Plays On Word Radio
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Plays On Word Radio
Ep 188: Gettysburg Still Teaches Us How To Fight (Part 2)
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"Gettysburg's battlefield becomes a classroom for Christian courage, spiritual warfare, and leadership as Pastor Cliff Whitehead connects Civil War stories, Lincoln, Scripture, Job, and 9/11 to eternal perspectives. Are you ready to fight the good fight of faith?"
We turn Gettysburg from a history stop into a mirror for Christian courage, spiritual alertness, and leadership under fire. We wrestle with mercy and judgment in Lincoln’s words, then challenge ourselves to pray with an eternal focus instead of chasing comfort.
• Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and the shift toward mercy and shared guilt under God’s judgment
• The Gettysburg itinerary, the walk through town, the cemeteries, and reading the Gettysburg Address at the true location
• Why primary sources and pre-Google research produce better teaching and deeper insight
• Opening the door for other pastors to host Gettysburg and Lincoln trips through their own churches
• Battleground versus playground thinking, staying sober-minded, and catching temptation early
• Defensive prayers versus offensive prayers, aiming requests at God’s will and eternal outcomes
• Henry Bergwin’s story, a family’s faith, and viewing death through the lens of salvation and eternity
• A caution about ghost tours, the occult, and treating Gettysburg with respect
• The July 3 cannonade timeline and why the sound carried as far as Philadelphia
Please click on the underlined links throughout.
Fellowship Chapel, Sr. Pastor Cliff Whitehead -https://fellowshipchapelnj.org/
Gettysburg Good Fight Faith Conferences: https://www.goodfightoffaith.org/
Upcoming Conferences: - https://www.goodfightoffaith.org/event-list
• The Next "Good Fight Of Faith Conference": Sept. 24th - Sept. 26th
- https://www.goodfightoffaith.org/event-details/good-fight-of-faith-conference-1
• "The Gospel and The Gettysburg Address": Nov. 6th - Nov. 7th
- https://www.goodfightoffaith.org/event-details/the-gospel-and-the-gettysburg-address
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Welcoming Churches To Host Trips
SPEAKER_02Lord, you know. You're now listening to play is the best. Uh, but what I wanted to expand it to, and I've let some pastors know over this last year, if you want to have a trip out of your own church, you know, where the days you pick the time of year you want to do it, we can do that. Like in other words, you can pick that time, we can work it out where, you know, of course I would come out there and do it, but it will be your church, you know, the church. So we want to expand it to that, let people know. We're open to you guys calling us and saying, hey, we'd like to do a trip from our church.
SPEAKER_00Eddie's Bird's battlefield becomes a classroom for Christian courage, spiritual warfare, and leadership as Pastor Cliff Whitehead connects Civil War stories, Lincoln, Scripture, Jove, and 9-11 to eternal perspectives. Are you ready to fight the good fight of the thing?
SPEAKER_01Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discussed, analyzed, work, and play on the word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Lincoln On Mercy And Shared Guilt
SPEAKER_02But in that, in that second inaugural address, you see him, you see that there's elements of mercy and there's elements of grace in what he was saying.
SPEAKER_03There's a distinct change that uh from earlier on in his writings and speaking. Wow.
SPEAKER_02And how he would say to the north, you know, I'm I'm paraphrasing, but as he would say to the north, the south is not the only one that sinned. We have all sinned.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_02Because Lincoln, then that was reminding him, you had slaves in the north before it was convenient for you not to. Yeah. And you had factories, you know what I mean? And so, so that's you know, so in other words, he saw that the the mercy of God and that we deserve judgment. And I think that's expanded in his mind. Like he wasn't the only one that deserved judgment. It was kind of opposite with him. You know, sometimes some people think everyone else but they need judgment.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Lincoln's thinking he's gonna be judged, and now he's saying, no, everyone's under God's judgment. Right. And there's only one way out, right? Right, right. So it's a really fascinating study, you know. So that's the second teaching.
Walking Gettysburg And The Address Site
SPEAKER_02And then what we do after that, we do that on the morning of the second day. And then after that, we trace his steps where he walked from where he stayed at night up to the cemetery. And as we're going through the town, I give a little history of the town during the battle, what happened during and then as we get up to the cemetery, we go. I give you them a history of the two cemeteries because it's a town cemetery that sold some of the land to the government for the soldier cemetery. I share some of the famous people that are buried in the different places, and then we go to the spot where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. And of course, it's not a distinction memorial, like you had mentioned earlier. When I was doing research there years ago, I came across this historian. You know, I knew him to be an historian. And I said, Is that really where they gave the Gettysburg address for the monument? And he goes, No, he said, because at that point, he goes, Where where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address was actually in the cemetery next door, and they couldn't put a monument in there because it's private property. That didn't they didn't sell that spot to them, right? So so we go to where that is. There's no monument, there's gravestones now because people have been buried since then there, and we read the Gettysburg Address, and then we walk back down and we through the town again. I give a little bit more of the history. We go back and have lunch, and then we have a question and answer period. Fantastic. And then then we go to the train station and we end with prayer there. A few uh one last story about Lincoln, and we see him off back to Washington, and then Wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was that's that's absolutely fantastic. I I know for Lincoln it was a uh uh what was it when he finally got to Gettysburg? I I think it impacted him. I think it had a pretty serious impact on his life because up until this point he was getting reports and things back, but yeah, for him to be there and to see hey, and I'm sure you point this out on the tour. There are still bullet holes, man. Some of the houses, there's still bullet holes in the door, yeah, indoors. This is like from the 1860s, man, and there's still bullet holes in some of the places, and that is eerie to me. Yeah, and there are witness trees that were there, yep, and we walked by two of them when witness trees that were that Lincoln walked by, trees that he walked by devil near Devil's Den, just to No, it's actually just short of the cemetery.
SPEAKER_02But there are other there's a total now of six witness trees. A couple of them have died. Yeah, there's six left. One of them is at near Devil's Den. One of them's at the barn where your your one of your favorite generals, Dan Sickles.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We're all going. We'll have to we'll save that for the tour, Dan.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay, yeah. I love it. I love it, man. But it's I tell you, it's now on this trip coming up in uh September, the three-day trip, you're gonna go to uh Little Round Top and Devil's Den and like the different yeah, you
Why Old-School Research Changes Everything
SPEAKER_03know what's funny? When we were on our tours with you over the years, there were people that were part of other tours with other tour buses, and they would always be try to be dipping in and listening in as you were speaking. Like it was uh I was watching them in amazement where people from totally different places are sitting there listening in as you were would just be speaking, and it was it's it is such a cool thing to go with somebody where it's a passion, you know. When you're you could tell you're passionate about not just history in American history, but in particular the the civil war and in Gettysburg. Oh man, it's just it's a totally different thing when you go with somebody who's passionate about it, knows and has done the research, and much of this research Cliff did before Google was a thing. That's true. Yeah, you know, this is going to the library and finding books and looking at you know, yeah original sources type things that people today they don't understand. They'll just ask Alexa or ask Siri or go on go Google or Chat GPT or something, and just there's really not any scholarship happening. There's something special about digging through books, man. Sure, and journals, you know, yes, their own words, you know. Yeah, you're a detective, or you're you're like a gold miner, you know, mining gold, and and the stuff that you cross you come across doing research. Oh, yeah, the stuff you're not necessarily looking for. That's the greatest stuff, man. Like it's dangerous for me. I used to go out to Princeton Theological Seminary Library, and man, I would be working on a paper or something, and on my way to find my source, I'd go to get one source and come back with seven or eight different sources of totally different things. Like, oh my goodness, I look at the whoa. And I just learned so much exponentially just by being there around so much information. So, yeah, I really I really appreciate your your your study. And any history, you know, any history guys, I think of Joey Rozack. He needs to he needs to go on this man. Joey, Joey Rozek's a history guy, and Dave Locke and those guys, man. Um, you know, they're they're history guys, but we have some history guys down at our fellowship. I'm gonna see if they they want to go, see if they can make it, if we can at all make it, because it's and it's a great time of year.
Building Custom Retreats For Fellowships
SPEAKER_02To build up that thought, Ted, one of the things I did want to share so people know, up until like this year, basically the trips have been run out of our church, right? And of course, whenever we put on a trip, anyone's welcome to join us, whether they, you know, whatever church they're from or whatever, you know. But what I wanted to expand it to, and I've let some pastors know over this last year, as I was sharing with you at the pastors conference. Um I'm wanting to say to some pastors, if you can't, if you want to have a trip out of your own church, you know, where the days you pick, you know, the time of year you want to do it, or you know, we can do that. Like in other words, you can pick that time, we can work it out where, you know, of course, I would come out there and do it, but it will be your you know, the church. So we want to expand it to that, let people know.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's that's phenomenal. Yeah, I know that there are a lot of pastors that do listen in on this, and I'm gonna I'm gonna send it directly to many of them because we're gonna yeah, we're gonna option is spectacular.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're gonna put it up on the webpage where we're open to you guys calling us and saying, hey, we'd like to do a trip from our church, yeah, you know, in May or whatever, or whatever it might be, you know, the Lincoln one or the the Battle of Gettysburg or the Battlefield one. And then we can advise on how they would just go about setting it up for themselves, right? You know, and then I can meet them there and or you know, we'll go on. They want me to go on the bus with them, I'll go on the bus with them. Yeah, and we just want to expand it more. And I I I think you know, for some people, maybe some of the dates just don't work, you know, but they want to do it.
SPEAKER_03Plus, sometimes maybe they'll want to go with their own fellowship, you know, and have uh Yeah, and I I love the idea of of doing a like a spiritual warfare retreat, you know, at Gettysburg
Battleground Mindset And Staying Alert
SPEAKER_03and and being on the you know, object lesson, seeing where the battle took place and then going back and digging through the scripture, you know. One of the things that has always has stuck with me since my very first time on the Gettysburg retreat with you is we're we're called to be aware. We're we're not supposed to be unaware. We're called to be aware and alert of what's going on. And many times Sunday morning, I can I'm like, oh, okay, the enemy's he's trying to he's trying to hit me with some arrows, and he's okay, he's it's it's not working on me. I see he's working on my wife now, trying to trying to get her, you know, and it's just being aware of that is more than half the battle, right? You know, and I got that from the Gettysburg Retreat. You know, it's you would think it's common sense, but it's really not.
SPEAKER_02No, we forget. We you know what I mean. We forget that we have to be, you know, see this, right? Peter writes in First Peter chapter 5, be sober, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a long line seeking someone to devour, you know. Yeah, so we gotta be alert. We gotta see when the, you know, John John Buford, right? At Gettysburg, yeah, the Union Cavalry comes in the day before the battle starts. They're trying to find out where the enemy is. And he knows they're out just to the west when they go to when their night comes on June 30th, and he sends out his scouts and puts them out there. And he says, and he says, keep a careful close eye, watch for dust clouds in the campfires at night and dust clouds in the morning. He wanted them to be aware at the first approach of the enemy. The first approach. And we want to be aware of that first tempting thought before we start to dwell on it. Once it comes up, we take a captive. We gotta be look for you know the smoke, the dust clouds in the morning.
SPEAKER_03But see, we we're not gonna be doing that if we think we're on a playground, as opposed to if we re recognize we're on a battleground, then we'll be alert and we'll be like sentries. We'll be alert, we'll be okay. Oh, that's okay, that's a attack of the end. But if we're like think we're on a playground, right? When spiritual attacks start happening, we're gonna be two hours into it, not even understanding what's happening.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And just think of the whole perspective of that, right? The playground, battleground perspective, right? A soldier knows that the battlefield is not comfortable. In other words, it it's rugged, it's tough, and you have to be alert. And if there is comfort, it's rare. Like in other words, when you have a you know, you can hang out, right? And I I think people that we have to realize that we're in a spiritual battle. And sometimes I think as believers, even it sometimes even reflects in the way we pray that we're seeking comfort. We want God to make us comfortable, right? And and what we have to realize is we're on a spiritual warfare, we'll have comfort for eternity in the presence of the Lord. But right now we're in a battlefield, and God will comfort us, but not for the sake of just for comfort, right? In other words, to give us rest for the next battle, you know, and I think that's and I our prayers need to reflect that.
Offensive Prayer And Eternal Priorities
SPEAKER_03You know, about 10 years ago, I I started I started talking to telling people, I said, listen, it's great to to pray it defensively, is fine, you know. Okay, Lord, please help us, please, Lord, Lord, please, please supply this and please help me and then Lord, this person's sick and all that. That's all important. But I think as a church, uh universal, the the whole church, I think, where's the offense, man? Where's the artillery? Where's the where's the like the the prayers that we're asking God to move in a certain area to to you know set circumstances in in motion that the uh a massive amount of people will look up and see you, Lord, and change their hearts. And then now let's go offense. And uh, you know, and so I often encourage the congregation down here, let us not neglect offensive prayers. Because if you took a soccer game or a basketball game, and if someone only plays defense, they're not gonna win. You know, you know, or football, any actually any sport, if if you only play defense, you're not really gonna win, man. You you you have to be able to put some points on the board. And I think offensive prayers is when we take it into the enemy's camp and we pray according to God's will. We seek his will. Lord, what is your will? Help us to pray along your will. And yes, it's his will that we have comfort, I guess. It's you know that we're comfortable, he wants to give his people good things and all that. But I anytime I see God operating in the scripture, those things are for a purpose. So that if we're if we're comforted, it's so that we'll be sober-minded, rested, and able to go on the offense. Right.
SPEAKER_02And I think his definition of comfort is oftentimes different than ours. In other words, like like when you think about his call to us, right? Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. We sometimes have to deny comfort as we see comfort.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, to follow him.
SPEAKER_02Right? Yeah, but you know, I one of the things I've been trying to share with people, and I don't want I always say I always preface it by saying, I don't want you to take me the wrong way. Because I'm not saying not to pray for these things, but I said if you look at the majority of prayer lists, it's all most nine. I'm gonna throw out a number that I don't haven't scientifically come to, but that 90% of them is about physical things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_02Illness and so forth and so on. And not that we shouldn't pray for those things, we should, and we're called to pray for those things, but a higher percentage should be about the spiritual things.
SPEAKER_03Amen. The flesh counts for nothing. I mean, Jesus said the the spirit is where it's at, man. And I I'm telling you, I'm I'm passionate about praying on the offense. Right. Going on, lifting up the people that are in the, you know, on the front lines ministering the gospel. Lord, give them words and tell them when not to speak, and open the ears of the and you know, the people that are persecuting them, Lord, soften their hearts. That's that's offensive stuff, man. You're going and soften the hearts of the persecutors and then save them, and then use the persecutors to preach the gospel to multitudes.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03That type of stuff. I mean, it's listen, it's great to pray for people who have physical ailments because we have we have had them since Adam and Eve ate of the tree they shouldn't have eaten of. But but it it's kind of an indictment that and I've been convicted of this just looking at what have we what am I praying about? What is the majority? If you looked at a pie chart of the the requests we make to the king of the universe, the cr the requests we petition him with how much how much what percentage of that is eternity based?
The Boy Colonel Story At Gettysburg
SPEAKER_02Right. You know, I gotta share this with you is that and I I've been I'm working on it right now. I love that when this happens. I I have a testimony. I I don't think I didn't have this when you went on the trip, so I'll just but I I have it in the trip right now. It's part of the first day battlefield. There was a family in North Carolina, godly family. The mother was very godly, and one of her greatest concerns was that all her children come to know Christ as their savior, right? And it was the family was called the Bergwin family. And uh Henry Bergwin was 21 years old, and he was part of the 26th North Carolina, and he was the colonel of the regiment at 21 years old. They referred to him as the boy colonel. I bet. 21. And they and he had two brothers. One of them was in the regiment with him, and the other was I'm not sure if he was in another Southern Army, but that particular brother wasn't like a believer, he was kind of wayward. So, but this I had now what I love about this is that I had done the research on Henry Bergwin, and then in preparing for this year's tour, I came across something that expands the story. Henry Bergwin was, and this this comes, uh this is what I love. The the the a guy on the regimental band, the 26th North Carolina Regimental Band, a guy named Julius Lineback kept a very meticulous diary journal, right? And he's tell in his journal, he talks about the Sunday before the beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg, which began on a Wednesday, they were having service in their camp. And the preacher was preaching, I believe it was out of the book of Jeremiah, and he says, the uh the summer is near ended. And the harvest is coming, the summer is near ended, and we are not yet saved. I think that's the exact I think that's the verse, you know. And he he was praying, he had been praying for this young colonel to come to know the Lord, even though he was a godly man, he wasn't sure that he was saved. And he said, as I was watching him during the sermon, he seemed deeply affected. And then he writes in his journal, who knew what who knows what lays on down the road? Like they're they're 20 miles from Gettysburg, they're heading towards Gettysburg. And so, anyway, just kind of summarized, I go I'll go more into detail in the battlefield, but he's part of the first day battle, his regiment, in the afternoon of July 1st in Herp's Woods. And he's leading his men, it's a terrific battle in in the woods there. And as he turns to wave the men on, he receives a shot goes through both his lungs.
SPEAKER_04Oh boy.
SPEAKER_02And so he's laying there, you know, he's dying on the battlefield. People try to come to his aid. He's not able to talk at first, but they try to move him behind the lines, and then he's able to talk. He's definitely dying, but he's able to talk a little bit, and he talks about tell my men they never failed me at any stage. He goes, and he said that the Lord's will be done. And he and he died. And so now that's that I had been telling that story the last few trips. Now I found in addition, his brother, who was in the regiment with him, okay, writes home to the mother and talks about how Henry died a brave man and told him, told her his final words. And then he says, Mother, he goes, I believe that it was the Lord's will for Henry to die this way, that our wayward brother might look more to him, look more to God. And I'm thinking, Ted, just think about that. Think about like look, this guy, this brother who was a godly guy, right? And he's concerned about his brother who didn't know the Lord. And he's writing, and he's looking beyond the physical the physical death. And he's looking beyond what's more important that the brother come to know the Lord, and that's why God was that's how God was using Henry's death. That's what he believed. Yeah, and then he in the letter to the mother, I'll paraphrase this part of it. He says to her if it doesn't be a matter of Few years to his mom. I know your greatest wish is that we all would know the Lord. Wow.
SPEAKER_03That's uh that's correct perspective, right there, man. Yeah. Wow. Because life is so temporary, man. But the only thing that really is gonna matter, are you with him or not? Do you know him? Do you know him, not know about him?
Loss, Heaven, And Seeing Loved Ones Again
SPEAKER_02And I talked to Joe DeProssimo the other day, I was telling him what I came across. You know, Pastor Joe, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. And that was where Vinny was associate pastor to Pastor Joe, and you knew Vinny.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And I re I remember about four days before Vinny passed, died. Joe asked Vinny, he goes, if your death brings his door, he has a daughter that they're not sure what her spiritual condition is, brings her to the Lord. Is it worth it? He goes, Oh, absolutely. And I'm going, I told him, I said the story that I read at Gettysburg reminded me of that very same conversation you had with my brother. That that was the same mindset my brother had there. Yes, if it brings somebody to the Lord, it's worth it.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And I I gotta tell you, man, Vinny is is I'm making a beeline in glory, is one of the people that I cannot wait to see is Vinny. I can't wait to see that guy.
SPEAKER_02I miss him. It's it's been very surreal. I can say he's he's a good brother in both sense, and the Lord and and it's you know, as my brother, you know.
SPEAKER_03And just not and just knowing he's got way more information than we could ever have right now.
SPEAKER_02That's what he's seeing right now.
SPEAKER_03And I just I I I think of I have I sometimes I'll I'll say Lord, could you just say hi to Vinny for me? Just say hi. I I don't know if I can ask you to do that. Could you just pass him a note? Say hey, man, you know, because I just oh he knows now he has information that we just we don't have. Maybe he's even conversing with those two brothers from the he could you maybe, maybe he very well could be, but yeah, so he was he is a just a I can't wait to see that guy. And we were doing a play up there when he ended up going to the hospital. We were up there and God bless him, we were we were texting back and forth, and I remember leaving. Oh, that's right. You were doing that, yeah. We were doing our Christmas Joe play, and we yeah and I remember leading the leading everybody in prayer for Vinny at the at the uh at the play, and you know, we we we actually we what do we did we just did Pete at your place at Fellowship Chapel back a few months ago.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah, we did that, and uh you know I'm gonna say this to you on your radio show, but I want to say this. I really appreciate you. You have always been an encourager, and you you want to encourage others to like what you helped me with with Gettysburg to encourage ministries, and I we really appreciate that, Ted.
SPEAKER_03About you, amen, amen. Yeah, that was it was a blessing. Even the challenges we we had, uh we had we missed the real boat, yeah. We misplaced our boat for the first time ever in I don't know how many plays. But you know, hey, you know what? You got the bolts a lot of scrimmage, man. You have to you have to be listening is it the boat that makes the play, or is it the word of God? You know, so as long as the word of God's not gone, we'll be okay. Yeah, so that was a that was a real blessing, and it was such a uh just a bust. It got a lot of love from everybody there at Fellowship Chapel. Please tell everybody who said hello. I try to try to make and Roy wanted to be on the Roy had plans, he had a stack of questions. Yeah, no, he did, he had pages and pages of questions. He was like, All right, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna egg Cliff on here with some good questions about Gettysburg. And uh but he had some he had some internet difficulty, and I can't help but wonder is the good lord behind all that because the you know the good lord probably just pulled the plug just because he wanted to let Cliff speak instead of Teddy and Roy teaming up on Cliff and giving him a hard time. So, but that was the original plan. So make sure you give Roy a hard time about that. I will. Um yeah, so thank you very much, Cliff Whitehead. Anybody has any interest in going on this, the information's gonna be on the in the show notes. We'll have the links up there. And you or if you can't have trouble with that, reach out to me and I'll put you in contact with the the the the good general. And I'm really excited about the potential option to have, you know, if other churches are interested and they you know, they want to if if the Lord would put something together. Um I have a group of pastors down here, the mid-Atlantic guys, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
SPEAKER_02Boy, that would be a and anybody we want to get a group of them together so they could see what the ministry's like and then go back and decide whether they want to bring their church to right.
SPEAKER_03That's that's what I'm thinking, man. So yeah, I'm gonna send this out to them, send this info out to them, and of course, our dear brother Dan Schunk out in Chambersburg, where there are also bullets, uh bullet holes uh in the buildings. Yeah, yeah. So I he'd probably be interested too now that I think about it. So and he's not too far down the road
Ghost Tours, Respect, And Real Spiritual Danger
SPEAKER_03from Gettysburg.
SPEAKER_02So he uh he was asking me a question about the uh ghost tours. Not that he wanted to go on them, don't he?
SPEAKER_03Holy ghost tour.
SPEAKER_02He was, you know, he was he was curious as to if I ever had heard of actually something's happening, like the paranormal. Yeah, and I you know, I what I said was I said, you know, some of them have like gimmicks or they plan things, yeah. But at the same time, if you're messing around with the cult, you know what many happened, yeah, man.
SPEAKER_03Spiritual.
SPEAKER_02I find it from an historical perspective, I just find it disrespectful to what really happened.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. It's a it's a sacred place, man, just from what happened there, yeah, yeah. Uh I will tell you though, that fog that came through that was eerie. I was like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_02Was that in the morning when you were out of the filming?
SPEAKER_03Yes, and it was it was like a blanket of cloud that just hugged the ground, and I was like, what? And it was hot, it was uh it was like five, six feet high, and it was just eerie, man. I was like, this is just just the concept of I mean the battle.
The Cannonade That Shook Philadelphia
SPEAKER_03Tell me if I'm wrong, but couldn't didn't they hear some of the battle like all the way down through Virginia or North Carolina or something? Didn't they hear didn't they hear some of the boom?
SPEAKER_02Yes, what it was is that before Pickett's charge, you had this big cannonade. In other words, Lee wanted to soften up the Union line. So he had there was 150 Confederate cannons from Long Street was supposed to do that, right? Long Street was supposed to be aimed at the center of the Union line to soften it up, and then there were a number, another 122 Union cannons responding to them. And it went on. There's different thoughts. Some say some historians say it went on for an hour, others say an hour and a half, some say up to two hours. But it usually a cannonade would last maybe at most 20 to 25 minutes. But this certainly was a longer one. And the actually the they knew exactly when the first cannon shot was fired, you know, that started the barrage. And it was at 107 p.m. on July the 3rd, 1863. The reason they knew it was because in the Gettysburg College, what was it called? The University of Pennsylvania at the time. Yeah, I'm a martyr. I'm sorry, not University of Pennsylvania. Was it Pennsylvania? It's now Gettysburg University. Oh, okay, okay, yeah. College of Pennsylvania, maybe? Yeah. Okay, right, right, right. Right. So he was doing experiments, you know, in his and he thought it was a thunderclap, but it was a the first shot of the cannonade. And so he was one of the ones that probably came up. He probably is getting probably the hour and a half that he estimated. That's what you hear most guys say was about an hour and a half. He probably tracked that to some point, you know. But yeah, they said when at the height of that cannonade, you could hear the you could hear the cannon sounds on the streets of Philadelphia. Wow. Now you could now just uh but 20 miles, 20, 25 miles to the west, you couldn't hear it. It's the way the topography and the winds were blowing that way. That's yeah, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow, man. That's deep. I mean, hey, I I absolutely love it, and I encourage everybody to check it out. Uh I'm telling it, it needs to be on like PBS or something, man, when you do it. You know, maybe not maybe I'll reach out to Jack Hibbs. He has a budget. We'll see if we can get Jack Hibbs' uh his his people to come out and film it or something, man. There you go. That would be awesome. So anyway, thank you, General General Whitehead. We look forward to getting reports back. And if we can make it to Gettysburg, maybe we'll report live from Gettysburg. But yeah, and if and if we can't, we'll we'll see if we can get back reports back from uh from you and Roy and see
Links, Next Steps, And Closing Blessing
SPEAKER_03how things are going and keep everybody up to speed here. Okay. So thank you so much. All the links will be in the show notes. And uh God bless you, sir. You too, Ted. Thank you very much. All right, man. God bless.
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