New Jersey at Gettysburg

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

NJ at GettysburgThis year is the Battle of Gettysburg’s 150th anniversary, Save Jerseyans. The epic 3-day battle remains the largest land battle in the history of North America, a carnival of carnage played out in the picturesque countryside of Southeastern Pennsylvania, but just in case you weren’t aware, soldiers from all over the United States and Confederacy were present… including New Jersey.

On July 2, 1862, New Jersey’s First Brigade defended the area around the Weickert farmhouse located just north of Little Round Top; Civil War buffs know that Little Round Top is where Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine regiment famously held off a brutal Southern attempt to flank the Union’s lines. The New Jerseyan veterans were so proud of their contributions that they subsequently returned to buy the farm and erect a monument (see above).

It’s hard to understate what happened on July 2nd. Had Lawrence’s regiment failed to hold, Robert E. Lee might’ve successfully rolled up the Union line, triumphed at Gettysburg and pushed on to Washington, D.C. It was quite literally a day that changed world history! And men from the Garden State played a crucial role. Never let anyone forget it.

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8405 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

5 Comments

  1. @Scott What does the Battle of Gettysburg have to do with Agenda 21? Good God. You people find a way to work it into every conversation!

  2. Well what the hell do you think, Matt? You can wave your little flag on July 4th to commemorate the founding of a once great republic that was the freest place on earth but what does it mean if those principles have been abandoned? If Agenda 21 is a set of policies that we (and 171 other countries) follow to bring about "Sustainable Development" and is predicated on the spread of communism, what impact does that have on meaning of the July 4th holiday. I would say that renders it meaningless, doesn't it? Look, you want to celebrate a holiday that was created around the philosophies and actions of our Framers when the beliefs of our current leaders bear little or no relation to that of our forefathers, go ahead…it just seems stupid and vacuous like paying homage to a vapor. The bond between country and citizen has to be reaffirmed every day. The country reaffirms to you that you live in a country that is capitalist, where you have certain unalienable rights given to you by your Creator and many more "man-created" rights, that there is a central government of limited power and that you are living in a Republic with state sovereignty. The citizen affirms back that he will be law abiding, self sufficient, tax paying, faithful to the ideals on which his country was founded and ready to lay down his life in his country's defense. It is a relationship that must be reaffirmed everyday by both country and citizen and when one stops, so does the other. Remembering Civil War heroes of the Union is fine UNTIL the government founded by the Confederacy is found to be a closer embodiment of our founding principles than what we have now. I don't know why I am wasting my time typing this with one finger to you, I'm sure I lost you a long time ago.

  3. Oh and Matt, I am going to suggest that it is much more important to write angry letters to that piece of garbage, RINO, Chiesa (who voted for amnesty) than it is to remember Union soldiers that died 150 years ago. The former might actually produce a result, the latter not so much.

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