Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode 346 of our Civil War Podcast.

I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy.

Hello y'all.

Welcome to the podcast.

As you guys will recall, we used the last show to talk about one of the most controversial

aspects of the Battle of Gettysburg.

That is Dan Sickles taking it upon himself to move the third corps forward to a new line

there at the left end or southern end of the Federal position on the second day of the

Battle.

From the beginning, Dan Sickles seems to have been deeply unhappy with the position that

Army Commander George Mead had assigned to the third corps.

That morning, when orders from Army headquarters directed him to relieve the troops of Geary's

12th Corps Division, who were being moved to the northern end of the Union line, Sickles

grumbled that he didn't know what position the third corps was supposed to hold because

Geary's troops had occupied a Bivouac area and not held any specific point.

However, despite his grumbling that morning and despite later evidence to the contrary,

Sickles, for the next 50 years, would maintain that in spite of his best efforts on July

2nd to obtain specific orders for the third corps, he never received any definite instructions

about the line that Mead expected him to hold.

This dear listeners is pure bollhagi.

When Field Scott Hancock commanding the second corps, new of Sickles orders since the

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