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Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in to episode number 314 of our Civil War Podcast. I'm

Rich. And once again, I'll be flying solo since Tracy is AWOL. Just kidding. She's actually

in Arkansas with the rest of her family to celebrate her dad's 80th birthday. And yeah,

I'm here in Colorado holding down the fort. And since we wanted to keep the story moving

forward toward the morning of July 1st, 1863, I'll be handling the recording duties by

myself this weekend. All right, for those of you still listening, we have, in my humble

opinion, some really interesting stuff to cover in this show. And this show will be the

last of the Gettysburg campaign episodes. If you've noticed, we decided to split up the

story arc into four parts, the campaign, the battle, the retreat, and the Gettysburg

address. So yes, this show will be the Gettysburg campaign, part the 18th. And the next episode

will be the Battle of Gettysburg part the first. Obviously, we weren't kidding when

we said we will probably spend nearly a year on this entire story arc. We've always anticipated

that Gettysburg would be kind of the crown jewel of the podcast. And now that we're here,

we want to do it justice. You know, long after we're done with this project, we hope people

will still be listening to these episodes and going, wow, cool. Okay, well, to get back to

the story, as you guys were recall, at the end of the last show, it was June 28th and 47-year-old,

Major General George Gordon Mead had just received an order to take command of the army of the

Potomac. And it was an order. Mead was not asked if he wanted the command. Three or four other

generals had previously been sounded out about taking the top spot and had already turned it down.

So now, in the middle of the campaign, at a moment of crisis, once Abraham Lincoln decided to

change commanders, there was no asking. The orders were cut, relieving hookers, commander of the

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