Gettysburg Remembered

Yesterday, CBS Sunday Morning marked the 135th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg by visiting the battlefield with author Jeff Shaara, whose novel, The Last Full Measure, encapsulates the pivotal Civil War battle. CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen files this report.

Gettysburg is a haunted place. It is hallowed ground, where 135 years ago blood drenched the amber waves of grain. American blood, from the men and boys of two great armies, where in just three days, 10,000 Americans were killed and the history of the world was changed.

Nearly two million visitors are drawn to these fields each year to see where the Union and Confederate armies clashed, where General Robert E. Lee and his army of the South were defeated in what became the turning point of the Civil War.

Jeff's father was Michael Shaara, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Killer Angels," a novel he wrote a quarter of a century ago about the Battle of Gettysburg. It was after his father's death that Jeff Shaara realized his own passion for the subject. Having never written anything before, not even a magazine article, he turned out two best selling novels, "Gods and Generals," and now "The Last Full Measure," the completion of a father/son trilogy his father will never know.

Drawing on their letters and other historical documents, Shaara tells the story of the war's end through the eyes of the men who fought it: General Lee, his enemy the newly appointed Union General Ulysses S. Grant, and a little known Union hero, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of Maine.

At the time, President Lincoln appointed Grant to head the Union army and end the war. In Grant, Lincoln saw a hardened leader who understood, as he did, what was at stake.

As Shaara puts it, President Lincoln asked Grant to "consider what we are fighting for here. This has never been done before. The system we are fighting for exists nowhere else: the Constitution of the United States. If we win, we will have proven that it works. If we lose this war, this system may never happen again."

For nearly two more lng, bloody years, Grant chased and Lee maneuvered. In the end, the army of the South simply ran out of room to maneuver and men to fight. Surrender came at a place called Appomatox.

"Lee comes to Appomatox knowing his army is defeated, knowing there is no point in killing any more men, that nothing will be gained." Shaara continues. "The dignity of Lee is very apparent to Grant. Grant is almost embarrassed. He feels like a boy in the presence of a magnificent father, and the thing that Grant says after this fact is, 'I may have defeated his army but we have not defeated him.'"

Grant chose Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of Maine, now a General, to accept the surrender of Lee's army. Chamberlain was one of the heroes at Gettysburg. His men routed the rebels at Little Round Top during a furious bayonet charge. Now, the former college professor turned warrior had been given a rare honor.

Chamberlain was chosen because he had had the experience of seeing those who came at him with bayonets now as they came marching up the road, defeated. Chamberlain understood that they were not the enemy. They were Americans, brothers. Chamberlain knew that this was where the healing began, and he ordered his division to salute the troops. The soldiers obeyed. It was not an act of vengeance nor of mockery. This was soldier honoring soldier.

It all came back to Gettysburg, the beautiful place with the terrible names. Devils Den. The Valley of Death. Cemetery Ridge. And all those monuments. New York's Tammany regiment fought here. This was where Confederate General Louis Armisted fell.

We know the North won that day. But what if? Shaara believes that had the South prevailed after Gettysburg we would probably be many more than two nations.

"But if you think of the Confederacy," Shaara says, "the very thing many of them were fighting for was independence. And so very likely the South would be Europe today. You would have the Kingdom of Alabama, and the Republic of Georgia, and the Grand Duchy of North Carolina."

"I'm not an especially mystical person. My father did not raise me to be a deeply religious man," Shaara comments. "And yet, when you walk this ground you can't help but feel that something very important happened here. This is our Holy Land. I mean this is where Americans need to come, and walk, and look. And it doesn't matter if you're from the North or the South or if you know anything about the Civil War. You come here and you will get something from this. It's a very, very special place."

"Abide with me," goes the old hymn that was carried on the breeze that hot July all those years ago. "In life, in death, Oh Lord, abide with me."

Produced by Curtis Grisham and David Kohn
Research by Lorie Kulikowski