back. That's how they know like the progress of the Confederacy that he's doing his job. And the guy that that works for Reynolds is an interesting, interesting fellow named John Buford. He's the cavalry commander and he's running reconnaissance for Reynolds.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  So we talked a little bit about cavalry, but just to clarify cavalry, their, the main purpose of cavalry is if you're on a horse, you can go fast and you can go fast. You can find out what's going on. You can, you can then report that information back up the chain of command. That's what the purpose of cavalry at this time is to go out, do recon and, and so that's what's happening. And as, so, so we already had Yule pushed up. He passed by Gettysburg. Sent some people in there for supplies, ran into a little militia, no factor, kept going. Now we got AP Hill.

• 45:50Jocko Willink?

  He's now passing Gettysburg. And as he's passing Gettysburg, that reconnaissance element from the Union ran by Buford, he happens to be in Gettysburg.

• 46:05JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 46:06Jocko Willink?

  And he's looking out as AP Hill's passing by Gettysburg and sees him. Um, sees, you know, them and by them, I mean, tens of thousands. What do we got? Forty, 50,000 troops, troops walking?

• 46:21JD Baker?

  Well, because yeah, it's, it's the Macy's Day Parade and he's over in like, on the Chambersburg Pike. Uh, so looking over towards that Cumberland, that mountain range that as you're looking from Gettysburg. So yeah.

• 46:33Jocko Willink?

  From Gettysburg as you look west.

• 46:36JD Baker?

  Yes.

• 46:36Jocko Willink?

  It kinda, it kinda sink. Down, the terrain sinks down and then it rises back up again, gently. It's very pretty gentle, gentle slope down and then it comes back up and in that sort of valley closer to where it comes back up. That's where AP Hill has got his corps walking up.

• 46:54JD Baker?

  Yep, and it's the, you know, the modern day that, that Chambersburg Pike. And yeah, and because of the, the like the reorg, so it's basically like, he's got like 15,000 dudes. Uh, it's the Macy's Day Parade. Uh, you know what I mean? It's a, it's a two lane, two track road. Uh, you know what I mean? It's prominent. Like I said, I mean, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, man, been there, you know, before we were even a country. Uh, but it's those rolling farmland, uh, of Pennsylvania that a lot of people are, are very familiar with. So AP Hill is, is making his approach up and it's amazing.

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  So is AP Hill hooking a right and now headed to Gettysburg?

• 47:33JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's, he's, his approach is coming towards Gettysburg. You know what I mean? I'm sure he needs re-supplies and all that kind of stuff and he's thinking the same thing. Yule did it. You know what I mean? It's just like if I'm, if I'm ahead of you by a couple of days and I'm like, yeah, hey Jocko, man, hey, don't stop at this gas station, man. They're out of this and this gas station's got this. Make sure you go to a Wawa. They're out of Jocko. You know what I mean? Fuel, you need to give them a call real quick. So you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, that place. So you're going to take the recommendations of the reconnaissance that's done before you. So he's like, okay, well I can head into Gettysburg. I'm gonna, so he's making an approach, coming out of Chambersburg. And he's making the approach, coming towards Gettysburg, but he's still like, you know, he's still like 10 miles out. You know what I mean?

• 48:14JD Baker?

  And but Buford gets eyes on him. I mean, you're moving that amount of people, man, in June? That's a lot of dust. There's a lot of animals. You know what I mean? That's just, you, you, that's like trying to hide the Macy's Day Parade in the fricking desert, man. You're going to see him from a long ways away and he's got good eyes on and that's his job. So Buford sees this, you know, the army of Northern Virginia, he doesn't necessarily know at the time, like which corps, but he knows that like there's folks up threatening up around in Harrisburg, Carlisle area that's just north of that Chambersburg and north of Gettysburg. So he knows he's got a body that's up there. And then he's got one that's

• 48:59JD Baker?

  right here, Chambersburg. And then he, he doesn't know where Long Street is. Nobody's got eyes on Long Street. So, uh, he, he, yeah. So you've got a Buford, he sees this, uh, and he's got to make decisions of what he does. But like you had said, he's cavalry and the job of cavalry is reconnaissance. And if you're in reconnaissance, you literally are told that, you know what I mean? You can't do reconnaissance if you're dead. So don't go get in a gunfight, man. You know what I mean? Just get the reconnaissance, come back and tell us. Unless you get in a little skirmish, chance contact, yeah, okay, take a couple of shots, swing your sword a few times, shoot a shotgun, but get the hell out of there. Because you can't do recon if you're dead. So that's his job is to go back and report to Reynolds.

• 49:42Jocko Willink?

  And at the same time, he's thinking, there's some terrain that I'm sitting on right now that if they get, gonna be a problem. So at the same time, he's thinking, hey, I know my job is to run back and, and tell my boss what's going on. At the same time, he's thinking, wait a second. If we just let these, if we let this, this army, these Confederates roll in here, they're going to be in a really good spot. And it's going to be a big problem for us. So he's got a little bit of a decision to make.

• 50:10JD Baker?

  Yeah, because his boss Reynolds is about 10 miles east of Gettysburg, coming his way. So you got these two folks and he's sitting on McPherson's Ridge. So, and, and as we know, like Buford made his way through Gettysburg and he's doing reconnaissance, he's doing map, map updates, he's looking at terrain, defensible positions. I mean, Buford is a competent cavalry commander, man. A guy's like been there, done that, t-shirts and hats, man. He is, love the guy, as you can kind of tell. Uh, so as he's coming through town, yeah, it's just like you said, he's He's up on McPherson's Ridge and he's like, if those guys get, so in Gettysburg, you've got three ridge lines.

• 50:53JD Baker?

  Right? You've got McPherson's Ridge, which is the closest to, you know, AP Hills Corp. Then you've got the seminary ridge.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  McPherson's Ridge is sort of just, what would you say, northwest of the town of Gettysburg?

• 51:06JD Baker?

  Yes.

• 51:06Jocko Willink?

  So just if you're trying to picture this in your mind, you've got three ridges we're about to talk about. The first one, McPherson's Ridge is the furthest northwest, it's northwest of the little town of Gettysburg. That's the first ridge that we're talking about.

• 51:21JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 51:22Jocko Willink?

  Second ridge.

• 51:23JD Baker?

  Second ridge, seminary ridge, because it has the first Lutheran seminary ever established in the United States. It's a prominent building, still there. Uh, if you've seen the movie, you'll see the cupula, all that kind of stuff, uh, the steeple, basically. Uh, so you've got the seminary ridge and they're in between McPherson's Ridge and the seminary ridge is that low kind of farm field that still is there, you know what I mean? So it's got like barley or corn and, you know what I mean, that kind of stuff growing. So it's flat valley and then it's, you know, and we've been there multiple times. You know what I mean? It's not really a big rise up onto the seminary, but it's enough to where

• 52:08JD Baker?

  like that's a, you got a primary line and you got a secondary line that can support the same mission.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 52:14JD Baker?

  So yeah, it's so seminary ridge.

• 52:16Jocko Willink?

  And then eventually you're gonna go, you know, lose a little bit of altitude again. You're gonna get to the town of Gettysburg and then it's gonna go up on the final ridge, which is cemetery ridge.

• 52:29JD Baker?

  Cemetery and it's pretty easy to find because there's like a lot of these white stones up there. It's a frigging cemetery.

• 52:36Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 52:36JD Baker?

  And cemetery, uh, and, and it's even more, like a lot of folks, when you go there, you're like, where the hell's the ridge? I mean, but the ridge is just like that. I mean, it's just enough of a rise because again, between the seminary and the cemetery, it's another drop down and you do have the town, but south of the. Town, it's all farm.

• 52:57Jocko Willink?

  Open, yeah.

• 52:58JD Baker?

  Open. I mean, and that's and then it's got that slight little rise. And what would you say, Jocko? It's like maybe like three quarters of a mile in between Cemetery and Seminary Ridge. And then it's probably less than that. McPherson to Seminary is like, what, maybe a half a mile? I mean, you're within range. I mean, that's, that's 308.

• 53:22JD Baker?

  So, yeah, I mean, so you're looking at those three series with a little bitty town. I mean, Gettysburg's not a banging town.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  No, no, even right now, it's like a little tiny town.

• 53:31JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  And at the top, at the north end of Cemetery, you've got some other terrain features as well.

• 53:41JD Baker?

  Yep, you got a, you got a, what's called Culp's Hill. So you got Cemetery Hill, where the cemetery is. And then what is that like a little bit like west? Like just west of it, like, I mean, not very far at all, man, like not a less than a mile. You've got Culp's Hill, which is a woodlot for the Culp Farm that's over there on that side. Uh, then you've got Wolf Hill. Uh, that's farther to the east and a little bit north. And then you got Benner Hill, you know what I mean? It's another little prominent terrain feature. But those ones that are there aren't as like Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill next to the town. Like those are the prominent features.

• 54:23JD Baker?

  And then if you run south down the Cemetery Ridge, it's gonna drop down low and the next thing you know, it's gonna kick up. And you're gonna gain some elevation and you're gonna get like back in 63, they just called it the Round Top. In 2022, you've got the first little spur is Little Round Top. And then you got a little draw and then it kicks up to Big Round Top. And that's all a part of Cemetery Ridge. So if that kinda, I mean, I feel like I'm literally there right now. Uh, you know, which, yeah, love it.

• 55:00Jocko Willink?

  So that's where Buford's at. Buford's at that, that first ridge, McPherson's ridge. He's there. He's looking. He sees A.P. Hill, 15,000 strong that he can kind of, you know, the dust, the animals, like he sees what's going on. He's got a decision to make. What should I do? And I'm going to go to this book by John Buford. The book is called John Buford, A Military Biography, written by a guy by the name of Edward Longacre. And so here's what he says about this decision. "By early evening, armed with reliable reports of enemy movements in the vicinity, Buford appears to have convinced himself that he could pull

• 55:44Jocko Willink?

  off something never achieved in this war. A defense in depth by dismounted cavalry against a large force of foot soldiers with full artillery support. Of course, it would be a risky proposition. His scouts had informed Buford that not only would he face a good portion of Lee's army outside of Chambersburg and Cashtown, he would also have to contend with veteran infantry along roads from Carlisle and York. To oppose these several columns, Buford could place perhaps 2,200 troopers on the firing line after subtracting from his aggregate force, the one man in four who would serve as a horseholder." Tell me

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  about the job of a horseholder. What's going on with that?

• 56:31JD Baker?

  Yeah, so with the, the horseholder kind of thing is, is if you, if we're at a four man team, right? So they're going to dismount, they're going to fight like dragoons, like infantry guys. So these guys are going to like rock, paper, scissors from the four of them, and whoever wins, they're going to take all the horses because that's our escape route. Like the horses are very important to the cavalry and they're going to take the horses and they're going to go all the way back over behind Seminary Ridge and they're going to hold all four horses. So after I'm like picked to hold the horses, you know, Jocko would be looking at me like JD, dude, don't, don't you fucking leave with my horse, man.

• 57:15JD Baker?

  I don't care how bad it gets, dude. You better be there. Cause I mean, it's, it's going to be game on. I mean, what he does here is incredible as a cavalry commander.

• 57:25Jocko Willink?

  But the point, one of the major points there is that we just gave up a quarter of our fighting force. A quarter of our guys just left with the horses, taking care of our extraction platform, which is we're very thankful for, but that means JD's back here. He's back there over one, one terrain feature away, you know, chilling out with some horses. We lost that much of firepower. So here we go back to the book. Against such odds, Buford could expect to hold his ground for a few hours at best. But would he have that much time? Although he was in contact with Reynolds and knew the wing commander would march for Gettysburg come morning, Buford could not say when the nearest elements of

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  the army would reach him. By refusing to flee from Lee's path, by committing himself to fight in an advanced position, however favorable, he risked not only his division's annihilation, but the disarranging of General Meade's plans, which were predicated on a defensive struggle among the rolling hills of Northern Maryland. Each of these considerations and others that came to Buford's mind carried its own argument against doing what he desired to do. Taking a long puff off his pipe, he considered each argument in turn, scrutinizing it from a variety of angles. Then he went back over his plan and matched each of the,

• 58:51Jocko Willink?

  of its assumptions with an appropriate set of consequences. For a time, he permitted the mixture of pros and cons to simmer. In the end, the strength of the defensive position he had selected for his army as well as an irresistible enthusiasm for calculated risk, overpowered whatever misgivings he might have entertained. Before sundown on the last day in June, Buford had committed himself in thought and indeed to the greatest challenge of his career. That challenge being trying to hold off 15,000, trying to, trying to hold off the, the Army

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  of Northern Virginia with 2,000 guys.

• 59:39JD Baker?

  Yeah, and I mean, and you made a, a great point earlier, Jocko, when you were talking about like a, a force. So, okay, so he's got 2,000. So how many, you take a quarter of that, that's not 2,000 anymore. You got 500 dudes holding horses. I mean, that, uh, and for cavalry man to just go up against infantry, because infantry's bringing artillery with them, you know what I mean? Like, that, it's just, uh, this, this is something that you don't necessarily see every day, but, you know, Buford has a vision, you know what I mean? As he rides along, and the other thing that's cool about Buford is Buford is 37 years old at this time, man.

• 1:00:24JD Baker?

  I mean, 37, he's young, uh, you know what I mean? Uh, looking at it of those, of course, now I think he's young. Back when I was a lot younger, I thought he was an old man too. But I look now at 37, like, dude's a young punk, uh, you know? So he has a vision because he, he knows, uh, cause he's so in tune with situational awareness of what's going on in the Army of the Potomac that all the corps spread out. And he knows with the new commander, Meade is slow and methodical. He's an engineer. And if, if AP Hill and Robert E. Lee can get his corps together.

• 1:01:04JD Baker?

  And gain these high grounds of Gettysburg, then he's gonna roll up first corps. Then he's gonna roll up 11th corps. You know what I mean? He's gonna piecemeal these guys because he understands how fast the Oodle Loop of Robert E. Lee moves. So it's just incredible that Buford can see this of what's gonna happen to his army. And he's got to make, he's got to make a call and he's got to make a stand. He's got to slow this machine down and buy time for his commanders.

• 1:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and really that point of knowing that he, look, he doesn't have to necessarily stop them. What he's gonna intentionally do is slow them down. And they go like into a, into like a Russian defense, right? Like, hey, we're gonna get out there. We're gonna scrap with you a little bit. You start doing well, you start kicking my ass a little bit, cool, I'm gonna pull back. I'm gonna pull back to this next little micro terrain feature. I'm gonna pull over this little, over this little knoll into this little ravine. Oh, behind this, this stone wall. And they're just gonna harass and slow down and just retreat bit by bit, but make these guys. I mean, dude, you're moving, we're moving 15, 20,000 people.

• 1:02:18Jocko Willink?

  Like, cool, you're walking, you know, you, here's me and JD, we're walking down the road. All of a sudden, crack, crack, we're getting shot at. We're running over, we're laying down, somebody's yelling orders to us. We're reloading, we took our backpacks off, we're, we're fighting, we're waiting, you know? Okay, can we get up and move now? You get up, oh no, we got shot at again, another 15 minutes. I'm not moving, you moving, I'm not moving. So you can see where this is going. Like, that's what, exactly what they do is, is Buford's guys, they push out. And it's great when you're on Gettysburg, when you're at Gettysburg, when you're on McPherson's Ridge, you can see they kind of push down, down off of McPherson's Ridge a little bit to start to intercept them early. And that's exactly what they do. And so now they are able to, uh...

• 1:03:05Jocko Willink?

  Fight as dragoons, which is awesome and and slow them down. Now, part of this is Buford and Reynolds too, like they have an outstanding relationship. Um, and Buford sends a note to Reynolds like, hey, boss. Here's what's going on. I got 10 or 20,000 people heading my way. I'm doing my best to slow down. Get up here, please.

• 1:03:37JD Baker?

  Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah, and because it's, it's not like the cavalry guys are like gonna dig in. You know what I mean? And go like, oh yeah, we're gonna hold these folks off. It's exactly what you were talking about. You know, like earlier, we kind of talked about like, you know, if we went home and said, hey, you know, we tell the wife and kids, let's go get in the car. You know what I mean? We're gonna go out to dinner and it's gonna take like 15 minutes. Easy. Well, if you put like one person outside shooting at us, it's gonna take a hell of a lot longer than 15 minutes. Cause you're gonna be trying to get the kids. Hey, go out and go ahead and start the car. Like, I'm not going to hell out there, man. There's somebody out there shooting at me. You know what I mean? And so that ability again, now, so he's, he's looking at it, you know, that, that time, distance, space and, and his relationship that he has with Reynolds.

• 1:04:21JD Baker?

  I mean, we've already talked about John Reynolds, man. I mean, obviously he's very well thought of. If Abraham Lincoln, it wants him to run the army. Uh, if two, you know what I mean? A lot of the folks, like the troops love Reynolds. Uh, you know what I mean? I mean, he's just, he's a great guy, great commander. And then he's got a great relationship with his reconnaissance officer. That's, that's John Buford. So these guys have a great, that's his eyes and ears. Like, you know, everything, he's a, a, a directed telescope of the commander.

• 1:04:57JD Baker?

  So Reynolds trusts Buford. And like I said, and Buford's got a, I mean, in that book written on John Buford, I mean Buford's got time where he learned this kind of stuff because he was out west. Remember like on, on future episodes, we talked about how big the army was at the beginning of the civil war and all those companies were all out west. Well, he was one of those guys out west and he was fighting against the Native Americans. And they learned really quickly cavalry and shooting a rifle off of a horse doesn't really work out that well. Get the hell off the horse, man. You know what I mean? And, and, and fight like dragoons. So he's going to bring that kind of tactic to, to Gettysburg.

• 1:05:42JD Baker?

  Uh, and then his just, I mean, he's a student of the game. To him to be a cavalry guy and to understand that defense in depth, the time, distance, space, you know what I mean? That is what's just amazing to me with John Buford. Uh, and then he's going to send that note back and he also knows because you know, it's a big risk for him. Like he doesn't know what Reynolds is going to do and he also doesn't know what kind of the rest of the army's doing. Like Buford doesn't know that this pipe creek kind of thing's coming out, but Reynolds and the corps commanders are getting word of this. You know what I mean? That, hey, man, this is kind of, kind of be, I mean, they, they, they have to expect

• 1:06:25JD Baker?

  like you get a new commander, he's going to come out with orders. Uh, and with that, as soon as Reynolds gets that note, you know what I mean? He giddy ups and starts making his way towards Gettysburg. And again, he's got about a 10 miler. You know what I mean? Well, again, 10 miles, man, and it, it, he's got pretty good roads, but he's going to make his way because he understands. That he's got 2,000 folks and he's reporting that there's 15,000 people heading that way. Reynolds is a smart guy, man. He can do the math quickly. And he's like, if you get here and you can hold this high ground, man, you're gonna lay the wood to those Confederates coming up this road.

• 1:07:10JD Baker?

  So Reynolds is gonna giddy up and he's gonna get his way. He's not stopping at Starbucks to get a frappuccino, a ding dong, man. He's getting on the pony and he's riding.

• 1:07:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, much different than, you know, we, we spoke a lot about McClellan and how McClellan would exaggerate what was happening. There's this many troops and so like you get a report from McClellan, like, hey, I need help. I got, you know, 20,000. I go, whatever, dude. He's like, I'm blowing this guy off, but when you have that trust, you have that relationship, then it's, oh, if Buford's telling me that I need to get up there, let's go, let's go. So that trust up and down the chain of command and that relationship up and down the chain of command is, uh, is what allows this to be successful, at least in this early stage of the battle.

• 1:07:56JD Baker?

  Yeah, because and even, even goes farther with that. Now you're looking at, I mean, it's a whole different dynamic that we're dealing with here in the Army of the Potomac. Like when you brought up like little Mac and like, you know, his, I mean, if that was him at McPherson's Ridge, there's 198 million people down in Chambersburg. You know what I mean? Like, like the whole Confederacy has moved to Chambersburg. Uh, you know, with, with these guys, so he's gonna get that information from Buford. So guess what Reynolds is gonna do? He's gonna send a fricking teenager, man, down and he's gonna let the other folks know. He's gonna let his boss know because of his relationship with Meade. And anything coming from Reynolds to Meade, you think he's gonna be like, oh man, what the hell is Reynolds doing up there, man?

• 1:08:39JD Baker?

  I got this whole plan I've been working on. I mean, you know, typical engineer. You know what I mean? You know, my dad, you know, he's got nothing against engineers. I love them. Uh, but you know, he's like, man, I'm sure he put a lot of thought into that fricking plan.

• 1:08:52Jocko Willink?

  Into Pipes Creek.

• 1:08:53JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  And now Pipes Creek, he's getting that's kind of getting thrown out the window.

• 1:08:56JD Baker?

  Yeah, because now you've also got these other corps commanders that are down in Maryland. So if you're gonna shift from, from down at Pipes Creek up to Gettysburg, you're causing a lot of your peer corps commanders, they're gonna have to make a pretty significant move.

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  Forty something miles?

• 1:09:16JD Baker?

  Right. So instead of Reynolds going, you know, let's say thirty, thirty, forty miles to get down there. Now, if, if they establish this is gonna be where go time is, now all of those folks, to include the new army commander, has got to come from Frederick, Maryland to Gettysburg. So he's literally putting the entire army in motion. And all the other, his peers have already seen the Pipe Creek circular. So what do you think they're all doing? Getting their folks ready to go to Pipe Creek. And then here's John Reynolds sends a note back. And this guy Buford, who's a cavalry guy,

• 1:09:58JD Baker?

  is making this call. You know, it's just amazing. The relationship between Buford to Reynolds to Meade. I mean, we're seeing something that we haven't seen in the Army of the Potomac.

• 1:10:13Jocko Willink?

  You also see open minds, you know, which we've seen a lot of closed minds. I haven't really used that term. I use it all the time when I work with people and talk about leadership. We, we've seen a lot of closed minds. I.e. we're at Chancellorsville. I get a report that the Confederates are moving to my flank and I go, I don't want to hear that. Right? There's a lot of these closed minds. But to have an open mind and think, oh, the battle is not what I thought it was gonna be. My mind is open. What adjustments do we need to make? Now, we've also talked about the fact that Lee likes to pick his battlefield.

• 1:10:52Jocko Willink?

  He likes to choose where he's gonna fight. And it seems like this is not his, at this point, this is not, he's not looking at this as an advantageous place to get into a scrap with his whole, with his whole army. So, this is a point where he's saying, "Look, you're gonna go into Gettysburg, okay, there might be some militia in there, okay, but we don't wanna fight here." We, you know, and his orders are, "Don't get into a general engagement." Right, that's, that's, that's Lee's assessment. That's what Lee, he doesn't wanna get into a big fight here. He's, he hadn't chosen this, you know, maybe he hasn't gone up there, looked at it himself,

• 1:11:37Jocko Willink?

  or he's got some other thing in mind, or he's seeing the vision of where he wants this battle to take place, and it ain't in Gettysburg. So he tells his guys, "All right, hey, you're gonna go in, get some stuff, don't, don't, you might get some resistance, okay, but don't get into a general engagement." How's that work out for him?

• 1:11:57JD Baker?

  Yeah, in your spot, remember, you know, these three corps are all separated. So he's, you know, and, and if he's gonna go into about, he's, every battle that we've talked about, there's one thing that's for certain, the Union always has more people than the Confederates. Like, every one that we've, we've never talked about, like, man, Robert E. Lee's got him, like, three to one, like, he's never seen those odds. So, yeah, and he likes to see the truck, Robert E. Lee is, he's an engineer as well. His, he's just got a really cool oodle, you know what I mean? Like, the dude can, I mean, he can figure shit out quick. Uh, that's why a lot of the folks, you know, when you, when you study Robert E. Lee, and, and there's, you know, tons of stuff written, written on Robert E. Lee as well, so, uh,

• 1:12:41JD Baker?

  you know, he's got a bunch of teenage couriers that are hanging out with him as well, so he's, you know, when they get up in the morning, you know, of July 1st, you know what I mean? He's gotta send a yellow sticky out to his corps commanders, just like he had been doing forever, and, and you were spot on, man, you know, he's gonna send a note out that says, "Do not get into a general engagement."

• 1:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Primary reason being, well, primary reason being is like, hey, look, Yules up north.

• 1:13:06JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:13:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Longstreet's still down south. Like, we're not, we're not unified. And we don't want to get in a fight like, hey, I walk into a bar by myself. I'm gonna wait till Echo and JD show up before I start hitting people, right? That's, I don't want to get into a general engagement. Like, I might talk a little smack, but I'm gonna like, keep it cool. So that's what he's saying. He's like, we're not unified right now. Don't get, and, and, and I haven't seen the terrain. I don't know about the terrain. This, I haven't decided this is where I want to fight. So he tells everybody on his little yellow stick, he's courier sent out, don't get into general engagement.

• 1:13:37JD Baker?

  Yeah, and, and you can only imagine that, that also with, with Robert E. Lee, you know, he, he had his two core. And he had his, his defensive mindset of, of James Longstreet, and he had his offensive mindset of Stonewall Jackson. Well, that's gone. So he's also got two new core commanders. So I could imagine he, he want, he wants to, yeah, he wants to keep them in close. And I'm gonna imagine on an away game,

• 1:14:09JD Baker?

  I think offensive is not something that he's like, he wants to get into a position to where he can be attacked. Because he's always outnumbered. His resupply, I mean, his resupply, man, running all the way back down to the valley. I mean, it's like, I mean, he's got, it's like 20 miles, man, of a log train. I mean, huge, because he's got to bring all his stuff with him. Uh, if you look at the Army of the Potomac of Frederick, Maryland and all that, their supplies, you know, they, they got Baltimore and Washington, literally to their southeast with road networks. So like their resupply depot.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  As, as good as it's gonna get.

• 1:14:49JD Baker?

  As good as it's gonna, yeah. And, and also, the road network comes right up in and behind Cemetery and Culp's Hill. So, I mean, that's good terrain.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  Ideal.

• 1:15:01JD Baker?

  Ideal. And, and yeah, of course, yeah, Pipes Creek would have been banging too. Uh, but that's kinda, they're still accomplishing the mission of the boss.

• 1:15:13JD Baker?

  They're just in a different location protecting Baltimore and Washington. And the trust that he has with those commanders to select that position for him is something that's different in the Army of Northern Virginia. You see what I'm kinda, I'm getting at is like, Robert E. Lee wants to pick that, that 7-0 and 1, that 1 is because Robert E. Lee didn't get a chance to pick. Uh, it was forced upon him. So he's gonna, he's gonna send that, that yellow sticky out to all the corps commanders that don't get into general engagement. And again, Robert E. Lee is moving on the Chambersburg Pike with A.P. Hill. And they're making the approach to Gettysburg and they don't know that, you know, that

• 1:15:57JD Baker?

  that's John Buford up there. You know what I mean? Like, they don't know that because everybody's always gonna like, we might as well just go ahead and throw this out here on the table right now, man. Everybody's like, oh, well, they didn't have cavalry. No, they just didn't have Jeb Stewart. There's, there's freaking cavalry with the Army of Northern Virginia. It's just not Jeb Stewart.

• 1:16:18JD Baker?

  So when people are like, oh, he didn't have cavalry. No, he had cavalry. He didn't have Jeb Stewart.

• 1:16:23Jocko Willink?

  So they could, still could have done a better job with reconnaissance?

• 1:16:26JD Baker?

  Yeah. They could have been running reconnaissance just like, but you know, and, and that could be a downfall of Robert E. Lee. I mean, he really likes, you know, Jeb Stewart, but Jeb Stewart, man, is, you know, he's, he's off doing like Jeb Stewart shit.

• 1:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Which is what? He's out riding around, uh, further south?

• 1:16:48JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's south and coming up on the other side. I mean, he's notorious for, you know, doing his ride around the entire army. You know, I mean, kinda doing his disrupting logistical trains, you know, ripping up rail line, tearing up bridges, cutting, uh, telegraph. I mean, doing all that stuff that's just like that, that-

• 1:17:09Jocko Willink?

  Just running around being an asshole.

• 1:17:10JD Baker?

  Dude, he's an asshole, man. You know what I mean? Like, and, and everybody just hates it. You know what I mean? They're like, that's son of a bitch. Because it's just like anything else. You don't even have to fire a shot. You cut the line and they're all using telegraph.

• 1:17:27JD Baker?

  Sir, we're not getting a response back. That son of a bitch, cut the fucking line again. And that's gonna take time. And that's the most perishable is time. That's the only thing you can't get back, man, is time.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  So, so as this is happening, so there's not real great reconnaissance. And you got, you know, uh, it's actually, what is it Heath at the front of, of the push into Gettysburg. Heath is at the front of the army of Northern Virginia, front of the Confederates. Heath is out front and, you know, you, you, you always, when we're up there, you always do a pretty good, uh, you always do a pretty good reenactment of, you know, you know, generally, and maybe it's AP Hill. And they're kind of riding on their horses heading to Gettysburg and like, they hear some gunfire, you know, like bang, bang. And they're like, oh, and generally he kind of looks over like, wha- wha- what's that? Probably just, you know, some of those militias they were coming up against.

• 1:18:24JD Baker?

  Yeah, militia.

• 1:18:25Jocko Willink?

  And then they hear bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And they hear, what was that? Maybe a little more militia resistance? And then they start hearing cannons and then they start hearing a lot of, a lot of rifles and baskets fired. And all of a sudden, it starts sounding a hell of a lot like a general engagement.

• 1:18:44JD Baker?

  Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, when we're up there, you're like up on Oak Hill, uh, if you're ever up there. Cause I always, I mean, you're talking about Robert E. Lee here, man. I mean, now that Jackson's down, like he is the Confederacy. And, you know, and, and he's riding with AP Hill and this is AP Heath works for AP Hill moving with the third corps. Uh, and, you know, and he's probably just like, is it's just like me, you know, if I was, if I'm Lee and you're AP Hill and I'm looking over you and I'm like, Jocko, you got the sticky, right? You know, yep, yes, sir. I got the sticky. Don't get into general engagement. Did you pass that on to your subordinate folks? Well, of course I did, sir.

• 1:19:26JD Baker?

  Those are like, that's artillery up there, brother. You know what I mean? But again, to go back to your point of not running reconnaissance, the last reconnaissance information that they had in Gettysburg was it was militia. You know what I mean? So failing to run, you know what I mean? You're a corps commander, man. Come on, AP. You know what I mean? Lead, throw some guys out, man. Get some eyes on before you're gonna just get on the road and start hey diddle diddling your way up there, man. But he's got Heath and he's making his way up. And just like you said, like, I mean, Beaufort's playing it smart. He's got those guys down there in that valley. Like,

• 1:20:08JD Baker?

  when we stand up there, man, by the barn, like, you can't get a better view, man. And then the other thing is, is you're standing in the exact spot of John Beaufort. I would go to Gettysburg just on that, just to do that. I just want to stand in the same spot as that dude. And if you want, like, one or while, I got like a man crush on him and stuff like, if you get a chance to watch the movie of Gettysburg, Sam Elliott plays John Beaufort. And it's in my opinion, if you die and Sam Elliott plays you in the movie, you were a badass. You're good to go. Oh, you're good to hook, brother. You know what I mean? So, I mean, in my opinion, like, his balls need to be carried around in a dump truck for what he's doing up there

• 1:20:51JD Baker?

  on McPherson's Ridge. Just my, that's just shady. Love the guy. So, here comes Heath, and he's approaching, just like you said, but down there in that swamp, that creek that's down there in the bottom, and you can kind of see there's houses there now, but that was, you know what I mean? So, yeah, now they're gonna start taking those shots. And Heath and the commanders are like, they're not up front, and they got the privates, you know what I mean? And these dudes are getting shot at. So, of course, yeah, they're gonna get down and they're gonna deploy out. And they're gonna start shooting back, and then they're gonna be like, hey, man, we got some resistance up here. And I could just imagine the commander's going, yeah, hey, dude, it's militia, man. Get up, we'll just push on. And then they, they start pushing, and you know that incline coming up to McPherson's Ridge.

• 1:21:33JD Baker?

  Uh, it's, it's pretty prominent. So now you're going uphill and then when you hit that farmland, like dude, there's nowhere to hide out there. And you got these dudes that are up there on that ridge and they're gonna start fighting. And he's got, you know, he's got, uh, the, uh, horse artillery with him. So they got artillery up there, you know what I mean? Not as much as an infantry, but he's got, he's got some guns. So now you're getting hit with artillery and of course now if you have artillery, you got counter artillery. So he's gonna bring up artillery. They're gonna start deploying and, and Hill and, and Lee are riding up. You know, they're like five miles back. Dude, you can hear that shit. You know what I mean? And I could only imagine like, dude, that is a straight up engagement going on up there.

• 1:22:19JD Baker?

  And by the time, uh, you know, when we go up there on Oak Hill and, and it's a great vantage point to oversee, uh, Gettysburg, the town, uh, and you can see the cemetery hill from over there. Cause you're elevated enough above the town to see it. Uh, you could see Culp's Hill from there. You could see the Wolf Hills a little bit off into the distance.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  And this is where Lee ends up.

• 1:22:42JD Baker?

  This is where Lee ends up.

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  So he ends up in a place, uh, that is, that is north of Gettysburg town. And, and it's called Oak Hill. And like you're describing right now, it's a very good vantage point to, to look at everything. And that's what he's, now he's looking and going, well, yeah, this is a full on general engagement. We got a battle, but basically a battle going down here.

• 1:23:07JD Baker?

  Uh, I mean, it's, uh, but just to kind of put people in, into like the perspective of what's happening is, like by the time Robert E. Lee gets there, cause everybody's like, I mean, it's not like he's got a helicopter that can fly him up there. He could do a quick buzz over. I mean, by the time he gets there, like, The Confederates, they've already gotten a general officer and you like captured. You know what I mean? Like yeah, they're McPherson's Ridge, they've already pushed back. And now they're in that, that, that valley that you and I talked about in between Seminary Ridge and McPherson's Ridge. And you know, you'll agree, cause we've been up there a bunch of times.

• 1:23:50JD Baker?

  When you look down off of Oak Hill, that's a prominent drop. And then it's just straight flat into the town where now like, I mean, it's flat enough to, to put it in a perspective. Like Gettysburg College, that's their sports fields. You know what I mean? So you don't play sports fields on a fricking hill, man. It's flat. It's a valley. So he, he gets up there and AP Hill and his folks, they're successfully pushing that first corps of John Reynolds back off of McPherson's Ridge by the time Robert E. Lee gets to Oak Hill.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  How's Reynolds doing?

• 1:24:33JD Baker?

  Unfortunately, uh, also by the time Robert E. Lee gets down there, John Reynolds is not the senior commander on the field anymore. Uh, he is like literally, uh, I mean, from, from where we stand there at the McPherson barn, uh, on McPherson's Ridge, like, I mean, what would you say, man? Like 200 yards down in that wood line? A little bit back off of McPherson's Ridge is, you know, Reynolds gets shot and killed.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  Like, like out of the gate.

• 1:25:05JD Baker?

  Like out of the gate, man. Uh, you know, and, and I always, I always kinda, you know, cause obviously I've spent a lot of time standing up there and just thinking about, uh, John Buford and what he did that day. But I could imagine when he's up there just like laying the wood, you got 1,500 guys. And then you look back to the east and you got the seminary and you see Reynolds making his way up.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  Your bro.

• 1:25:32JD Baker?

  Oh yeah. I bet he's like, son of a bitch, he's here, man. Because now, guess what? It's his rodeo. You know what I mean? Like he's now the senior commander and Reynolds is that guy. You, he owns it. I mean, you want to talk about a guy that's got extreme ownership? One, those two, they own it. Reynolds isn't coming in and like, dude, I can't believe you picked this spot. He's just in it and he is in the front lines. I mean, he's on me. He's not sitting back. He very well could have stayed back at the seminary ridge, right next to the seminary, and sent folks forward and observed the battle from there. But you know as well as I, if you're

• 1:26:10JD Baker?

  on seminary, you can't see down over on that, on the, on the western slope of McPherson's Ridge. So he comes all the way up to McPherson's Ridge and there's a flipping gunfight. It's a battle going on. And he takes one and goes straight down. And Reynolds is killed on McPherson's Ridge. There's a marker that's there. It sits tucked in over by the wood line a little bit, but you could see a path going to it because a lot of people, there's a, there's a Reynolds monument that's up there on the Chambersburg Pike of him on his horse that sits there as well. That's not where he got killed. That's just where his monument is. So you gotta go over to the

• 1:26:53JD Baker?

  south and you can see where the marker is of where he actually got killed. And as soon as he goes down, man, they get him off the field quickly because they don't want the troops to see that Reynolds is down. Because that's a morale booster. General Reynolds goes down, man, who now became the senior guy on the, on the field?

• 1:27:15JD Baker?

  Howard.

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's not a morale booster.

• 1:27:23Jocko Willink?

  Hey, while this is happening, we also have to remember that Yule is, was further up north and now he's heading south. He got word, hey, this is what's going on. Get down here. So, so you got Lee gets to Oak Hill. You got Yule heading south to, and again, I always, just, just to, just to remind everybody, the Confederate forces are moving to the south to engage because they had swept up to the north. That's why they're moving south, even though it might be counterintuitive. But, but Yule's heading south to, to get in the engagement as well.

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  And you got Lee up on, up on Oak Hill. And he's looking at the battlefield. And, you know, we got these, these, these ridges that we're talking about, this high ground, this available high ground, and he started to think the same thing, like, alright, well, I'm here. You think at this point, he's decided this is where it's gonna be?

• 1:28:21JD Baker?

  Yeah, uh, you know what I mean? Again, you know, Robert E. Lee, man, he's a smart guy, and, and just so folks know, like, we were talking earlier of when he gets to Oak Hill. And I encourage everybody, go to Oak Hill. Uh, you know, you can look across, and you can see Cemetery and Culp's Hill, but you can also look up to the north at Carlisle. I mean, cause it's, it's, it's flat farmland. There is no major terrain feature. So, yeah. So you got Yule making that approach. Like, everybody, just like you said, they're all turning towards Gettysburg, uh, because it's not like they're up there just traipsing around. Remember what Robert E. Lee's trying to do. He's trying to sway the votes, man. It doesn't really even matter if he gets into a battle.

• 1:29:05JD Baker?

  Uh, you know what I mean? If, if he can politically put enough pressure on folks up there, you know what I mean? And, and threaten DC, you know what I mean? He could force the hand, uh, of, of the Union, uh, without even a battle. So now he's got these folks moving in, and when you're up there at Oak Hill, so he sees the approach of how Yule is gonna come in, and he's gonna hit Gettysburg from the north. So you got AP Hill coming from west to east, and now you've got this other corps of Second Corps coming from north to south. That's pretty good geometry, and you're pushing.

• 1:29:48JD Baker?

  They have pushed them off McPherson's Ridge. They're pushing them back through to Seminary Ridge. Some of them are starting to make their way through the town of Gettysburg. And they're starting to, that third line is the Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. Nobody's going to Culp's Hill because that's behind it. They're just going to the next high ground. They're not gonna hang out in the town. They're just running through the town, and they're ending up on Cemetery Hill, which is where Howard i- is hanging out. And they're watching this unfold, so when Robert E. Lee sees that geometry, he, he's gonna call an audible. You know what I mean? It's kinda like the quarterback. He gets to kinda play from the coach, but then he walks out there and he gets a look. He's like, huh, I don't like

• 1:30:33JD Baker?

  the way the linebackers are looking here, man. And he's gonna call Omaha. You know what I mean? And they're gonna call an audible. And, and he's a smart enough guy. His oodle loops kinda running. He's looking at the math. Yep, push him here. That's gonna expose the right flank of the Union Army. And he knows that it's not the entire army of the Potomac. Like, he knows, I mean, George Gordon Meade at this time is still literally in Frederick, Maryland, man. And he's got a couple of corps down there with them. So, man, this is a huge advantage for Robert E. Lee. It's almost the vision that Buford had. And he's gonna do it without Longstreet. So, he's gonna send a yellow sticky down

• 1:31:18JD Baker?

  to Yule. That tells Yule, seize the heights beyond the town, if practicable.

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  Keyword in this podcast has been practicable. So, recap. You got Yule heading south. You got Lee up on Oak Hill. He's looking down. He measures the geometry, runs the calculus. He's like, I got this. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take that high ground that I can see, that, that General Lee can see. He can see that high ground back beyond the, beyond the, beyond the town. So, he sends that message to Yule. Take, seize the heights beyond, beyond the town, if practicable. Now, what's really cool, when you go there on the ground, we get to do this. You and I have done this many, many times now. We

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  stand on Oak Hill. We look and we look at what's, what heights are beyond the town. Then we get in our cars and we drive down to where Yule is approaching.

• 1:32:19JD Baker?

  Over by Barlow's.

• 1:32:20Jocko Willink?

  Over by Barlow's. And it's a totally different picture.

• 1:32:27JD Baker?

  Totally.

• 1:32:27Jocko Willink?

  Totally different picture. So you know, when you look at, you ever seen those weird pieces of art? If you're listening to this right now, you ever seen a weird piece of art where they, they, they take a bunch of like marbles hanging from the ceiling and you look at them, it just looks like a big blob. And then you walk over to the right and all of a sudden it looks like a horse. Right? It's perspective.

• 1:32:45JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:32:46Jocko Willink?

  Perspective has changed. So that's exactly what happens here where when Lee's looking up, he can basically see from that perspective on Oak Hill, it looks like there's some kind of a ridge beyond the town. That's what it looks like. Just a, a general ridge, just some high ground. You go over to where Yule's looking at it from, what does it look like from there?

• 1:33:04JD Baker?

  It's, you're looking down a valley, dude. There is no high ground beyond the town. And you know, when you look at a town, you're, you're kind of looking at the steeple. You know what I mean? Cause it's still there to this day. I mean, like we said, I mean, it's not like Gettysburg's a big town. And you get over there like on the Barlow's Knoll and you're getting that perspective, looking down and you're like, dude, I'm looking down a valley and it's not like, uh, he doesn't know where Robert E. Lee is sending the message from.

• 1:33:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33JD Baker?

  You know, which is another thing. He's like, hey dude, I'm here and this is how I'm looking, just a cardinal direction. I'm looking from west to east at the town. Yule is a smart enough dude that he could be like, okay, he's looking at, so there's the town. Bobby's looking, he can't call him Bobby yet. They're not that tight. Uh, so he's looking at it from, from west to east. I'm looking at it from north to south. So if I put a map just literally on the ground and just like draw, do a quick fricking terrain model, like grub the dirt a little bit. You can draw the arrow. Okay. Lee must be here. Here's the town. This is it.

• 1:34:14JD Baker?

  There's the heights. Got it. Because his perspective, he's going to be like, okay, he must be somewhere over there because he knows he's moving with AP Hill.

• 1:34:21Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:34:21JD Baker?

  But AP Hill dude is like, they're spread out. McPherson's Ridge.

• 1:34:24Jocko Willink?

  20,000 people, you know?

• 1:34:26JD Baker?

  Big fucking ridge. So he's looking over and he's like, okay, just like I explained before, like at the beginning. And so you, you look over at the heights and it's like, you can, like from there, you can barely pick out like the cemetery.

• 1:34:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:42JD Baker?

  Just because of that angle.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44JD Baker?

  You can't see the round top. Like, you know what I mean? So you're in Defilade enough to where that low ground, you're in a valley, but you can see Culp's Hill. You could see Wolf Hill and you could see Benner.

• 1:34:57JD Baker?

  Well, that's three.

• 1:35:00JD Baker?

  I, I, I'm good with like.

• 1:35:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and none of them, none of them are be hot beyond this town from your perspective.

• 1:35:05JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:06Jocko Willink?

  None of them are. If you would have given a freaking cardinal direction, hey, seize the heights south of the town, we could have at least worked with it a little.

• 1:35:14JD Baker?

  Like work with me a little bit, man. You know what I mean? It's like if you sent me out to lunch, you know what I mean? And it's like, hey, Jocko, they got, there, there's three sandwiches on the menu and you're just like, just get me a sandwich. And then I come back, but you're like, hey, get me one with meat if practicable. Well, when I get there, it's not practicable to get meat sandwiched. So I come back with like, just like a, a veggie, little veggie wrap for you.

• 1:35:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we got problems.

• 1:35:37JD Baker?

  Yeah, you could be pissed.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  So that's the other key. We've, we've talked about this on one of the earlier podcasts, but the word if practicable, the, the problem with that word is it, it, there's such a wide range of perspective on what is practicable and what is not because, look, somebody says, oh, I can take that hill with, you know, no, no more than 20 casualties. That seems practical to me. Someone else is like, hey, I'm not going to lose one person trying to take this hill. You want, you want me to lose any guys, do you? Someone else is like, oh, you know, Jackson would be like, oh, you want me to take that hill? Practicable? Oh, it's practicable. I don't care what the cost is. So Yule, so to go into what happens when you'll, so, so Yule decides gonna try and do something.

• 1:36:19JD Baker?

  Right. Yeah. So Yule is gonna make the approach. You know, after a while, they can kind of figure out which height because that's where all the union are kind of running to. But then, you know, when you look at, at Culp's Hill, Culp's Hill is higher in elevation than Cemetery Hill. And remember I said earlier, there's nobody on Culp's Hill.

• 1:36:42Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:36:43JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? Cause like, like you and I have been there. Like, I mean, if, if you leave Cemetery Hill, you know what I mean? It, it, if you're looking at it on a map, you're like, oh, that's not very far. That terrain in between the two, man. Like, if you get up in the morning, like before the staff ride, you know what I mean? Go on a walk and just what, cause you could go right behind the hotel. Cause where the hotel is literally on Cemetery Hill. Walk over to Culp's Hill. You know what I mean? Just walk it with nobody shooting at you. You know what I mean? In daylight. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful walk. But I, cause people love the, just, they love the, oh, let's all just drag out Yule and let's just, you know, pounce him around a little bit because he didn't take the fricking hill. Where are those guys coming from?

• 1:37:25JD Baker?

  Carlisle, where had they been? They've been walking from Spotsylvania, Virginia in June, all the way up to Harrisburg. And this isn't like, you know, they're doing a through hike on the Appalachian Trail, man. You know what I mean? Like, these dudes are in wool underwear, man, making their way around up there. And then now they're gonna push south, coming from Carlisle, and they're gonna get resistance. They're gonna go right into, I mean, these dudes have gotta be tired. They're dragging all their stuff with them, and then you're gonna get there, and he's gonna get to Culp's Hill, but before he wants to go up the hill, he's gonna send a reconnaissance up there.

• 1:38:08JD Baker?

  He's not just gonna commit everybody, because what if somebody's up there? And you know as well as I do, man, that's a steep little climb, man, to get up to Culp's Hill, and it's a woodlot, so it's wooded. You know, now, they are, they let the farm animals and stuff, like, eat the underbrush and stuff, so it's not like if you go there today, you're gonna see like a lot of underbrush. You could see through the trees, but you can't see well enough, because what's also happening towards the end of July 1st? The sun's starting to go down, and it's gonna be dark soon. Well, we've remembered what happened the last time a commander went forward in the dark. It was only a month ago. That's his corps he has now. Hmm, where's Jackson? He went out monkeying around at dark. Yep. You know what I mean?

• 1:38:54JD Baker?

  So, he's gonna send, you know what I mean, like, like, like, a reconnaissance of a picket kinda, hey, you know what I mean, go on up there, man, and take a look, and, and see what's up on there, even if it's a company. You know what I mean? Because a company, I mean, send a company up there, and they're kinda like online, and they're moving slowly up the top of Culp's Hill. You know what I mean? Before he's gonna do a full-on commitment. And he also, as he looks at it, he sends a note back to Robert E. Lee. And he wants to know if like, hey, man, can I get like somebody from AP Hill? Can he send me like a division over to kind of like help me out a brigade? You know what I mean? Can I get some of his folks? I mean, he is the one that got us in a general engagement here.

• 1:39:39JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? But AP Hill's kind of spent by this time. If you can imagine, I mean, he's been in battle all day. McPherson's Ridge, all the way to, he's made it all the way to the seminary.

• 1:39:49Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:39:50JD Baker?

  And he's pushed them all the way through the town. So, you know, so Robert E. Lee gets this note from Yule, you know, hey, can I get some reinforcements here, man? And he goes, he basically says, I'll, I'll support you with long range artillery. Well, dude, long range artillery is not going to do anything.

• 1:40:07Jocko Willink?

  So, no.

• 1:40:08JD Baker?

  No. Yeah. And Lee has the ability to be like, hey, AP, send a division over, send them over and you're going to attack, just like you had seen before at Chancellorsville. I mean, there was two divisions that were fighting with second corps. I mean, Lee has that capability.

• 1:40:25Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:40:25JD Baker?

  He's what you would call the dispatcher.

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Now, we're, I mean, the Union is also looking at Culp's Hill, luckily, and we got other troops arriving on the battlefield at this time.

• 1:40:38JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:40:39Jocko Willink?

  And so what happens with the Indiana?

• 1:40:42JD Baker?

  Oh, yeah. These, so the Indiana regiment, because you know, when, when you do that little morning walk up to Culp's Hill, you're going to see this little small monument up there for Indiana. You're like, huh. Yeah. If you're from Indiana, you're like, oh, man, Indiana's up here. Badass. Well, how did they get there is kind of the interesting story. So, you know, you've got a logistic train and then you've got this asshole that's out riding around trying to disrupt all your logistics. So you gotta take infantry and you gotta put them with the log train to protect the log train. It's an important job. When you're, you lose logistics, you're done training. So this Indiana regiment is back there and they're supposed to be protecting the log train.

• 1:41:27JD Baker?

  Well, they're infantry. Nobody's thrilled when it, because you're always looking at it like, man, Jocko must not like me because he stuck me with the log train and everybody else is up there. You have Jason and Steve and them are up there running around Gettysburg and I can hear the battle going on and they're going to be telling stories, man, and I'm missing out. And so that's what these Indiana dudes are standing back there. And I can imagine with the Colonel and stuff, you know, they got like the privates and shit. Sure would be nice to get in the fight, sir. Can't believe you're back here doing this bullshit. You know, typical private stuff. And the Colonel's like, you know, he's kind of listening to it. Hey, man, this is job. This is important to. Finally, the Colonel's like, dude, we're in. They look at the dudes at the log train, you know what I mean? That are just

• 1:42:08JD Baker?

  like, these are like contractor folks that are, you know, just dragging wagons and shit, you know what I mean? And they're like, hey, dude, you're on your own. We're getting in this. So Indiana leaves the log train and they don't tell anybody. They just fricking leave. And they make their way and of course you can hear the gun. There's a lot of activity going on, you know what I mean? And everybody's up on Cemetery Hill. So these dudes make their way up to Cemetery Hill. And of course, you know, Howard and any commander that's up there, they just see, they got a fresh infantry regiment. They didn't ask them, hey, how'd you get here? What were you supposed to be doing? They're just like, hey, you guys, Indiana? Yeah. Hey, how about go up there and get up on Culp's

• 1:42:51JD Baker?

  Hill and occupy Culp's Hill? Because that, nobody's there yet. And it's higher than them and they need to get somebody up there. But they also got to worry about what's in front of them. So they got this, like, they're looking at it as like, hey, man, folks are starting to arrive here. And so Indiana gets up on to Culp's Hill. And I mean, dude, this is like minutes. So Indiana leaves Culp's Hill, or as you were, leaves Cemetery Hill after they've been told, get up there. They make their way down and through the little valley and they make their way up onto Culp's Hill on this woodlot. And it's like, they get there like literally, like a couple of minutes before that

• 1:43:34JD Baker?

  reconnaissance efforts being pushed up by Yule. So you could imagine like these dudes in a gunfight, the privates from Yule and they're moving up toward, I mean, they're going up that hill. One, who wants to fight going up that fricking hill, man? Not me, even still to this day. Cause it's a prominent terrain feature in Gettysburg. The Indiana gets up there and they're just stoked to be there. And here they get up there on the military crest, kind of facing to that northerly direction, because that's where all the threats kind of coming from. So they get into position and the next thing you know, man, they see bodies moving up towards Culp's Hill. And what do they do? They just, it's time to, you know, lay the wood.

• 1:44:17JD Baker?

  So they start firing down into these Confederates that are making their way up there. What do the Confederate guys do? They turn, they run their ass back down the hill. And of course they got officers down there waiting. You know what I mean? Like, hey, what, what's going on up there? They're shooting at us. How many? A hell if I know. You want to take your ass up there and go look, but it's dark. You know what I mean? I'm not going back up there. So they report that. They report to the command, Yule of Culp's Hill is occupied.

• 1:44:48JD Baker?

  That now it becomes not practicable. Which, I mean, come on, man. I mean, these dudes have done a lot of movement. It's not like they haven't done anything that day. And I mean, and if it's occupied and you've been there, I mean, it's, it's different. If you read the book and you kind of, oh shit, if I was there, I would have taken Culp's Hill, baby. Yeah, whatever dude. You know what I mean? That's a, that's a steep climb. Uh, so then the bad thing is with the privates is they kind of look at this. So when he pulls his folks back off of Culp's Hill and they, they kind of set up in a defensive position. So you got AP Hills over there on the seminary, on the seminary ridge. And then you kind of over on the, the north to northeast side of the town, you know what I mean?

• 1:45:32JD Baker?

  Towards like that, that area of closer to Culp's Hill, that's where Yule's going to set up. Uh, his folks are going to be spread out all facing, you know what I mean? South towards Gettysburg, the town, and then towards Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. So that's, they're going to set up there and then AP Hill is set up over by the seminary and they're going to set up their lines on the seminary. And that's going to pretty much end day one.

• 1:46:02Jocko Willink?

  You got.

• 1:46:05Jocko Willink?

  I mean Reynolds is dead, which put Howard in charge.

• 1:46:09JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:46:11Jocko Willink?

  How does Meade feel about that?

• 1:46:13JD Baker?

  Yeah, uh, when Meade gets the word, again, he gets it all the way down, uh, and he's, he's down in Frederick, Maryland, and then dispatch comes down letting them know what the actions, cause you know, these guys are sending couriers back, man, all the time, keeping the commander in the loop. Uh, so the commander's getting that stuff back. Meade gets it and he's like, man, Reynolds is dead. First thing he does, he's looking at the map. He's like, man, who's the senior guy on the board? And they're like, it's General Howard, sir. Uh-oh. So, uh,

• 1:46:45JD Baker?

  interesting is, is, uh, he's got his second corps down there with him. Uh, and the second corps commander of the army of Potomac, guy by the name of General Hancock. Uh, and I know we've, we've, we've kind of talked a little bit about Hancock. Hancock, he's a good dude. Uh, he's a Pennsylvanian as well, uh, very, very well respected. Uh, even gets, I mean, the, the pure leadership, uh, in the army of the Potomac has changed dramatically. I mean, you still got a couple of outlier corps commanders that are running around the army of the Potomac, uh, that we'll talk about later. Uh, but for the most part, like, uh, you know, Meade has got some good dudes and he's got a really good one. Uh, you know,

• 1:47:27JD Baker?

  even though he loses Reynolds, Hancock is, is at that level. Uh, he, he's, he's Reynolds' level, uh, in my opinion. Love the guy. Uh, so he's gonna basically, he's gonna turn to Hancock and he's gonna tell Hancock, hey dude, relinquish your corps to Gibbon and make your way to Gettysburg and I want you to take command of all actions in Gettysburg.

• 1:47:56JD Baker?

  And Hancock, you know, uh, Hancock knows that there's a little bit of a dilemma with this because he's junior to Howard.

• 1:48:09JD Baker?

  So now, you know, how's this gonna play out? You know what I mean? I'm gonna go up to Gettysburg and I'm gonna tell a senior officer that, even though we're both corps commanders, you know how it is in the military, man. I don't care if, you know what I mean? If you, if-

• 1:48:25Jocko Willink?

  Two Marines are in a room, one of them is senior man.

• 1:48:27JD Baker?

  You're damn right. You know what I mean?

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  15 minutes, like, what is it? I got you.

• 1:48:31JD Baker?

  Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's just like, dude, they just lined us up for promotion by frickin', you know, by alphabetical order, and you're a B and I'm a Z, so you're, yep, I got promoted 15 seconds before you boot.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  And Howard's the kinda guy that seems like the person that would, would exercise that kind of seniority all day.

• 1:48:51JD Baker?

  Oh, in my opinion, most definitely. Yeah. Howard is not gonna, because how, how is that gonna look? You know what I mean? Like, so a junior dude came up and, and he just took command of everything? It's gonna get out. Everybody's gonna see it. Everybody in the army knows the seniority in the organization. It's not like it's a secret. You know what I mean? Like, uh, so yeah, he sees that it's gonna be a problem, but the cool thing about it is, is, uh, Meade has a letter when he's, when he's designated from Abraham Lincoln to be the, the new army commander, he, he's got a letter from Abraham Lincoln that says

• 1:49:34JD Baker?

  pretty much, dude, you can promote, you can fire, you can put in charge whoever you see fit. And he's got this letter, and he's gonna say, hey dude, and he tells that to Hancock, dude, I got this letter, man. Here's the letter, I'm allowed to do whatever the hell I want. I don't care about seniority, man. You're in charge, get your ass to Gettysburg. So he takes the letter, shoves it in his cargo pocket, or his satchel, they didn't have cargo pockets, they missed out on a lot, I love a cargo pocket. So, you know what I mean? So he puts it in his satchel, uh, and he's gonna start making his way to Gettysburg, and he's gonna leave his corps there, and, but then the corps is gonna, so like, he's just not gonna be with the movement, but you, you gotta look at like, you know, Meade-

• 1:50:18JD Baker?

  And a lot of people are like, well, why didn't Meade just like get on his pony and go to Meade's got a lot of stuff to do, man. He had the Pipe Creek circular. He's got to adjust a lot of logistics. Cause all the logistics were coming to support Pipe Creek. Now, in a matter of hours, it's gone from Pipe Creek, that's in Maryland, by the way, to Gettysburg, that's in Pennsylvania. Forty miles or something. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So he's got to make all these, you know, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. We finally have a professional running the Army of the Potomac, in my opinion. So yeah, he's gonna, and why not, man? Let Hancock, you know, let Hancock go do it.

• 1:50:59JD Baker?

  He can do it. He's just as capable. Badass, in my opinion. So that's what he's gonna do, and Hancock's gonna make his way up to Gettysburg. And when he gets up there, Hancock is gonna get up to Cemetery Hill, and he's gonna see General Howard. And he's thinking about like, how am I gonna deal with this guy? When I get there? You know what I mean? Knowing that this is just not gonna be good. But he's got some time to think. I mean, always, you know, it seems to me like we never get enough time to think. Like, I love personal time to think. So he gets this time to think, and he makes his way up, and he gets up there to Cemetery Hill, cause that's where all the action is.

• 1:51:43JD Baker?

  Come, you know, he comes up over on the, from the east side, comes up onto the back. But as he's making his approach, man, you know what I mean? He's, he's, he's, he's looking at the terrain. You know what I mean? He's, he's looking at everything of how, okay, we got Culp's Hill, we got Cemetery Hill, we got the Cemetery Ridge line it's running down, we got the, the round tops. He goes, dude, this is, this is, this is good terrain, man. Cause he's literally coming up the approach route from Frederick, as all the other assets are gonna be making their way up. He's like, dude, this is good. And they got interior lines. So it's what like, in the book and stuff like that, when you come out there, it's kinda hard to, if you lay a map out in front of you,

• 1:52:25JD Baker?

  and you look at Culp's Hill to Cemetery Hill, and then you look down Cemetery Ridge to the round top, it looks like a fish hook. So they're gonna have these interior lines with resupply that's gonna be protected by this fish hook. So Hancock goes up to Howard, he's like, General Howard, you know what I mean? General Hancock, you know how that all, you know, you gotta get the formality shit out of the way real quick. And he's like, damn, sir, you've selected some good ground. If you'll allow me, I'll go ahead and like, start taking over, placing folks in.

• 1:53:03JD Baker?

  So literally he's convincing Howard that he, he selected this ground.

• 1:53:11Jocko Willink?

  And it's like the black belt leadership move. Instead of going up, hey, I'm in charge now. Here's my letter from Meade. You need to stand down. He knows that would be like drama, conflict, issues, like just, just, just drama. And instead he just says, hey, hey, sir, it looks like you've done a great job selecting the ground. If you'll allow me, I'll start putting the troops in some spots. And it gives him a little ego massage, you know, about what great ground he selected. And, you know, he's like, yep, that sounds good. Go ahead, go ahead Hancock, you go ahead and carry on with that, right? Just, and that's what they do.

• 1:53:49JD Baker?

  Oh, I mean, yeah, I mean, the, the black, and, and you know what I love about, because this is another thing that like, that I think of when I, when I'm up there and I always think of, of with Hancock. Hancock has the best interest of the private in mind. Because he knows that if they get into this pissing contest up there, and he, I mean, he doesn't even break out the fricking letter from Meade. Like, it never even comes up. Because, you know, Hancock knows, what's Howard gonna do? Howard's gonna get one of these teenage kids, he's gonna write a message. Okay, well, how long does it take to write a fricking message? You know what I mean? Then he's gonna give this message to a little fricking teenager.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  I've been told that I've been relieved by Hancock, and I want to debate with this, and I have, this, I am the senior man. Yeah, I gotta wait for him to go all the way back down, two hour, three hour courier on a horse and get with Meade. Meade's gotta write something back, but by the, but now the fight's over. Crying out loud.

• 1:54:45JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, and who's suffering? The frickin' private. That's what I love about Hancock, man. He's just like, and then he immediately just goes to work and Howard is just steps off to the side. Well, of course, you know, a horse boy. Get my tea and crumpets. You know what I mean? He goes and does Howard shit. Uh, you know what I mean? And Hancock goes to work. Uh, and, and then as this is, of course, now what's Hancock gonna do? He's sending a note back to his boss, man. Like, yeah, dude, it's on.

• 1:55:11Jocko Willink?

  This is a good spot.

• 1:55:12JD Baker?

  This is a good spot, brother. Uh, you know what I mean? And well, what, of course, what's me gonna do? He's gonna start to get his way and all the other forces are gonna start to make their way to Gettysburg.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome. So, so they're on their way and you get this again, like you're, you're talking about this fish hook that ends up the lines of the union. End up looking like a fish hook. The top of it is like Culp's Hill Cemetery Hill. They kinda, they kinda go east to west and then it hooks down and then running north to south. All the way down to Little Round Top is a big chunk of land, a couple of miles long. And that ends up being this fish hook shape. Did I get that right?

• 1:55:56JD Baker?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and for folks to get a visual, if you take your right hand. And with your, you know, your pointer finger and your thumb and you make it in the shape of a fish hook. And then you kinda look at the knuckle of your thumb, that, that, that,

• 1:56:11Jocko Willink?

  The first knuckle?

• 1:56:12JD Baker?

  Yeah, that first knuckle, it's kinda like right in there. So that would be like Culp's Hill. Then you drop down to where the knuckle of your pointer finger, that would be cemetery. And then your pointer finger, that's the cemetery ridge. So that is, that's you're looking at the fish hook. And then the logistics is running in to that, to the fish hook. So you've got road networks coming in and that's interior lines. I mean, look how easy it is to like move resources around inside that fish hook. Now, Robert E. Lee on the other side, if you look on the outside of the fish hook, over there by that knuckle of the cemetery hill, you got the town and then Cemetery Ridge is what? Three quarters of a mile away?

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:54JD Baker?

  Well, that's over to the seminary. Well, then you got Yule, that's a, you know, he's another mile and he's not even, he's on the other side of the town, man. And then when Long Street finally comes in, well, he's all the way down on the southern end of Seminary Ridge. So for them to move people in and around on those exterior lines, man, that's a lot of movement. So, yeah, I mean, Hancock and these guys getting, getting cemetery and, and you know, you gotta look back at Buford, man. He saw this, man. Like dude, somebody's gotta be able to occupy this high ground. Like if, if we don't occupy this high ground, if Robert E. Lee would have ended up, uh, you know, up there on, on the cemetery and, and would have gained Culp's Hill, man? Game changer.

• 1:57:39JD Baker?

  Uh, but again, you know, if-

• 1:57:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, then Meade hopefully wouldn't have fought him there and just stayed down by Pikes Creek.

• 1:57:44JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:57:44Jocko Willink?

  Pikes Creek and-

• 1:57:45JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:57:45Jocko Willink?

  So, cool, come and get DC, I guess.

• 1:57:48JD Baker?

  Yep, that's probably what he would have done. He wouldn't have like thrown more resources and just like, he's not gonna go up there and then just like throw resources and start attacking to try to take, you know, Cemetery Hill. It doesn't mean shit to him. That's not his, he, he just has to protect Baltimore. You can stay in Gettysburg all day long, brother. As long as you stay out of DC and Baltimore, I'm keeping my job.

• 1:58:12Jocko Willink?

  So that's where we end up, uh, on the end of day one is, you know, you got the, the fish hook form with the Union troops. The, you could say that the Confederate troops are also in a fish hook. It's just way, way, way more spread out, more expanded. It's like, just it's a giant arcing, arching, you know, spread out of troops that they're in.

• 1:58:35JD Baker?

  Yeah, a huge 180, man. I mean, cause they're trying to cover that, that entire frontage. I mean, and, and, and again, they, they don't have as many people. Uh, and, and yeah, like you said, uh- You know, the first core commander of James Longstreet for the Army of Northern Virginia. He's not even a player of day one. So he's going to show up, you know, that night coming into Gettysburg. And then Meade is putting the rest of his army and they're all moving towards Gettysburg. So now it's all like, let's all giddy up and let's see how this is going to go down. And the other cool thing about after the end of day one, once Meade takes care of all of his like

• 1:59:18JD Baker?

  general stuff and sends notes back to, because he's got his boss, he's got to keep the boss informed. He sent his stuff back to DC. He's got a, he's got a, he's got a little bit of a ride to get to Gettysburg. And it's at night, you know what I mean? So it's, it's late in the evening. He packs up his camp and he hops into a back of a, he's going to jump in the back of a wagon. Going to get the back of a wagon and he's going to take a nap on the way to Gettysburg. Cause he knows when he gets there, it's game on and I need to be, there's nothing he can do on the ride up. So I think that's, that's pretty cool that the commander, he understands like,

• 1:59:59JD Baker?

  I'm not going to get rest for the next couple of days. I'm going to go up against a dude that's 7-0 and 1. You know what I mean? This isn't the Pipe Creek plan. I've lost John Reynolds. You know what I mean? Like, and, and this is, and he knows what's happened to every commander before him. Like you're going to be out of a job quickly.

• 2:00:21Jocko Willink?

  You're going to lose and then you're going to get fired.

• 2:00:24JD Baker?

  Yes. I mean, we know that there's a certain sequence that it's not like anything that's like mind blowing. Uh, so he, he jumps in the back of an ambulance, you know, in a, uh, he's going to, he's going to ride up in the back and he's going to take a nap. And the other cool thing about Meade is, is when he does get to Gettysburg that evening and he gets up there to call, he is personally going to ride the lines and he's going to sketch the lines personally. And he's gonna, he knows in his mind how the units are going to arrive, the other corps. You know what I mean? So he knows these other corps are gonna be approaching and he wants to know what chunk of line, because he's an engineer. He knows you give me, you know what I mean? You give me 5,000 people.

• 2:01:09JD Baker?

  This is how many, this is how much space 5,000 people can take. And then I got another 5,000 and I got another 5,000. So he's gonna literally sketch out at night, writing his lines personally. So that when these folks arrive, they're not waiting around. Like, have you ever gone somewhere and you're like waiting around, wait to be told what to do? We love that. You know what I mean? I love when you like show up somewhere, you immediately know what you're doing.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Hey, here's your piece of terrain. Here's where you want your people. Here's where your fields of fire are. You good to go?

• 2:01:41JD Baker?

  Yep, good to go. Yep. I mean, everything's already done. We know exactly what we're doing. I mean, it's like us. We show up here at the beginning of the week. I wouldn't like stand around waiting, mucking around like two or three days, what the hell we're doing. Dude, we've been at it, like literally, you know what I mean? It's been game on every day, you know what I mean? Because we know what the fuck we're doing, you know what I mean? Like, we've got a plan. I love that. Uh, and, and that's what Mead does. Uh, there's a lot, uh, so Mead's a good dude.

• 2:02:11Jocko Willink?

  And at some point, Lee decides it's on. We're gonna fight here.

• 2:02:15JD Baker?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:15Jocko Willink?

  Like, this is where we're gonna do it.

• 2:02:17JD Baker?

  Day one, because at the end of day one, and I, I, you know, we've had a lot of discussions about this, because everybody always likes to discuss, okay, so you're at the end of the day one, you got, uh, the, the Union Army, they're over on the cemetery hill, uh, in the fish hook. And then you've got the Army of Northern Virginia, uh, the Confederates are over on the seminary. Uh, so like, who won day one?

• 2:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that depends on your perspective.

• 2:02:48JD Baker?

  Yeah, doesn't it?

• 2:02:49Jocko Willink?

  You know, I mean, the Confederates killed one of the premier generals, you know, killed. They pushed, they pushed him back off McPherson, pushed him back off Seminary. And all the way on to Cemetery Ridge. So that feels pretty good, but that being said, you got, you got the Union and the Union has now kind of uh aligned themselves on a really nice prominent terrain feature.

• 2:03:17Jocko Willink?

  Kinda, you know, I wouldn't, I, you know, they do, they do this thing with the UFC now where they do, they show what the odds are at the end of each round. They're like, oh, at the beginning of the fight, you know, everyone thinks this guy's gonna win. Now, at round two, after you saw round one, who's winning now? That's kind of what we're doing right now. It'd be, it'd be a hard one. I don't think the, I don't think you could call it any easier right now than you could before day one. Because you're like, well, I mean, they both have some advantages, like we got some momentum, like if I'm in the Confederates, I'm like, hey, we got some momentum. We pushed you off of two terrain features. We killed some of your leadership. Like, we, we pushed you all the way back to this last terrain feature.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  We'll be up tomorrow morning, ready to kick your ass again. Meanwhile, the other side's like, well, we did a like, nice defense in depth. We took some casualties, but now we've got awesome reinforcements coming in. And we're in a prominent terrain feature. Good luck tomorrow morning.

• 2:04:18JD Baker?

  Yeah, and the only thing that we know is, is both coaches, Mead and Lee. They're both, the, the message they're sending out to their people is, damn right, we won today. You know what I mean? We're gonna smoke check them tomorrow. And when you look at Mead, Mead wanted to be in a defensive position.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:38JD Baker?

  And he's in a, I mean, he, I mean, that's why, I mean, I, I, you gotta, you gotta come up to Gettysburg. You know what I mean? To, to, to see it, you know what I mean, of where they are, uh, and the location on there, man. And, and Mead is in a good spot. Uh, but again, I mean, Dude, 30 days ago, we were just talking about like Robert E. Lee and Jackson with like three to one odds and went out 14 miles with a frigging teenager as a scout and smoke checked him, you know what I mean? So, don't be thinking he's over there. And so, and Mead knows what he's up against. I mean, this is Bobby Lee. And so, you know, Robert E. Lee is gonna immediately,

• 2:05:17JD Baker?

  his oodle loop's gonna go, go into thought of day two and Longstreet arrives and Longstreet's gonna come into the tent and Lee, he's gonna wanna fight here at Gettysburg and Lee's gonna come up to where his, his, his initial plan is that he briefs to Longstreet and the corps commanders of this is what we're gonna do this, tomorrow morning, this is what we're doing.

• 2:05:44JD Baker?

  He's gonna have, you know, basically, he's gonna take, Hill is gonna stay in position. So, he's basically, you know, he's gonna be like the support by fire position. He wants Longstreet that wasn't engaged at all on day one.

• 2:05:58Jocko Willink?

  Should be pretty fresh.

• 2:05:59JD Baker?

  He's got some fresh guy. Now, they did walk there. I'm not gonna take anything away from the hike, but they, they didn't get in it. They haven't fired around yet. So, these guys are fresh and it's his old warhorse. So, he's gonna be the focus of main effort. So, if, you know, on that road, when you're sitting up on the seminary road, if you look down behind the seminary, back towards the west, there's that Black Horse Tavern Road that runs back down there. But there's not really good roads back there. But there's enough to where he can drop down off the military crest and then he's gonna head south. And then he's gonna come and cross over of what is the Emmitsburg Pike Road, you know,

• 2:06:41JD Baker?

  that Emmitsburg, because if you go south of Gettysburg, you run into Emmitsburg, Maryland. You're literally, Gettysburg is very close to the Maryland line of Emmitsburg. And then he's gonna cross over the Emmitsburg Road and then, just like we talked about how Jackson did on the Plank Road when we talked about Chancellorsville, he's gonna straddle that road, you know what I mean? And he's gonna push from the south to the north, you know what I mean? And, and he's gonna get that extreme left flank of the Union Army. And...

• 2:07:17Jocko Willink?

  So basically, basically Lee is like, hey, remember Chancellorsville? Remember what we did down there? We we flanked them and that's what we're gonna do here. You're gonna kinda, we're on this, we're on the seminary ridge, just bump back off the ridge a little bit. They won't be able to see you. Walk south. Once you walk south far enough, hook a left and you're gonna be on their left flank. We're gonna roll them up, just like we did down at Chancellorsville. That's, that's the essentially what Lee wants to do.

• 2:07:49JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, that's what, and, and Lee sends a reconnaissance. You know what I mean? Sends a couple of his engineers around there prior, just to, to get eyes on. You know what I mean? He wants to, to run a reconnaissance and Longstreet sends some of his guys with the guys with Lee. So he's sending some of his own folks on this reconnaissance and they get it around and if you, if you go south off the seminary and you get on the, on the, on the Emmitsburg Pike Road and you come back up north, like you're coming into Gettysburg. Uh, up there, you're gonna see like, it's very prominent, the peach orchard. And when those guys go out and around and they're, they're kinda like sneaking up, they're trying to get, they don't wanna get in a gunfight.

• 2:08:33JD Baker?

  They're doing reconnaissance. When they look into up there on the peach orchard up there, there's like maybe not even a couple hundred guys. And then they're gonna make their way back out and around and they're gonna come back over and they're gonna tell Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet. You know what I mean? And, and, and the commander's there that, yeah, dude, there, there's just, there's just a couple hundred dudes, man.

• 2:08:54Jocko Willink?

  And their flank is kinda in the air.

• 2:08:56JD Baker?

  Yeah, oh, it's in the air.

• 2:08:57Jocko Willink?

  Like we just rolled up there.

• 2:08:59JD Baker?

  Yeah. Like dude, let's giddy up and go. And Longstreet, he, he has a different vision of what he thinks they should do. And he tells Robert E. Lee, he tells Bobby, he's like, Hey man, why don't we just like screw Gettysburg and let's go south and east and let's get in between DC and the army of the Potomac, kinda like what Meade was gonna do. So he's got the same vision as Meade. Get in between them. We can pick the defensive ground. It's gonna force their hand to come down and hit us, man. Let's not do this offensive

• 2:09:43JD Baker?

  thing. Let's go down there. And, and a lot of people, I mean, does, does that, is that a viable plan? Sure. But if you go down there and you threaten, I always look at it, that's the only reason why, because you gotta, you know, you gotta kinda look at the fence of like, okay, why wouldn't Robert E. Lee do that? That makes perfect frickin' sense, man. Well, is that gonna leave your logistics exposed? You go down there, man. You know what I mean? Like if you push in and get in between, that doesn't mean that George Gordon Meade has to come hit you. He could go straight for your legit, I mean, your logistics train dude, like you're, you're not set up logistically like the army of the Potomac

• 2:10:24JD Baker?

  is. Your logistics train's running back to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, man. You know what I mean? So, logistically, he's on borrowed time. To be able to do all this movements, where's he gonna get the food? Where's he gonna get the forage? How's he gonna take, you bring the army together, you know what I mean? They're gonna, like, when we talked about it on the, on the, on the previous podcast about like, how many horses are there? If you look at the fields of Gettysburg, if you put all those horses there, 25,000 horses, that place is dirt in a day. They're gonna eat every ounce of grass and you're gonna have dirt there. Like, there's just not enough to support that many

• 2:11:06JD Baker?

  people. I mean, you're bringing in, coming into the little town of Gettysburg, now you've got both armies and they're literally in a six mile square radius. And, and there's 165,000 people there with their horses.

• 2:11:26JD Baker?

  That town can't support even today. Like at the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, that was a few years back. Dude, they had to redo the bridging. They had to like structurally get ready for the 150th anniversary because millions of people were coming to Gettysburg. So they weren't back that like, that's just a lot of people. So he's on borrowed time and Robert E. Lee wants to get him and wants to get him now. Let's just, let's get this over with. So he comes up with a plan. He lets Longstreet kinda have his peace with him in the tent. And then he tells James, this is what we're doing and this is what I want you to do.

• 2:12:07JD Baker?

  And James Longstreet leaves the tent because everybody else of Hill and Yule are like, Longstreet's the focus of main effort. So everybody else is kinda waiting on him to move. So everybody else is standing by.

• 2:12:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause once he executes this flanking maneuver from the south, Yule and Hill are then gonna also attack. Is that right?

• 2:12:29JD Baker?

  Yeah, well, Yule's more or less gonna be that support base. You know what I mean of hitting them? Cause they're all within artillery range. You know what I mean? You've seen like Hill's lines are like right across. So they can stay there, but yeah, then like then Yule is gonna start attacking Culp's Hill.

• 2:12:45Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:12:45JD Baker?

  Uh, you know what I mean? Cause that is still the most prominent terrain. To let everybody kinda know, when you go to Culp's Hill, if you control Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, you control that road network at Gettysburg. That is why it is so key. Like everybody like wants to go down and everybody gets up on the round tops. Right? You know what I mean? Which is, it is gonna come into play later, but you don't control any road networks from the round top.

• 2:13:16Jocko Willink?

  When you control the round top, you just control the round top.

• 2:13:18JD Baker?

  That's it.

• 2:13:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not much to control there.

• 2:13:21JD Baker?

  No.

• 2:13:21Jocko Willink?

  So, so, so, so, you know, we have a big leadership discussion about the fact that, you know, Lee's basically says, shut up and do what I told you to do. It's basically what he says, which if you're in a leadership position and that's where it comes to, you're probably not, you're probably not doing the right thing. There's probably so, you probably should open your ears a little bit, let's pay, listen to what people are saying. It's never a good sign when you have to tell someone, hey, I'm the boss. You be quiet, you go do what I told you to do. And that's essentially what happens here. And it becomes pretty evident that there's like resistance from Longstreet.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  With this plan, because he doesn't, you know, he doesn't suck it up and say, hey, Roger, that boss got it. I'm on board, going to execute. He doesn't really do that. He kind of slow rolls and, and pauses and hesitates. And instead of this being like a pretty rapid action, which by the way, we know that none of these actions are that rapid. When you got 30,000 guys, you gotta move. And if you're not, if you're not making it happen, if you're not, hey, everyone get in here. This is what we're doing. This is how we're action. If you're not doing it, if you don't have that sense of urgency in your freaking voice, like as step number one, if people can't hear it in your voice,

• 2:14:39Jocko Willink?

  you're already lagging, right? When I go down and say, hey, this is the plan, guys, like already we, we already lost 15 minutes from the tone of my voice. So when I go down, hey, listen up, gents, this is what's happening. Okay. I just gained four minutes, right? People understand that. So the sense that I get, and I'm kind of, I'm kind of making a caricature out of this of like Longstreet's slow roll in this thing. I mean, how many times, doesn't Lee have to go down multiple times? Like, bro, what's going on?

• 2:15:08JD Baker?

  Yeah. Cause I mean, you, you know, from, from, uh, you know, when you're there at the Virginia monument, where his headquarters are, I mean, you could, you can see right down the summit and when you're moving, like when you're moving 15,000 people, it's not like you're hiding. You know what I mean? Like everybody can see. And he's looking down there because he knows he's got to drop off the military crest back by the Black Horse Tavern Road. And he's got to make his way south and Lee's kind of looking down there like, why isn't anybody moving? Because you remember 30 days ago when we were talking about like when you read with Jackson, like was up before. Everybody else was already people on the road and boo, you know what I mean?

• 2:15:46Jocko Willink?

  Already got a scout, already got maps, man. He's on it.

• 2:15:49JD Baker?

  He's on it, yeah. And like you said, like Longstreet and whatever it is, yeah, maybe Lee should have been like, why are you not like, what am I not explaining this one? Did your guys not get to go over and look in the peach orchard, man? There's a couple hundred dudes over there, man. Their flank is in the air. Like, what, what, what, why do you have a problem with that, man? Like, what, what's up? I mean, I get you're my defense guy. I got it. You know what I mean? But we need to go offense. You can play both sides of the ball, man.

• 2:16:18Jocko Willink?

  Even when Longstreet goes like, hey, man, why don't we just go down there and set up a, you know, we'll make them attack us. He's like, hey, listen, bro. I get it. That would be cool. Our logistics can't handle that. Here's why. Explain it to him. So he goes, yeah, you know what? You're right. I didn't really think of that. Cool. Let's go do this. Let's get it done. Let's get it over with. Doesn't sound like that happened. Doesn't sound like there was good unity of command behind this thing.

• 2:16:37JD Baker?

  Yeah, and, and you know, and this is where you're kinda, you're kinda seeing behind the curtain, the command climate's kinda taking a little bit of a change in the Army of Northern Virginia. You know, on the approach route, seven oh and one, man. Dudes are stoked. Uh, now you're kinda seeing a little bit of friction uh, coming in, in the Army of Northern Virginia in that command climate, which just like you said, the, the, the command climate can change with just,

• 2:17:11JD Baker?

  unless in seconds, you know what I mean? Of a change of command, going from one person to the next. I mean, literally. The, the outlook, the tone of the organization can change.

• 2:17:21Jocko Willink?

  Remember on one of the podcasts, you were talking about when Jackson by himself showed up and the troops are like, hey, there's Jackson. We're good to go. Now you don't have them anymore. You know, those were Longstreet's guys, by the way, that was like, we're good. We got Jackson just showed up. We're good. So yeah, there's like, uh, maybe they're not quite as confident as they were.

• 2:17:45JD Baker?

  Yeah. And, and so he's going to go back and you know how that's all gonna kinda, it's all gonna play out with some of the folks of, you know, he's got, uh, you know, his, his division commanders of, of HUD and some of the folks that are there. So they're going to see this and, and they already know because, you know, in a corps, they're going to have discussions before Longstreet goes to the tent. Longstreet and them are probably doing maps. So they can figure out like, hey, when we go in there, we want to have a plan for the boss. You know what I mean? Like if you're going into the meeting, normally you prep and you're like, okay, I'm going to try to convince the boss, this is what we're going to do tomorrow. You know what I mean? So Longstreet's not an idiot, man. I mean, he's a, he's a, he's a competent corps commander. Uh, I'm not taking anything away from him, but then when he

• 2:18:27JD Baker?

  gets out and he's not necessarily, you know, Lee's not buying in with the plan. So he's going to walk out and he's dragging his feet and then he's gonna, yeah, if Robert E. Lee has to get on his fricking horse, man, and come down a couple of times, even one time of like, why aren't you moving yet, man? Because that reconnaissance effort, dude, that's, that's old news, man. You know, so the longer you wait, so it literally is going to go like all day, man. Because now again, just like you said, you're trying to move that many people. Okay, 15,000 people, you're going to drop down, you're going to go south, you're going to get them out, you're going to deploy online, you're going to straddle the fricking road, man. That takes hours.

• 2:19:09Jocko Willink?

  At best.

• 2:19:09JD Baker?

  Yeah, at best, man, hours. So by the time he gets out and around and straddles the road and starts to make his way like as if he's going to go into the attack, they can, you can see the peach orchard. Well, the peach orchard doesn't have a couple of hundred folks in there, man. There's a couple of thousand dudes in the peach orchard now.

• 2:19:32JD Baker?

  Well, no shit. It's been six hours, man. You know what I mean? Like, so now him, Robert E. Lee, and now he's looking at it like, that's more than what we were expecting. So now they got to call an audible. So they, now it's not a flank. And then now that's when they're, so him and Robert E. Lee are going to come up with this in echelon. And, and to-

• 2:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Before we jump into the echelon, though, how do we end up with a few thousand people in, in the peach orchard? Because when we look at this, when we do that, we need to get out our right finger, or our right hand, and we look at this fish hook, the peach orchard is not on our index finger. It's not on the fish hook. It is, what, almost a mile pushed out? How far is it? How far is the peach orchard outside of the fish hook? Three quarters of a mile?

• 2:20:25JD Baker?

  Yeah, three quarters, easy.

• 2:20:27Jocko Willink?

  So it is not part of the fish hook. So you end up with this unit out there that's not unified with everybody else. Tell us about how that happens, because there's a story behind that one.

• 2:20:39JD Baker?

  Oh, and it's funny you should ask, like, what the, I mean, they're not out there picking peaches, I can tell you that. And, and if you look at it to give that descriptive, like, you know, when we stand up there, like, at the, if you stand at the, at the north, uh, end of Little Round Top, where the, the road is, that's right there at the base, and you drop down, you've got, you drop down, and it's that, uh, the Plum Run Valley. So you've got this Plum Run, which is basically a creek, uh, but it's a low area, and it's always like, you know, it's kind of marshy. Uh, and then you kind of come up, and, and, and as you're coming up, you've got this, uh, there's the wheat field. So now you've got a wheat field, and then you

• 2:21:21JD Baker?

  get to the peach orchard. So, yeah, it's easily three quarters of a mile all the way up to that Emmitsburg Road. And at the Emmitsburg Road, that is where like when they the Peach Orchard's up there, that's where a couple hundred, now there's a couple of thousand and you're spot on, man. Like it, the Peach Orchard is not even anywhere close. Like you couldn't screw it up. You know what I mean? If it's like, hey, I want you to put your people here on the cemetery ridge. Like it is not a part. You go down through a valley, across a creek, up through a wheat field to get to the Peach Orchard. Dude, you are nowhere near the cemetery friggin' ridge.

• 2:21:58Jocko Willink?

  So Mead has this perfect line drawn out, this perfect fish hook. He's got every position laid out. He puts these guys in the fish hook. Then the person that's in charge that he puts in position is this guy named Sickles. And like you said, Sickles, cause look, in the spot where Sickles was at on the fish hook, when you don't see the big picture, it doesn't feel optimal, right? Cause like you said, you're looking a little bit uphill. Like there's some better terrain out there as you look out. So you, you can see where if you don't take the whole plan into consideration, if you don't think about what the guys on my right, what the guys on my left,

• 2:22:38Jocko Willink?

  what the guys, two, three, four units to my left, two, three, four units to my right. If you don't think about what they're doing and how my unit plays into this, completing this picture, that's where you run into a problem. And that's the problem that Sickles had. Sickles isn't thinking about the unity of this whole line. He's just thinking about himself. So what's up with Sickles?

• 2:23:03JD Baker?

  Yeah, uh, you know, like I, I believe like every time we, we talk about a general, I'm always like, well, you know, he's a West Point grad. And you're like, well, that, that doesn't seem to be adding up to much. Well, this time I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, blow your hair back a bit. And Dan Sickles is not a West Point grad. He's a politician from New York.

• 2:23:23JD Baker?

  And he is very well connected. All the way to Stanton, you know what I mean? Like, he's that kind of connected. New York City, Senator, you know what I mean? Even still to this day in 2022, man, you know what I mean? New York, Europe, I mean, that's, that's a big deal, man. But Dan Sickles, he's the third Corps Commander in the Army of the Potomac. And, you know, he, he becomes a, I mean, one thing that I, the one, he's brave. You know what I mean? Like, he's, he's brave, but he doesn't know what he's doing. And Dan Sickles, I mean, he's

• 2:24:06Jocko Willink?

  Brave and stupid is not a great, not a great combo.

• 2:24:09JD Baker?

  No, not at all.

• 2:24:10Jocko Willink?

  Especially when you're in charge. Look, you get a nug that's brave and stupid, bro, that guy might be getting a Silver Star or a Navy Cross or something. That, that's just how it might go down. You get someone that's in charge, and they're brave, and they're stupid, we could get a bunch of people killed.

• 2:24:25JD Baker?

  Right. So he, he gets that section in line. And Jocko, you were spot on. I mean, if you're standing there like where he was kind of supposed to be on the summit, but he doesn't, he doesn't understand the big picture. He doesn't care the big, I mean, he's legally insane. Like legally. And that happened, you know, so Dan Sickles, you know, he's, what is he? He's 43 in Gettysburg. And he's got a wife, and, and she's like 16. Well, Dan Sickles, being the politician that he is, you know, he has a stable of women that he kind of has

• 2:25:06JD Baker?

  on the side, to include his wife. And his wife doesn't necessarily care much that her husband is keeping a stable of women on the side. So while he's off, you know what I mean? Doing his stuff, and she's, and they're living right there in DC, you know, he's for the center, see, they're in DC, she decides to get a boyfriend.

• 2:25:30JD Baker?

  Well, then when like Dan Sickles finds out about this boyfriend, he's pissed. Well, you know, when I say the last name of like back in those days, like Keys. Like, have you ever heard of that song, The Star Spangled Banner, written by that dude Keys? Well, uh, this is Keys's son that's having an affair with Sickles' wife. So Sickles is literally gonna call the dude out at Lafayette Park, right across from the White House in Washington DC to a duel. And he's gonna shoot this dude multiple times and kill him, right in front, I mean, in DC. And, and Stanton is gonna defend him.

• 2:26:15JD Baker?

  And Sickles is gonna be the first person in American history to get off on a temporary insanity plea.

• 2:26:26JD Baker?

  So this dude is, uh, and, and you're kinda like, you know, you're staring at me like right now, like every time, wherever you hear the story, cause you can't just make this stuff up, man. This is like crazy stuff. And you're like, well, how the hell did this guy become a general? I thought you had to be like a, a West Point grad. Well, yes.

• 2:26:44JD Baker?

  But if you can recruit a lot of people to come in, they're gonna give you rank for it. I, we even still do it today in the military. You send me home on like recruiter's assistant, you know what I mean? They're like, hey JD, if you can, if you convince two of your buddies to join the Marine Corps, we're gonna make you an E3. And I'm like, really?

• 2:27:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:04JD Baker?

  Badass. So I'm gonna bullshit these guys to get them in, cause I can't wait to be a Lance Corporal. I'm gonna be in charge of shit. You know what I mean? Well, this here, man, like if you recruit 10,000 people, dude, we're gonna make you a frickin' general. Well, so how does he recruit all those people? Well, if you're a Senator and you're in New York City, he's just gonna shut down all the firehouses and he's gonna put all the firemen and put them into the army. Bam, I'm a general.

• 2:27:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's exactly what he did.

• 2:27:33JD Baker?

  Yeah. So up there, right outside of the peach orchard, there's actually a super cool New York monument. And it's a monument that has a fireman and he's standing next to a soldier. You know what I mean? It's right there, up there by the peach orchard. And it's showing that, you know, because when some of them are like, well, hey dude, like the folks in fire, both wildland fire, structured fire, you know what I mean? The brotherhood inside that, man, is just huge. And it's no different in 1860. I mean, those guys that are in the firehouse, man, they are just phenomenal human beings. And it's like, all right, if one goes, dude, we're all going. So they all come.

• 2:28:18JD Baker?

  And but that's how Sickles, and when he goes into the into the peach orchard, it's not like he's like in any kind of like defense. He forms this salient, which is a salient is like a V. So if you're in this V formation, if orientated, if you're looking at the peach orchard, so you're, he's basically, the pointy end of the V is basically facing west. And then you've got the left side of the V, well, that's where Longstreet and those guys are coming up from the south.

• 2:29:00JD Baker?

  The north side of the V can't shoot over at anybody coming up from the south because you're literally shooting through your own people. So you've basically taken out half of your force. Then, man, he's trying to cover such a large area with his corps that he doesn't have enough people. So he's got gaps in his line. So here's how genius this guy is. He's gonna fill the gaps with artillery. Now artillery, you know, they've got a different job than infantry. Like they're kind of like, this is a big piece of gear and it takes more than one person to operate it.

• 2:29:45JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? So you got this artillery crew, you know what I mean? And they're kind of focusing on the gun. They don't, they can't focus to see who's coming at them. So normally you have infantry supporting the artillery to protect the artillery. I mean, even artillery back there, even still to this day, I mean artillery is considered the king of the battle. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a, uh, so you have artillery unsupported by infantry. Dude, that is a, that's a huge mistake because these guys are trying to like load the gun, aim the gun, fire the gun, reload the gun. And oh, by the way, this gun, when you fire it, it's not like on TV.

• 2:30:29JD Baker?

  That piece of artillery jumps about 10 to 12 feet back. When they pull the lanyard, dude, this thing is jumping. You talk about something that you weigh in tons, jumping 12 feet back. So it's a dangerous job, you know what I mean? Just within itself of, of being in the artillery back then, and, and they're not carrying rifles. They don't get a rifle because their job is working the gun. That's why you put infantry with them. So Sickles is also going to have artillery filling in gaps and they're unsupported by infantry. He's just, I mean, just incredible of what, what Sickles does.

• 2:31:10JD Baker?

  And the bad thing about it is, is people find, you're always under observation. So as soon as Sickles starts making his way out to the peach orchard, word's going to get back to George Gordon Meade. You know, George Gordon Meade is going to send people out there. He's going to tell Sickles six times to get his people back on the cemetery ridge. Six times.

• 2:31:44JD Baker?

  I don't know if everybody heard that. Six times, he's gonna tell, this is an army commander telling a corps commander, get your people, and this is before, they're not in battle yet, you know what I mean? Like, nobody's hit him yet. He's told him, George Gordon Meade has his son, that it's there and working on his staff. His son goes out, and everybody knows it's George Gordon Meade, Lieutenant Meade, you know what I mean? He comes out, you know, sir, general, you need to get back to the cemetery, yep, whatever, you know what I mean? He's legally insane, I do whatever the hell I want. It finally takes George Gordon Meade, who probably has some other stuff to do, now personally has to leave his headquarters and make his way, so you remember where his

• 2:32:28JD Baker?

  headquarters, he's over there closer to the cemetery hill, so he's kinda like, and he's close to the line. I mean, he's like, right up on the line.

• 2:32:35Jocko Willink?

  He's like a hundred yards or something.

• 2:32:37JD Baker?

  Oh dude, yeah, a hundred yards, right on the military crest, and he's gonna get on his horse and he's gonna ride all the way down the cemetery ridge and out to the peach orchard, where he's gonna meet with, with this guy Sickles, and he's gonna like, tell Sickles, and Sickles kinda sees him coming, he's like, oh shit, really, boss is here. So he's like, looking at Meade, and he's kinda like, okay, yeah, hey, I'll get him. And it was almost like, on cue, Meade looked at him and said, I don't think they're gonna let ya. And here comes the Confederates, and they've caught him, all out there, in a salient, in the peach orchard, in the wheat field, spread out, gaps, and it's just not gonna go good.

• 2:33:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, unsupported, you know, we always talk about cover and move, like, these guys got themselves into, well, they couldn't even cover for themselves. Like you said, they'd cut off their own firing, they couldn't support each other, they weren't supported by the rest of the line. It's just a complete, complete nightmare.

• 2:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Those guns, you got kind of a badass with those guns, Bigelow.

• 2:33:43JD Baker?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:33:44Jocko Willink?

  One of my favorite stories is the retreat by prolong, right? Talk me through that, what Bigelow has to do, because he's got these guns that weigh several tons. They're getting pushed on hard. It's not like they got time to, you know, hitch horses back up and turn them around and tow them out of there. While, while totally unsupported by infantry. So he takes another method.

• 2:34:08JD Baker?

  Yeah, and, and we still do them to this day, man, gun drills. Yeah, machine gunners do it, artillery does it, mortars guys do it. I mean, they, they operate gun drills. Uh, and if you see a, a good gun crew, you know what I mean? Do, it's like, it's theater, man. Uh, like, I mean, that shit could be on Broadway.

• 2:34:27Jocko Willink?

  You and I were talking the other day, like, the first time I saw Marine Corps mortar team, I was like, hmm. I could watch this for a while. I want to video this. This is what professionalism looks like.

• 2:34:38JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, and, and I'm terrible at it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm, I'm just O three eleven riflemen. Yeah, I, I, I can pull a bolt to the rear and put it back. That's, that's my capabilities. Mortarman, next level. Like artillery guys, man, next level with these gun drills. Well, you know how like, not every gun crew is the same. Because they all have their own leader that's in charge of that gun crew. And, uh, and, and some, some gun crews, man, like Bigelow is that kind of a, of a crew leader. That he is constantly drilling the basics. Like just repetition to where, like you said, like when we were chit chatting the other day, man, about the mortar man.

• 2:35:22JD Baker?

  I told you, like with Eric Carlson, he's probably the best mortar man I've ever seen. Like, like it's phenomenal. And I can't do Eric Carlson. There's no way. He's just that good. That's Bigelow, man. He's just that, and he's just repetition with the crew. And of course, the crews kind of like, they're looking at the other crews like, man, those dudes are sitting in the shade, man. They're like, you know, drinking Yoohoo's, you know, having a good time. And here we're over here, man, just constantly doing, like, Bigelow is such an asshole, man. But when Bigelow's preparing them for this moment.

• 2:35:56JD Baker?

  Because everybody knows that Bigelow runs the best gun crew. And you know, when we talk about like this pro launch, uh, to try to like, it's a leather strap. Like if, if you've got, and everybody who has seen this, if, if you've got a vehicle and you're towing a camper. Right? You've got this, this hitch that goes on to the ball, right? Two inch, three inch, whatever. You got the hitch. But then you also, you get these chains that you can then hook in. And that's like the secondary way to move it. It's not the primary way. But do you ever practice towing with just the chains?

• 2:36:38Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:36:39JD Baker?

  Well, Bigelow does. You know what I mean? So that's the pro launch of, of the piece of artillery. It's this leather strap. Uh, you know what I mean? So he, so these guys know how to, to operate using the pro launch. So literally as everybody, cause Meade has to make a decision. He, he can't leave Sickles's corps out there just to hang to dry. So he immediately goes back. And oh, by the way, his horse gets spooked and he gets like rode off for a little while. You know, just, you know, when shit's going wrong, like it seems like everything starts to go wrong. So Meade, on his way back, he's got to start pulling resources because now they're, they're getting attacked.

• 2:37:23JD Baker?

  It's Longstreet's corps. You know what I mean? Sickles is not where he's supposed to be. Nothing's happening yet over at, you know, Cemetery Hill and Culp Hill. Cause remember everything's going off of the focus of main effort. Uh, and they're going to do this echelon. So he's going to have to start pulling resources to get Sickles out of the peach orchard and back to the cemetery. Huge, I mean, and, and as if George Gordon Meade has nothing better to do. Well, when this is all kind of happening. They're pulling the folks back and they look at Bigelow and they're like, hey dude, you're gonna have to hold these folks off while the rest of us get out.

• 2:38:07JD Baker?

  So, and when you go there and you know, we've, we've been there and you're looking back across the field, uh, heading towards the, uh, the cemetery ridge. He's literally going to hold off the Confederate infantry and he's gonna start jumping his artillery guns 10 to 12 feet at a time, all the way back across the field. You know what I mean? While still firing, like, you know what I mean? Like with artillery. I mean, it's just, it's incredible.

• 2:38:44JD Baker?

  So that's, that's, uh, that's Bigelow.

• 2:38:48Jocko Willink?

  You, you started to go into it before I kinda cut you off and, and asked you about Bigelow, the es- the new echelon plan that's come about.

• 2:38:58JD Baker?

  Yeah. So when you, when you say like echelon, it's all French terms, man. Everybody's out running around with French textbooks, trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing. You know what I mean? So they're going for the last guy, you know what I mean? Of it's the Napoleon. So this is this in echelon. So to, so probably pretty much everybody, you know, in America, even if you don't like it, you've probably watched a football game once in your life. So it's basically, they're gonna try to pull off a draw play on a massive scale. So meaning with that is they're gonna attack with a, a four o'clock attack and then a five o'clock attack. And then what's this doing is it's drawing the resources down so that when you get a

• 2:39:43JD Baker?

  six o'clock attack, there's not enough resources in the line and you break through the lines. Does that kinda make sense?

• 2:39:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So. And long street, cause, because they can't, it's not just a regular flank anymore.

• 2:39:55JD Baker?

  Right.

• 2:39:56Jocko Willink?

  Because there's too many people in the peach orchard. So that thing is out the window. So now they're like, all right, that's not gonna work out. A regular flank's not gonna work out. So this is the beginning of. An echelon attack, you're the four o'clock attack. Longstreet, you're the four o'clock attack. You're the initial assault. That's going to start drawing Union forces down. Then we're going to hit him with the next guy up at five o'clock. That's going to draw even more people down. At six o'clock, hopefully so many people are drawn down that we can get through. And we'll keep doing that all the way up, you know, the Confederate lines.

• 2:40:28JD Baker?

  Yeah, because not only are they changing the game plan on the southern end of the battlefield, he's also got to send the note up to Yule. So he's basically doing two draw plays, one at the south end, four, five and six, and then Yule's going to do seven, eight, nine. To be able to draw again, because dude, they still want Culp's Hill. So he's going to have, you know what I mean? A six o'clock, a seven o'clock, and you know, all the way through. So you kind of, kind of get these, these draw plays. The problem is, and they're going to use like divisions with their brigades. You know what I mean? So these brigades have drawn them out and it's this huge draw play, getting everybody to one side of the field and then you're just going to scoot right around the other

• 2:41:12JD Baker?

  side with a little bit of resistance. You know what I mean? You're going to get a touchdown. So it makes sense, right? But they're calling it on the fly. And the other kind of problem of it is, is, uh, yeah, like I said, this is, the wheels are coming off the cart, man, because you're like, okay, well, if they're doing this echelon, how the hell did we end up over on the round top? Well, that's because when that first four o'clock attack decides, yeah, I'm not going to the peach, the peach orchard, I'm going to the round tops. He just disobeyed orders. So instead of going north, he just turns east and heads towards the round tops.

• 2:41:49Jocko Willink?

  He sees, who's that?

• 2:41:50JD Baker?

  It's Hood.

• 2:41:51Jocko Willink?

  Hood, Hood sees the round tops and they're, they're nice looking terrain. Especially when you look at them from that far to the west, because when you look at them that far to the west, it looks like you just got a nice flat kind of run up to them that you can get up on this high ground.

• 2:42:04JD Baker?

  Yeah, it looks like, because it's a wheat field. So you see the peach orchard to the wheat field and you and I, we, we talked about the plum run and we talked about that marsh area, but we left one little key terrain feature that's down that you can't see from up there.

• 2:42:20Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:42:21JD Baker?

  And that's what we call Devil's Den. Now Devil's Den, when you get to see Devil's Den, like, and you're up there and you drive down, those boulders and stuff, I mean, it's just amazing. And it didn't get the name Devil's Den from the battle. That's what the town folk called Devil's Den. Devil's Den was like one of those areas, there was like snakes and stuff. And that's where the devil hung out. So I always kind of look at it as like, you know, when you're a teenager, you know what I mean? You want to like, you know, you want to go on a date? You're gonna go park out at Devil's Den because it's out of town. You know what I mean? You got these cool rocks.

• 2:42:59Jocko Willink?

  I look at it like if you created like a, like a video game battlefield where you're just gonna have like obstacles and rocks and just weird looking cool stuff that you'd want to run around in a video game. You'd make Devil's Den. That's what it looks like.

• 2:43:16JD Baker?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Most definitely. But you don't want it. So as he's making his way to the round tops, you know what I mean? Then you run into this formation of rock, like a spine that just comes up out to where now you've got this rock formation. And then you've got the plum run and then you gotta go uphill to get to Little Round Top. So we'll basically be talking about, because you know, in the books and a lot of the readings, they just call them the round tops. But when you're there, there's a definite difference between Little Round Top and Big Round Top. And the rock formations, when you look at the front of Little Round Top are pretty prominent.

• 2:43:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:43:56JD Baker?

  Uh, up there. You said granite rock, uh, formation that's up there. And when he goes for that round top, I'm not gonna doubt anybody that it is, it's good high ground. I mean, you know, I mean, Little Round Top, but the problem is, is like, a lot of people mistake it because there's this nice road now that gets up there. The only actual road, like you couldn't farm the round tops. So just like Culp Hill, the round tops, you're using that stuff as like woodlots. So there's on the, on the east backside, there's a way to get up, but it's just like a log. Road to get up there to access. So this is not going to be an easy feat for the Confederacy

• 2:44:38JD Baker?

  to get through Devil's Den. Plus, like, you know, you've got that that salient that they created. You know what I mean? So you got folks. So this is where in the readings in the books, man, this is where you're going to get in to the Peach Orchard and the Wheat Field and Devil's Den. And it's like, you're just like orbiting this giant hairball, man. I mean, it's just a conglomeration, man. Like, things are not going well for both sides of the armies.

• 2:45:09JD Baker?

  And and as they they start approaching, like, when you look at the Wheat Field, you know, and if we want to talk about like the the Wheat Field, the amount of of just utter destruction in the Wheat Field, it was said that the Wheat Field, you couldn't walk across the Wheat Field without stepping on a body. I mean, that's the type of carnage.

• 2:45:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and the Wheat Field is big.

• 2:45:30JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, the Wheat Field is probably five or maybe,

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  I mean, maybe 10 football fields across. Maybe it's like 1,000 yards. But I mean, it's a big chunk of land.

• 2:45:43JD Baker?

  Yeah, it's a big chunk of land, man. Yeah, and there's a, and it's because now people are just starting to disobey orders, man. They're just not doing what they're told. I mean, you know, you start off with sickles. You know what I mean? Just not doing blatantly, just not doing what he's told. How hard is it? Cemetery Ridge? Got it. Put your line there. Because if he would have been where he was supposed to be, like, literally when Long Street tried to do this flank attack, and and if they would have gone through the Peach Orchard and there would just been like a few dudes there, they literally would have exposed their entire right flank to the Cemetery Ridge because it's deceiving looking from Seminary Ridge over to Cemetery Ridge. It's deceiving there.

• 2:46:24JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? There you don't see the Wheat Field. You don't see Devil's Den. You don't see Plum Run. You can't see any of that. So Lee and them are just assuming that that Cemetery Ridge is right up there next to the Peach Orchard. They're assuming that. But it's actually back three quarters, which no offense. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that you just can't see. You're just, you make a call and you go do it. So these guys are doing this. So that's how we end up to where. At that point in time, uh, it's almost like what's taking place on day one up on Culp's Hill. There's nobody up there.

• 2:47:01Jocko Willink?

  Nobody up on the round.

• 2:47:02JD Baker?

  On the round top.

• 2:47:03Jocko Willink?

  The round top's prominent terrain feature at the south end of the Union line is these prominent terrain features and there's no one on them.

• 2:47:12JD Baker?

  Yeah, cuz he doesn't have enough bodies. You know what I mean? Yet to come in to occupy all of it. You know what I mean? And again, if you control the round top, like you said, you just control the round top. You don't control the road network. You know what I mean? So Mead, it's more important controlling Culp's Hill, Cemetery Hill, and that road network. But he still has to worry about, you don't want to give that up because now you're gonna lose a lot right there, uh, at the edge. So there, it is occupied and it's occupied by a guy by the name of Governor Warren.

• 2:47:46Jocko Willink?

  Occupied by one dude.

• 2:47:47JD Baker?

  Yeah, one dude and he's got his signalman with him. So he's got some dude with flags.

• 2:47:51Jocko Willink?

  Two dudes.

• 2:47:51JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's got two dudes with flags. Uh, so Warren, like when you get up there, uh, up on to the little round top and, and you know, they got that cool little statue of Warren standing up there. He's a, he's a chappy looking fellow. Uh, you know what I mean? He's got his little binos and stuff and he's standing up there on the rock, but that's a great viewpoint of the entire south end of the battlefield, man. You can see over Devil's Den. You can see down into the wheat field. You can see up to the peach orchard. So I mean, you've got a great viewpoint. So, and, and he's the chief engineer and he's a good friend of George Gordon Mead. So he's a directed telescope for Mead.

• 2:48:34JD Baker?

  And he's up there because they use the wig wag signal, you know what I mean? Kind of stuff. So it's just like baseball, uh, you know what I mean? They're doing signals and, and, uh, and everybody's always trying to figure out each other's signals. You know what I mean? They could have done a Houston Astros and beat on some shit cans or something, whatever it takes to win. You know what I mean? Like, okay, so he gets that. So he's gonna do whatever it takes to win and he's standing up there and he's like, dude, he can see hood and these guys coming. I mean, it's very blatant. You could just see it. So he sees this and he looks at his signal guys and he's like, hey dude, just start waving your flags like there's a lot of shit going on. And the dudes are like, so he doesn't really mean it? Nope, I don't care. It just start waving flags. So they start waving flags. Well.

• 2:49:19JD Baker?

  If they can see the Confederates, then the Confederates can see them up there. And especially if you're standing on Little Round Top waving flags. Everybody's gonna see ya. But if they see ya waving flags, you're kinda like, "Hey boss, Jocko, did you see that shit? They're waving the shit out of those flags. What do they mean JD? I don't know, but it must be something because they're waving them a lot." And at that time, then, you know, so he's got a yacht, he gets a sticky out, talking about Governor Warren. Uh, he's gonna send a note back to Meade. So he sends a note with a courier back to Meade, basically saying, "We need to get some bodies up here on Little Round Top, man." Like now, like these guys are coming, you need to get bodies.

• 2:50:00JD Baker?

  And of course, like we said, Meade's got other stuff going on as well, but he trusts Warren. And when he sees that note, he sends it over, cause he's sending resources of some of the other corps that are coming in, cause he's sending folks into the wheat field and into the peach orchard to get sickles back, you know what I mean? This is like that, that rescue effort to get sickles and third corps back. So, he sends a note, and as the note, if you could always imagine, like, you got this, this teenager riding around on a pony, and he's looking for a general officer. So he's looking for this general officer, and he can't, and this dude by the name of, of Strong Vincent,

• 2:50:43JD Baker?

  who's a brigade guy, sees this guy riding around, he's got this note, and he's Vincent, Strong Vincent is supposed to be taking his folks with his brigade. They're supposed to be heading over to the wheat field, right? So on his way to the wheat field, but he sees this kid come by, and he's like, "Hey dude, give me that note." And he sees the note, and it's, and he reads it. And he's like, "This is from Meade, Meade's approval, we need to get bodies up onto the round top like now." So, he makes the decision without anybody else, and he's gonna take his folks, and he's gonna take them up and around, and Strong Vincent is now gonna occupy the round top. Little round top. And he's gonna bring them up in behind so that he's not exposing them on the front.

• 2:51:26JD Baker?

  So he takes them on that eastern slope, and he brings them up onto the approach of Little Round Top, and it just takes action. Now- Uh, you know, so again, he's supposed to be in the wheat field because this is gonna, this is gonna have a little bit of a fact later on. He's supposed to be in the wheat field, but he ends up going up and occupied. He just takes action and he goes up and he's gonna occupy a little round top.

• 2:51:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you know, we talk about like what this effort, what it's like walking and um, going, going back just to hear a first person account, going back to Elijah Hunt Rhodes again for, from all for the Union. And he's, he's rolling in. I mean, these guys, you guys are living through campaign and battle after battle. Here he is rolling in to Gettysburg. He says this, "On the night of July 1st, we were in camp near Manchester, Maryland. Rumors of fighting in Pennsylvania have been heard all the days, but the distance was so great to the battlefield that we knew little about it. The men were tired and hungry and lay down to rest early in the evening. At 9 o'clock, orders came for us to move

• 2:52:38Jocko Willink?

  and we in great haste packed up and started on the road towards Pennsylvania. General Hooker had, has been relieved and General George G. Meade of Pennsylvania assigned to command the Army of the Potomac. What does it all mean? Well, it is none of our affairs and we obey orders and march out into the road. We struggle on through the night. The men almost dead for lack of sleep and falling over their own shadows, but still we go on in the warm summer night. Little is said by anyone, for we are all too weary to talk. Only now and then an officer sharply orders the men to close up. Sometimes the column

• 2:53:23Jocko Willink?

  would halt for a moment as obstructions were met in the advance and then we would run to catch up. Daylight brought no halt and what little hard bread we had was taken from the haversacks and eaten on as we marched."

• 2:53:41Jocko Willink?

  On the morning of July 2nd, we heard the firing in the front. And then we understood the reason for such great haste. I was taken sick upon the road and fell helpless to the ground. The surgeon, Dr. Carr, gave me a remedy and a pass for admittance to an ambulance. I lay upon the roadside until several regiments had passed when I began to revive. I immediately hurried on and soon came up with my Company B. The boys received me well, and I went on without further trouble.

• 2:54:14Jocko Willink?

  The firing in our front grew loud and more distinct, and soon we met the poor wounded fellows being carried to the rear. At a place called Littlestown, we saw large numbers of our wounded men, and all kinds of carriages were being used to take them to the hospitals. At about 2 o'clock PM, we reached the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, having made a march of 34 miles without a halt. The men threw themselves upon the ground exhausted,

• 2:54:48Jocko Willink?

  but were soon ordered forward. We followed the road blocked with troops and trains until 4 PM, when the field of battle with the long lines of struggling weary soldiers burst upon us. With loud cheers, the old 6th Corps took up and double quick, and were soon in the line of battle near the left of the main line held by the 5th Corps. The 5th Corps were in reserve, but as soon as we took their place, they moved forward and took part in the fight. Our division was finally sent to the front and relieved General Skye's Division of Regulars. Pickett firing was kept up until long after dark when we were relieved and returned a short distance.

• 2:55:32Jocko Willink?

  The men threw themselves upon the ground and oblivious to the dead and dying around us, we slept the sleep of the weary.

• 2:55:45Jocko Willink?

  So that's what these guys, that's what, that's what this is like. That's what these guys are going through.

• 2:55:51Jocko Willink?

  As they, as they go into battle. And as you said, you got Strong Vincent, he's moved, he, he takes the initiative to go and

• 2:56:05Jocko Willink?

  take the round tops, take Little Round Top, which is the one that they can take. He's, assigned to him as the 20th Maine, under Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. And he's assigned by Vincent to hold the left flank. And we need to go to Chamberlain himself to hear, hear what that was like for him. So here we go with Chamberlain.

• 2:56:33Jocko Willink?

  And he says this. Passing to the southern slope of Little Round Top, Colonel Vincent indicated to me, "The ground my regiment was to occupy, informing me that this was the extreme left flank of our general line, and that a desperate attack was expected in order to turn that position, concluding by telling me that I was to hold that ground at all hazards."

• 2:57:01Jocko Willink?

  This was the last word I heard from him. "My line formed, I immediately detached Company B, Captain Morrell commanding, to extend from my left flank across this hollow as a line of skirmishers, with directions to act as occasion might dictate, to prevent a surprise on my exposed flank and rear. In the midst of this, an officer from my center informed me that some important movement of the enemy was going on in his front beyond that line, beyond that of a line with which we were engaged.

• 2:57:36Jocko Willink?

  Mounting a large rock, I was able to see a considerable body of the enemy moving by the flank in the rear of their line engaged, and passing from the direction of the foot of the great round top, through the valley toward the front of my left."

• 2:57:55Jocko Willink?

  We opened a brisk fire at close range, which was so sudden and effective that they soon fell back among the rocks and low trees in the valley, only to burst forth again with a shout and rapidly advanced, firing as they came. They pushed up to within a dozen yards of us, before the terrible effectiveness of our fire compelled them to break and take shelter. They renewed the assault on our whole front, and for an hour, the fighting was severe. Squads of the enemy broke through our line in several places, and the fight was literally hand to hand. It did not seem possible to withstand another shock like this now coming on.

• 2:58:40Jocko Willink?

  Our loss had been severe. One half of my left wing had fallen, and a third of my regiment lay behind us, dead or badly wounded. At this moment, my anxiety was increased by a great roar of musketry in my rear, on the farther or netherly slope of Little Round Top, apparently on the flank of the regular brigade, which was in support of Hazlitt's battery on the crest behind us. The bullets from this attack struck into my left rear, and I feared that the enemy might have nearly surrounded the Little Round Top, and only a desperate chance was left for us. My ammunition was soon exhausted.

• 2:59:19Jocko Willink?

  My men were firing their last shot, and getting ready to club with their muskets. It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line from man to man, and rose into a shout with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not thirty yards away. The effect was surprising. Many of the enemy's first line threw down their arms and surrendered.

• 3:00:02Jocko Willink?

  An officer fired his pistol at my head with one hand, while he handed me his sword with the other.

• 3:00:11Jocko Willink?

  Holding fast by our right and swinging forward our left, we made an extended right wheel before the enemy's second line broke and fell back, fighting from tree to tree, many being captured until we had swept the valley and cleared the front of nearly our entire brigade. Meantime, Captain Morel, with his skirmishes, sent out from my left flank with some dozen or fifteen of the US sharpshooters who had put themselves under his direction, fell upon the enemy as they were breaking, and by his demonstrations, as well as his well-directed fire, added much to the effect of the charge.

• 3:00:53Jocko Willink?

  Having thus cleared the valley and driven the enemy up the western slope of the great round top, not wishing to press so far as out to hazard the ground I was to hold by leaving it exposed to a sudden rush of the enemy, I succeeded, although with some effort to stop my men who declared they were on the road to Richmond and getting the regiment into good order and resuming our original position. Four hundred prisoners, including two field and several line officers, were sent to the rear. These were mainly from the 15th and 47th Alabama regiments, with some of the 4th and 5th Texas.

• 3:01:35Jocko Willink?

  One hundred and fifty of the enemy were found, killed, and wounded in our front. So there you go. That resulted in, as he said, one hundred and fifty enemy killed, about four hundred prisoners. The 20th Maine had over a hundred wounded, and they had thirty who were killed in action. And, this is, you know, Joshua Chamberlain receives the Medal of Honor for this, this bayonet charge.

• 3:02:10Jocko Willink?

  And that holds the flank.

• 3:02:13JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, just incredible of what, you know, one for for Strong Vincent, you know, he's a he's a brigade commander, he's a colonel. And like I said, you know, he's supposed to go to the wheat field. And you know, when you read about Chamberlain of why are they low on ammunition? Because their logistics chief thinks they're in the wheat field. So where are they sending logs to? You know what I mean? And it's no, that's no, like, nothing against like Strong Vincent, man. I mean, that's like the like, these dudes, like, when I stand up there, man, and you just like when we're there, you're you're looking down at wheat field, peach orchard, like, you know, Devil's Den, Round Top, you

• 3:02:56JD Baker?

  know, I mean, just all these events that's going on. Yeah, logistics is probably the last fricking thing on my mind, man. And, you know, when you spoke in there of Strong Vincent, I mean, he gets killed. You know, he lose him up there, Patty O'Rourke with New York, you know, he goes down. I mean, there's carnage going on. I mean, the Alabamans and Texans, man. It's not like, I mean, they're attacking multiple times. And and you and I have walked up that that same approach route that the Texans and Alabama, that is not an easy route that I would want to take. I mean, it's just so on on both sides. But man, you know, with the 20th Maine, and then with that Captain Morrell, and you know,

• 3:03:39JD Baker?

  you and you mentioned there, because we didn't really talk about it, just because, I mean, there's like, so much stuff to talk about at Gettysburg. But yeah, there's Berdane sharpshooters that were over there on the south end of the battlefield. And that was also the first time that anybody was allowed to wear green uniforms, was the Berdane sharpshooters. So that's where you get your Army OD green comes from the Berdane sharpshooters. And these dudes could lay the wood with a rifle. And as they're, you know, sharpshooting against the Confederates, they're kind of making their way up and over the big round top, because they don't want to come through friendly lines. You know, nobody wearing a green tree suit wants to go through friendly

• 3:04:19JD Baker?

  Lines. This is not a good idea, even still today. So they jump in and join in with Captain Morrell. So I mean, just the actions of 20th Maine. And, and you know, you guys have heard quite a bit about Chamberlain so far, not just at Gettysburg, but, uh, you know, at the other battles and stuff. I mean, this guy to get folks to, to, you know, do a, where he only gets to say bayonet.

• 3:04:45JD Baker?

  You know, and, uh, like we encourage all of you all to, to make your way to Gettysburg and mount that rock.

• 3:04:55JD Baker?

  I mean, if there's like one rock that you want to get on, dude, that's it. You know what I mean? Like, because you get a whole different perspective.

• 3:05:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:05JD Baker?

  Like just, what is it? Like four feet up?

• 3:05:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, probably a four foot tall rock and you can, you're standing on the ground and you're looking, you're like, well, I can, I'm not really sure what's over there. Can't really see this area. There's dead space over there, but then you step on that rock and it just totally changes your perspective.

• 3:05:20JD Baker?

  Yeah. You got, you gotta get on the rock.

• 3:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you might feel a little bit too, when you step up on the rock.

• 3:05:26JD Baker?

  Dude, I love running to that rock. That's always, I mean, I love that rock.

• 3:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Like you just said, I mean, there's so much going on. And you know, I, I mentioned it earlier when I was talking about, uh, Rhodes book, like he, he throws out a sentence that's like, we fought in the woods for an hour at close fire and hand to hand combat. Like that's happening all over the place. Like, like for, for like a couple of square miles is people engaged in close combat, heroics at all kinds of different levels. Uh, and, and when you start talking about heroics, that we can't talk about all of them. But you gotta talk about the first Minnesota, right? I mean, you just have to talk about the first Minnesota and what they did.

• 3:06:11Jocko Willink?

  Cause you got, as this, as this echelon attack is happening, it's in some places is working.

• 3:06:19JD Baker?

  Oh yeah.

• 3:06:19Jocko Willink?

  Especially people that stuck with the plan. Cause there's some people that didn't, decided not to execute. You know, you were talking about the morale earlier. And you know, you had Longstreet that's kind of executed, but kind of like did it on a slow roll, the original, original plan. You got some of these Confederate forces that are like, oh, we're not going.

• 3:06:36JD Baker?

  Okay. Yeah.

• 3:06:37Jocko Willink?

  We're not going.

• 3:06:38JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:40Jocko Willink?

  Some of them went, some of them made progress. Uh, there's a brigade from Georgia that actually starts to break through and is making their way up, up cemetery, up towards Cemetery Ridge. Like they're gonna get there.

• 3:06:56JD Baker?

  Oh yeah. Like, I mean, it's, I mean, they're there. Uh, and when you stand it, cause it's like really flat right there at that area. You know what I mean? And it's not, it's not very, but it is, when you go to the east, it does drop off pretty prominently back there to that road. And like you said, this draw play on this massive scale is working. Uh, so yeah, these George guys, they're gonna start seeing it. Now, now we're over in, uh, over in the, in the second core area and that's Hancock. So this is like his area of line of responsibility, but they're also, you know, I mean, there's, like you said, man, there's just so much stuff going on because oh, by the way, while that draw play's

• 3:07:39JD Baker?

  going on, then what's gonna kick off over here towards the Culp's Hill? Well, now here comes Meade. I mean, Meade's gotta deal with these guys, cause he's got Yule that's now gonna start executing his draw play. Uh, so it's just like, holy shit, man. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of stuff going on and as, as Hancock is riding the lines, you know what I mean? He's up and like, and everybody like, I mean, when you, when you get the picture of the, the, the Union generals, uh, at Gettysburg, even on day two, man, like, it's not like you gotta go far to find one. They're all up there on the line. Like, I mean, it's, you know, you got folks moving in and around, pulling troops,

• 3:08:23JD Baker?

  pushing troops, because it's chaos. And Hancock sees to where these folks are about ready, they're, they're getting up onto the Cemetery Ridge and as more resources are pulling up, here comes this unit and it's the First Minnesota. Uh, and, and it's, and First Minnesota, I mean, pull the string on those guys. They're the reason why they're first. They are the first regiment from the state of Minnesota. These dudes have been in the war since the beginning. They are a very proud unit, uh, from Minnesota. Uh, and there's, there's some people that think that if it wasn't for the First Minnesota. You know what I mean? It could have been a different outcome. Definitely with the Battle

• 3:09:07JD Baker?

  of Gettysburg for what these guys. So how they end up getting into this. Winfield Scott is seeing this and he knows that it's going to be a disaster. And he, and he looks over and, and he sees, and he's, he yells down at, at the Minnesota. He doesn't know who they are, but he just sees a fricking regiment of it. And he's like, who, who is that? And of course, Colville, the Colonel, First Minnesota, you know what I mean? He's like, like, of course it is the First Min- like, these dudes are like First Minnesota. And he looks and he says, you see those colors, pointing at the Georgians, right? He's pointing at them. You know what I mean? You say, take those colors. And I mean, so the Minnesota, and

• 3:09:50JD Baker?

  it's not going to go, you got, the first-

• 3:09:53Jocko Willink?

  And just to, just to throw some numbers out here.

• 3:09:54JD Baker?

  Yeah, throw some numbers.

• 3:09:55Jocko Willink?

  I mean, well, how, how many, uh, how many guys we got in the First Minnesota at this point? Like 250?

• 3:10:02JD Baker?

  Yeah, just less than 300.

• 3:10:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and how many are in this brigade of Georgians? Thousand?

• 3:10:09JD Baker?

  Yeah, close to a thousand. You know what I mean? Cause yeah, yeah, go to the numbers. Cause at the beginning of the war, like a regiment's supposed to have a thousand people. Dude, we're in 63. We've had a lot. There's not a thousand people. They got just under 300.

• 3:10:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, as you just covered, I mean, it's like, it, just go, going back to the book Gettysburg here. Hancock broke from his thoughts and looked at the First Minnesota as if for the first time, "My God," he exclaimed. "Are these all the men we have here?" He demanded to know, and was told the regiment's name. "Colonel, do you see those colors?" He asked Colville. Colville, like you said, is the Minnesota commander, pointing to the name, pointing to some of the rebel battle flags bobbing among Wilcox's brigade. When Colville said he did, Hancock gave his orders. Then take them.

• 3:10:57Jocko Willink?

  The First Minnesota moved down the gentle slope. Bayonets fixed, a line of battle perhaps a hundred yards from end to end. The soldiers came under fire right away. Men stumbled and fell, recalled an officer in those ranks. Some stayed down, but others got up and continued. The charging line of Minnesotans drove into the advanced screen of Wilcox's brigade and hustled it back to a second line, which fell back to the main body. This last, some 1,000 strong, was not going to be scattered by 250 or so Yankees. The men of the First Minnesota halted along the dry stream bed of Plum Run,

• 3:11:41Jocko Willink?

  firing for all they were worth. A torrent of Confederate rifle fire lashed into the Yankee regiment from Wilcox's men in their front and from some of the Langs Florida troops, who got an enfilade position.

• 3:11:56Jocko Willink?

  After enduring a few minutes of this, the Union survivors ran back to Cemetery Ridge.

• 3:12:02Jocko Willink?

  This was the final straw for Cadmus Wilcox. His request for reinforcements had not been answered, and both his flanks were exposed. "Without support on either my right or left," he reported, "my men were withdrawn to prevent their entire destruction or capture."

• 3:12:21Jocko Willink?

  And the Minnesota, I mean, they took like, somewhere around 80% losses.

• 3:12:26JD Baker?

  Yeah, yeah, it's anywhere between 80, 83%. And, and you know what they were most proud of? Everybody was present. Nobody stayed back. I mean, the Minnesota one goes, man, they all went.

• 3:12:42JD Baker?

  Uh, yeah, I mean, and, and that monument that's there for the First Minnesota, because, you know, it's, it's right there next to the biggest monument on the frickin' battlefield, you know, that big white domie thing of Pennsylvania, because the Pennsylvanians are proud of their boys that fought there, which, yeah, of course. Uh, but that Minnesota, man, it's, it's just, it's, it's a cool monument just because it's just one rifleman. And he's like, you know, he's carrying his rifle and he's kind of like bent over, like he's in that charge, man. It's just one dude, man, running right into that melee. And, and he's representing like, all of Minnesota. I mean, it's a...

• 3:13:23JD Baker?

  It's just, I mean, it's incredible. Uh, like you said, I mean, there's just so many acts of just complete, just bravery and leadership. I mean, we could spend just years up there. Uh, you know what I mean? It's just, it's so, yeah.

• 3:13:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, the Minnesota, the first Minnesota is able to stop. That's the closest that they get to breaking through the lines and they were halted by these 250, a thousand were stopped by 250 Minnesota. And, and that was kind of the closest they got day, this is day two, and that kind of closes out day two. Like this is, they're, they're kind of there. They're kind of back to, they're back, they're kind of back to where they started. At the end of day two, really not, not a lot of progress has been made. There's been a lot of fighting. There's been a lot of death, but you end up with, you know, Seminary Ridge, you end up with Lee and the, and the Confederates over there on Seminary Ridge again, and on

• 3:14:23Jocko Willink?

  Cemetery Ridge, you got the fish hook. Uh, that's where you end up with, at the, at the end of, at the end of day two. Now, worth mentioning, the Minnesota were close to breaking through, but also like in the center of the line where Lee was watching, there was another brigade that almost broke through. Right?

• 3:14:47JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's, he's over at his headquarters and you could see, so as, as he watches this, this one brigade break through the lines there, you know what I mean? And like get into the line. I mean, these guys are in the lines with Minnesota and them, they're, they're on Seminary, on Cemetery Ridge. They're in the lines and Lee, it has a profound effect on Robert E. Lee. And just like you said, like, you know, just like Hood going for the round tops, not doing what he's told. Some folks just decided, I'm just not going to attack and you know, Cadiz Wilcox has to pull back out. Same thing's happening over on Cope's Hill with that whole thing with Yule. Folks are just deciding, eh, just not going to attack. You know what I mean? So this is like, this is something, this hasn't

• 3:15:32JD Baker?

  happened in the Army of Northern Virginia. But yeah, Lee is observing, uh, you know what I mean? And he sees this brigade. That is successful. So Lee thinks, hmm, because as everybody's like pulling back, like you said, day two, we're done. So everybody's got to like get what they can and make their way back to their original starting positions. So literally, we're right back, like you had said, seminary, cemetery. Everybody's back to where they were, except now, we've got folks occupying, and we're gonna, we're gonna keep them up on the little round top. Like, okay, well, once we got it, we're gonna keep it. Uh, so good call. I don't want to give that up again, but you could

• 3:16:14JD Baker?

  imagine, I mean, there's a lot of loss. I mean, these armies are getting pretty wrecked. So the lines are gonna start to get pretty thin. I mean, when you've got a regiment of First Minnesota, and you're taking over 80% casualties, I mean, so the lines are getting thin. Uh, but, you know, the, the Union Army's got good resupply coming in. Now you gotta look at the resupply that's coming in over with the Army of Northern Virginia. You know what I mean? Uh, they're getting kinda low. So Lee's gotta come up with another plan, and he's gotta bring his corps commanders back in that night, because he's gotta issue another order, right? Uh, so Lee, as he's observing the

• 3:16:57JD Baker?

  day battle, and he's got a pretty good vantage point to observe that, uh, he's like, dude, if one brigade can get through that line, what if I stuff 11 brigades through the center line?

• 3:17:15JD Baker?

  So here comes Pickett's charge. So that's why, on day three, what he sees happen successfully on day two, I'm gonna stuff 11 brigades right across that three quarters of a mile, right in the middle.

• 3:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Frontal assault.

• 3:17:33JD Baker?

  Frontal assault, man. Uh, and...

• 3:17:38JD Baker?

  You know, so you've got Longstreet in there. So I mean, you know, how that kind of went down on July the 2nd, Longstreet, when he showed up, he wasn't on board with the plan. And then goes out, you know, slow rolls, whatever, you know what I mean? Gets all the way out and around. It goes from 200 people into Peach Orchard, couple of thousand people into Peach Orchard. Hood is, he's not doing what he's told. You got other guys that are refusing to advance. I mean, it's just like, what, what, yeah, like what's going on with the army of Northern Virginia here? And now, I can only imagine. So Longstreet walks into the tent, he's like, hey, boss, yeah, but it wasn't a good day. Yep, no shit. But I could imagine like Longstreet is might be

• 3:18:23JD Baker?

  looking at it like, what do you want to do today? And then Lee's gonna say, I want to stuff 11 brigades.

• 3:18:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you would think Longstreet would be like, hey, you know, boss, look, we took a crack at it. Might be a good idea. You remember what I was talking about a couple of days ago? Like, how about we move somewhere else, get defensive? What do you think, boss? Like, this isn't working out too well. That's what I would be hoping for if I was Longstreet.

• 3:18:47JD Baker?

  Right.

• 3:18:47Jocko Willink?

  But that's not what he gets.

• 3:18:49JD Baker?

  No.

• 3:18:49Jocko Willink?

  He gets, we're gonna do a frontal assault, straight, straight up the middle.

• 3:18:54JD Baker?

  So, you know, Longstreet pushes back against that plan.

• 3:19:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And luckily, we got some documentation here. Once again, going back to this book, Gettysburg, you know, if you, how strongly does he push back against, you know, General Lee, who is the Confederacy at this point, right? Here's what Longstreet tells him. General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.

• 3:19:53Jocko Willink?

  And the next line in the book is Lee was unmoved.

• 3:19:59JD Baker?

  Yeah, unmoved.

• 3:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Which is crazy to think about, like, this is, I mean, even guys that I didn't really, you know, if I had one of my subordinates come to me and say, hey, Jocko, look, the plan that you just came up with, I've been doing this for a while, this ain't gonna work. Even if I didn't know that, you know, even if my trust level was low, I'd be like, oh damn. This is gonna make me reconsider some stuff. So the fact that Lee is just like unmoved.

• 3:20:26Jocko Willink?

  It's scary to think about. It's scary to think about. And I'll tell you what, when you go over and you stand on, on the Confederate side, and you look up across that field,

• 3:20:39Jocko Willink?

  uh, it's, it's a nightmare. It's a nightmare. You got this big, open field. There's barely any cover. They got these, um, they got these fences, right? Like these, these, these fences out there that are gonna bog you down. The, the, the Union's in like a little bit of an elevated position where they're shooting down. I mean, it's, it's a nightmare.

• 3:21:07Jocko Willink?

  But that's the command.

• 3:21:10JD Baker?

  Yeah. And, and the, the funny thing is, is like, even though Longstreet makes that response, and it's crazy that Lee is unmoved. And then who's he gonna pick to be in charge of all of this? Longstreet.

• 3:21:27JD Baker?

  So again, you got a guy that is not, like, I mean, he's definitely not on board with the plan. So then he's gotta go and he's gotta coordinate with A.P. Hill, because he's gonna take some of his guys too. I mean, this is, like you said, I mean, it's over 12,000 people. I mean, When you look at that field, the front it like people think like when you think about it, oh, it's just pick charge. Yeah, they're all just gonna be in this little tight. No, I mean, it's across the field frontage. You know what I mean? And they're gonna come up out of like, okay, yeah, I'll give there's a little bit of defilade.

• 3:22:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's some, some little areas.

• 3:22:03JD Baker?

  Little areas, but you better be skull dragging and wearing a ghillie suit, man. Like if you think you're gonna get across that field unscathed. And then, you know, we talk about like, uh, it's now you're coming into July 3rd. You've been out there fighting a battle for a couple of days, right? And you've, we don't have smokeless gunpowder yet either, do we? So there's no wind. It's fricking hot. It's humid. It's July. So all of that just smoke is just sitting in that low area across the fields.

• 3:22:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause to kick this thing off, just like a lot of infantry attacks kickoff, they kick it off with bombardment, with a massive cannon bombardment. And that that's what the, that's what the Confederates do. But like you said, well, when you shoot a cannon, you look at where you hit, and then you make some adjustments, right? Well, when everything is covered by smoke, you're only getting a couple of rounds off before you can't really even see what you're shooting at anymore.

• 3:23:08JD Baker?

  Yeah. So your effective fire, like in today's day and age, dude, you could have like the artillery, yeah, all the way back over in the Cumberland Valley. And you got an FO guys, and we could be calling in arty and you, you don't even know where they are. Well, back then, this is just like a big ass rifle on wheels. It's got like even a little peep sight, you know, like on the front of it. And it's got like one of those little sucky, like sulky chairs, like on a tractor. You know what I mean? So you got the guy and he's gonna sight the piece. So meaning I gotta be able to see Jocko and I gotta sight it. And then I gotta, you know, I mean, so there's a lot going on here. And then, you know, one of the other things that we didn't bring up that we always talk about

• 3:23:51JD Baker?

  when we're over on McPherson's Ridge of range estimation. You know what I mean? So you're talking about range estimation and like nowadays, you know, we got like Lycahs and cool stuff with like laser rangefinders. Like everybody's got one. You know what I mean? Back then, it's kind of like you're looking at it and it's like, you know, so like you gotta look at like large objects. Well, in farmland, the most prominent features on these battlefields are barns, right? So you got a barn and, uh, and the barns, if you're from the south, the barns are like two stories, right? You know what I mean?

• 3:24:27Jocko Willink?

  So when you're looking at, if you're from North Carolina, you're looking at a barn and you know, whether you're shooting a rifle or you're shooting an artillery piece, you're like, hey, that barn, you probably hold out your fingers. You're like, hey, for me, when I hold up my finger to a barn, if my, if my finger can cover both stories, that's this many yards away. If it's a half of my finger, oh, it's this many yards away. If it's, if it's really close, oh, that's, it, it takes two fingers to cover. So you get a way to sense like, same thing happens with hunting, like elk, right? If you can, as often as you can, you go out and you look at and you shoot at life-size elk targets. Cause after a while you go, oh, I can see, I can just a quick

• 3:25:08Jocko Willink?

  estimation, like, oh, I can see how big it is just by understanding the size of an elk and how big it is in my vision right now. Okay. That thing's 80 yards away. Oh, look, look at this other one over here. Oh, that's things this big in my vision. It's 40 yards away. So these, these guys get used to, you're in the south, you're looking at a barn, you know that the thing's roughly what's two stories, but it's 20 feet, 20, 22 feet. You know what it is and you can do range estimation on that.

• 3:25:39JD Baker?

  Right. So the army of Northern Virginia has, how many times have they been north so far?

• 3:25:45Jocko Willink?

  Once.

• 3:25:46JD Baker?

  For one day, right? And they got out one day and they only saw a couple of barns. You know what I mean? Uh, so now they're back up there again. Well, you know, I, I, I live in Virginia. The barns in Virginia are smaller than the barns in Gettysburg because it gets cold up there. So they've got that bottom story to where they can put the livestock underneath there. Well, we're out there at like McPherson's Ridge, cause we always go back and around the backside of the barn and you can now see it. You know what I mean? So range estimation is going to be a big deal. You know what I mean? It's called a miss.

• 3:26:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:28JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? Cause it appears to be closer. So you're going to short round it. You know what I mean? And these guys are only three quarters of a mile. So it doesn't matter if you're the green tubes. You know, that are out there are the Napoleon style artillery, still three quarters of a mile. The black tubes are painted black because they're steel. So for erosion, those are still a mile, a mile and a half guns. You know what I mean? But you still have to see. You know what I mean? And you're still going to cut for the range estimation of how far you want this big massive ball to blow up. Right? So it's, it's going to be off. So that's going to be a huge effect on the army of Northern Virginia as well. And they're just going to, yeah, they're going to start with that artillery barrage.

• 3:27:13JD Baker?

  And then it's, here comes Pickett's charge.

• 3:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Pickett's charge is, like you said, it's 12,500 men. They're going out. Look, is there some, is there some places to hide along the way? Is there, is there a, a, a little knoll to get behind? Is there some dead space you can work through? Yes. But eventually if you're going to move forward, you're going to have to get up and you're going to get out of that. So there's very little cover. There's not even that much concealment. It's three quarters of a mile. There's these split rail fences that you're bogged down on. You have to either break it, which is going to take you time or you got to climb over it. Now you're even more exposed.

• 3:27:56Jocko Willink?

  And this just turns into a, a, a death march as they move forward.

• 3:28:02JD Baker?

  Yeah, it's a, you know, as they now, do they make it all the way across the field?

• 3:28:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Some of them do.

• 3:28:13JD Baker?

  Some of them, but it's not enough to, to make any matter. And, and a, a lot of folks, you know, when you read, you always get to the, you know, the, the high water mark of the Confederacy that's over there. And, and it's not, it's just like that. It's that little bitty white, like marble looking, like looks like a scroll. And that is where like what makes it even, even more famous is that's where Armistead and Hancock.

• 3:28:39JD Baker?

  They're friends. So that's where Armistead falls and dies and literally Hancock comes out, but that that high watermark of the of the Confederacy, that's as far north as they ever got.

• 3:28:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and like it's a death, it's a field of death, but like you said, some of them do make it. There's hand to hand combat and you know, you go there, it's amazing because you're like standing at the stone wall where some of the Confederates made it over that wall. They're in there, they're killing each other with ban. It's like the fact that they made it that far is incredible. But once they got there, that was it. The guys that made it there were the guys that made it there. There was no one else coming.

• 3:29:24JD Baker?

  Yeah, yeah, nobody. And and the thing about it is like at that high watermark, how how far would you say we're actually from Meads Headquarters? 500 yards?

• 3:29:33Jocko Willink?

  No more than 500 yards.

• 3:29:35JD Baker?

  I mean, it's like literally right over the military craft.

• 3:29:37Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 3:29:38JD Baker?

  You're there. I mean, that's how close these dudes are and it it yeah, it it looks like like nowadays. I mean, it just like this. I mean, it's a beautiful battlefield park, but I mean, that day at the end of Pickett's Charge, man, of what's taking place in the center of those lines is just fricking carnage, you know. So yeah, it's a it was game on. So that yeah, so when you when you go there, when you hear the the referral of of the high watermark and the and the cops of trees that people talk about, those cops of trees are just like a just a little bit off to the left of the high watermark is just like this. And you can't miss it because the Park Service put a big

• 3:30:20JD Baker?

  like wrought iron fence around the cops of trees. Those cops of trees is where it's it's supposed to be the trees that are high enough because like when Jocko and I were kind of talking a little bit earlier about like you can't really see stuff, but the trees are up above all the smoke and stuff. So it's giving you a guide. So while you're trying to get across this field, you can at least see those trees in the distance. And there's debate over whether or not it was those cops of trees or what it doesn't make a You know what I mean? There's trees and it's like a guiding because once they go, it's like as everybody goes towards the cops of trees. That's why everybody's kind of funneling

• 3:30:59JD Baker?

  in to that center of the line. And then that's where you get the high watermark of the Confederacy. So that's how like when you're reading through the book and you're trying to like, kind of figure out in your head of like, what's going on? You know, if you, if you, you know, if you come out to Gettysburg and you, you see it like all of it just bam, it just comes right to you. And it's amazing. Uh, you know what I mean? That, you know, that's pretty much the end of day three. You know what I mean? Uh, and then you, you've got the high watermark and then you're looking at the casualties of that day with the, you know, you're starting out, you get, you're sending across 12,500 folks. I mean, that's a lot of people, but you could imagine at the end of, of day three, man, of the battle of Gettysburg.

• 3:31:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, just, just, just on that, it's 1,123 killed, 4,000 wounded. So like half and 3,750 captured. So more than half of your troops are gone. Um, or they're at least casualties that aren't going to be able to fight anymore. And you know, you, you, it's so frustrating when you look at that battlefield. And you know, you understand, you know, this is, this is about leadership and just that

• 3:32:23Jocko Willink?

  to, to know that the relationship wasn't there. You know, again, look, if you're a historian and you want to pull up some letters that I don't know about, okay. From my perspective, as I look at the relationship between Longstreet and Lee, they didn't have a good enough relationship where, where Lee is going to listen to Longstreet and say, hey, I'm giving you the strongest possible personal recommendation not to do this. And Lee says, no, we're doing it.

• 3:32:59Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you just send, you know, half of your men to be wounded, killed or captured. It's, it's horrible thing to look at. And it's, it's a very depressing thought from a leadership perspective. So, yeah, like you said, I mean, this is, the, after that, the, the Confederate moves back and, and basically day, the next day, they get up and they start their retreat to the south. And I mean, Lincoln, Lincoln's fired up and is like, hey, pursue. And Meade's like, yeah, boss, okay. You know, we'll, we'll do our best, but I mean, there's

• 3:33:44Jocko Willink?

  the, the casualties on the Union side are absolutely immense.

• 3:33:50Jocko Willink?

  And so it's a win. It's a, it's definitely a win for the Union. Now, interestingly, you would think that this would be the big news of the day.

• 3:34:01JD Baker?

  You would think.

• 3:34:02Jocko Willink?

  You would think that this would be the big news of the day. General Lee, the most respected military commander out there on either side, just got defeated. The people that are, the, the Confederates who've been on a winning streak, winning streak, winning streak, winning streak. All of a sudden they've been defeated. You would think that this would be the big story, but the big story actually isn't Gettysburg. The big story is what happens on July 4th in Vicksburg. And that is that Vicksburg falls. It's been under siege and Vicksburg falls.

• 3:34:38Jocko Willink?

  Grant, our boy Grant is out there and he's like proving his leadership skills. And this puts, you know, Grant or puts Lincoln to a position, he's, you know, he's paying attention. See who's got it that's out there kicking ass. And he's starting to see Grant as a guy that's out there kicking ass. And Lincoln's thinking, I'm gonna bring this guy back east. And, and let him take over all the armies.

• 3:35:02Jocko Willink?

  So even though, but even though this wasn't the story of the day, certainly, this became, this battle became legend. And, you know, years later, at a dedication to a memorial to the 20th Maine on Little Round Top, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, he, he gave a speech up there. And this, this speech, you know, just to give a little, a little small excerpt of this speech, of what he said.

• 3:35:37Jocko Willink?

  He said this.

• 3:35:40Jocko Willink?

  "We rose in soul above the things which even the Declaration of Independence pronounces the inalienable rights of human nature, for the securing of which governments are instituted among men.

• 3:35:57Jocko Willink?

  Happiness, liberty, life, we laid on the altar of offering, or committed to the furies of destruction, while our minds were lifted up to a great thought, and our hearts swelled to its measure.

• 3:36:14Jocko Willink?

  We were beckoned on by the vision of destiny. We saw our country moving forward, charged with the sacred trusts of man.

• 3:36:24Jocko Willink?

  We believed in its glorious career, the power of high aims and strong purpose, the continuity of great endeavor. The onward, upward path of history to God.

• 3:36:40Jocko Willink?

  Every man felt that he gave himself to, and belonged to, something beyond time and above place.

• 3:36:49Jocko Willink?

  Something which could not die."

• 3:36:58Jocko Willink?

  So all those things that in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, these men on that ground, put all those things on the altar of sacrifice.

• 3:37:11Jocko Willink?

  And yet despite all that suffering and all that sacrifice, the war was not over.

• 3:37:17Jocko Willink?

  And there would be more suffering and there would be more sacrifice required in order to preserve the Union.

• 3:37:26Jocko Willink?

  And we will continue that on the next Civil War excursion.

• 3:37:36Jocko Willink?

  And that's the plan. So we've got to July of 1863. We have, we have to go all the way until April of 1865. It's going to start to turn into the Lee versus Grant story. We're going to start seeing Sherman back in the game.

• 3:37:58Jocko Willink?

  We've been here, JD and I have been here for a week out in, out here in San Diego, California, doing this. We, we aren't going to be able to do this immediately, but the plan is in the next several months, we'll come out and we'll give you the second half of what's going on, the second half of how this unfolds, some of these details, some of these lessons learned. You know, you know, JD, it's so awesome to be able to sit here with you because, you know, I'm a jujitsu guy. Probably if there's, well, I guess I know, I know probably the best skill I have or no, but the most knowledge I have is probably about maneuvering elements on a battlefield, small elements on the battlefield. That's probably the most

• 3:38:43Jocko Willink?

  knowledgeable thing I have because that was my profession for a long time. But jujitsu's right up there. And like when I'm learning jujitsu, if I'm learning a new move and, and somebody shows me something, for me, because I have a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge, a lot of context, I can take that move and I can incorporate it usually pretty quick.

• 3:39:03Jocko Willink?

  And what I love about having you here is the context that you have around this information is like incredible. It is not just a, it's not, what I really like about it's not just a mental picture that you have. You don't just have like, hey, I know this character. I know that character. You have an unmatched terrain association where, where when, when we're talking about a place on the battlefield, you're, you know that, you've been in that place. You've, you've been in that place. Like when we're talking about Vicksburg, we just threw a random, a random show. Vicksburg, we haven't talked about Vicksburg yet. We just throwing a random thing out there about Vicksburg.

• 3:39:41Jocko Willink?

  The siege ending and the Confederacy falling. You're like, you know where that happened. You've walked those grounds. You've been through that. So it's awesome to be able to sit here and have you share that context and all these different things, man. So I appreciate you coming out to do this.

• 3:39:59JD Baker?

  I appreciate you having me out, man. This is a huge, uh, great experience, man, being on here. And, and again, you know, uh, like I've told you numerous times, you know, when you read Chamberlain and the folks that are out there and the characters that we're talking about, I mean, these are great Americans, man. Like everybody in America should know who John fricking Buford is, man. They should know Chamberlain. They should know Meade. You know, as many times as like we've done staff rides together and you know, like the, the first day when everybody gets there. First thing we're always like is like, hey, put your hand in the air if you know who George Gordon Meade is. Nobody puts their hand in the air. I say, well, who knows Robert E. Lee? The whole room goes up and it's like, he beat Robert E. Lee here. Like he fought for the Union, man.

• 3:40:44JD Baker?

  Like Meade, you know what I mean? It's a great guy. Hancock. You know, I mean, we talked about that stuff earlier today. Like, I mean, you don't know who Hancock, I mean, these are just great. So I mean, dude, well, I love being on here with you, man. And, and, and you know, folks can learn and hopefully, you know, get these books, man, and read through them. I mean, they are just phenomenal.

• 3:41:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. A caveat that I should have put out, like on the first one that we did is, you know, look, First of all, we can't cover everything. You know, we, we just can't cover everything and we know that there's stuff we're skipping over. We know that there's letters that were written that we didn't, there's just all this stuff to, to go through. And you could see, I mean, we're, we're on Gettysburg today. This was, we're at three hours and 42 minutes, by the way, right now. So three hours and 42 minutes, we could have done this, we could have done seven, eight hours on it. I mean, when we go to the battlefield, when we go to Gettysburg, we do eight hours a day, plus dinner, plus bread. Like we're just, it's like 28 hours of freaking Gettysburg, just Gettysburg. So that's the caveat.

• 3:41:46Jocko Willink?

  Also, look, like, obviously, I'm, I'm not, I'm much less knowledgeable than you. I'm throwing in my spin. So if anyone's mad that I said, Lee thought this, or, or, you know, Longstreet thought that, or Chamberlain should have done this, I apologize for my opinions. That's my assessment. Sorry. You know, don't, don't subscribe, you know? But those are my, hey, it's my podcast, I'll have my opinions. But, but honestly, not that it's my podcast, I'll have my opinions. But for me, I always want to know, from a leadership perspective, from a human nature perspective, what can I glean from what I see?

• 3:42:27Jocko Willink?

  And if I'm not trying to figure it out, well, then I'm not, in my opinion, I'm not trying to put my context right. I don't have the context that you have around the, the, the, the actual characters, the actual terrain. But I got, you know, I've got my context of interacting with a bunch of people for a long time. So I apologize to anyone out, out there that's mad about some take I had on something. That's my take, man. And hey, if I'm, I look for, I'm sure a lot of people will reach out and say, hey, you know, Lee never would have said that because of X. I will appreciate that feedback. I'm open to, I'm obviously open to it. I know I don't know everything. Uh, but seriously, there's so many lessons to learn in these and, and going to these places.

• 3:43:10Jocko Willink?

  Look, do you, you want to come and go through one of these battlegrounds with Echelon Front? Sure. Do you want to go with OMNA International, which is JD's company? Sure. If you don't go with us, you don't need us there. I would just encourage you to go out, walk these battlefields. I mean, this, when you look at the elevation, the elevated vision that Chamberlain has of this country.

• 3:43:37Jocko Willink?

  And you realize that's what these guys were striving for. Now, look, was every private striving for this elevated vision? No, no, I get that. Is every, you know, Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps, is every private in the Army got this elevated vision of, of, of America and that's what they're fighting for? No, not all of them. But I'll tell you what, you take a unit and that elevated vision of America is there. And that's what these men fought for. And so you go out, pay respect on these battlefields, and you're going to take away something, not just about leadership, not just about combat, but you're going to learn to appreciate what sacrifices were made so that

• 3:44:18Jocko Willink?

  we could carry on this incredible nation that we have.

• 3:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Anything else JD?

• 3:44:28JD Baker?

  Yeah, that's, that's it, man. Love it.

• 3:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. That's the plan, everybody. We'll see you in a few months for the rest of the Jocko Excursion Civil War Podcast with JD Baker. In the meantime, if you want to support, go to JacoStore.com, JacoFuel.com, OriginUSA.com, EchelonFront.com, TheOMNA.com.

• 3:44:55Jocko Willink?

  We appreciate it. And until next time, stay free. This is JD and Jocko. Out.