Little Round Top: How Long did they fight?

[redeye]

I'm usually not fond of people who come to the boards asking question for their homework without bothering to research first, but I did research and did not find anything. Here it goes:

How long did the fighting at Little Round Top go on?

I'm helping a friend prepare a lecture about Gettysburg in front of a university class, and she will illustrate it with clips from the movie. We can't decide whether the fight at LRT is in real time, and so whether it's worth to use the whole clip or not.

Thank you, and don't laugh too much... notoriously horses can't count, and anyway, I think it's Oscar Wilde who says that the only questions worth asking are the obvious ones!

I think I'll be working on this thing all night, so there's a possibility that I drop by the chat room later...

PS Cool new features!

[blue_zouave]

Whoa, nice horsie!

I think it's a good question. How close is popular culture to the facts?

When I get home this evening, which will be midnightish for you, I'll look in a couple of books I have: Gettysburg, the Second Day and Trudeau's new Gettysburg book. The latter is so new to me that I haven't thrown away the cardboard carton it came in!

If course if anybody is closer to source material than I am, please beat me to the punch.

Zou

[sean_harris]

Hood did not reach his "step off" position till around 4 pm (Accounts vary, Oats says they stepped off around 3:30 or 4pm.
Considering time keeping its close enough) and from what I can gather did not begin the advance till possibly around 4:30-5pm. Considering the terrain and some words from Oates I would assume the 20 Maine "incident" did not occur till around 6-630pm. I had read the fighting had died down by around 8:30-9 PM that evening. I do not believe the "Gettysburg" clips give an accurate account when considering the time element. The battle was fought late in the day and lasted from what I have read around 4-5 hours (Heavy fighting) I got the "Step off" time from Harry W. Planz "Gettysburg, The Second Day" and other information from varioys sources such has Col. William Oates own account. Time keeping was almost always of question considering what was going on.

[hoosier]

Shelby Foote wrote the following about the actions of the Confederates after Oates' attack was repulsed by the 20th Maine.

"Near the base of the hill they rallied, being joined by the rest of Law's and Robertson's brigades, together with those of Anderson and Benning, who had succeeded by now in driving the Federals out of Devil's Den, capturing three guns in the process. Not that the fighting had abated; Sykes had brought up two of his divisions in support of Sickles, with the result that the odds were as long down here as they had been above. There on the lower slopes of Little Round Top the survivors began collecting rocks of all shapes and sizes, constructing a barricade to fight behind, and all the while the soldiers of both armies kept up a hot fire, banging away at whatever showed itself or perhaps at nothing at all. 'Both sides were whipped,' a Texas private explained afterward, 'and all were mad about it.'"

From this, it sounds as though fighting probably did go on just about as long as the light allowed, but I get the impression that there were no more concentrated assaults after Oates' repulse, which, I tend to agree with Sean, probably took place around 6:00 or 6:30.

[redeye]

Thanks, everybody. I did have the feeling that the real fight had to be much longer, so I edited it a little without qualms. Now, I should edit Pickett's Charge but I'm really too tired. I just watched the whole thing again and it's nearly dawn! This movie really is not bad...