In Search of Sharpshooters On Video

September 17, 2020 • Leave a Comment

The following is a somewhat contemporaneous rumination of my participation in the movie “Gettysburg”, written one and a half years after the filming of this popular Civil War movie that was completed in the early Fall of 1992 (Released October 8, 1993). The cast of characters in the movie referenced to below were played by:
   Colonel Joshua Chamberlain: Jeff Daniels
   Lieutenant Tom Chamberlain: C. Thomas Howell
   Colonel Strong Vincent: Maxwell Caulfield
   Capt. Ellis Spear: Donal Logue
   Buster Killrain: Kevin Conway (recently passed on Feb. 5, 2020).
Note-Buster is the only Mythological Character in the Little Round Top scenes.
   First Assistant Director: Skip Cosper
   Neal: The class clown of our regiment, United States Sharpshooters (USSS)
   Roy: Roy Hodges
   Doug: Douglas Orr, aka, D. W. Orr Photography
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I can remember it as though it were yesterday. But it truly was as far ago as September 1992.........

Approximately 15 Sharpshooters from Connecticut, New York, and Maryland converge on a location a few miles west of the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park. For four days we break from camp at dawn and ride the "cattle car" over to the set. Getting ready for the next "film-shoot" with the invasion of the "goo-gals"; the "dust dollies"; to be followed by the gabby guy in the black jumpsuit who blackens our faces. Then you wait, and wait, and wait. We figure out ways to entertain ourselves as we form up and wait our call to the set. Thank goodness we have Neil on our side - the reincarnation of Jonathan Winters. On one particular morning: Look, who is that up there on the hill all by his lonesome and vulnerable to a USSS setup ?? Why it's the Little Round Top commander himself, Strong Vincent. What can we do to him ?? We know. "Hey you, Strong Vincent !!" He looks over to the men in green. The green guys in unison give Strong the secret sign and countersign of the USSS. Strong's body language and facial expression acknowledges that he's been had. We revel in our chicanery.

On Thursday the 17th we participate with the bluecoats in the mass Union firing at the rebels charging up Little Round Top. We are on the far right of the line and we all know there is little chance of being framed by the camera. None the less, it is refreshing to burn some powder. We do get closer to camera range when Chamberlain orders the line extended and the far left is refused. Our big moment comes on the morning of Saturday the 19th (henceforth to be known as the USSS Goes Up Scene). Only the Sharpshooters form in columns of four and march up a slight grade through the woods. Shell blasts go off left & right and up in the trees. We repeat this several times to get it right. In between takes one of the ladies from TNT blackens my frockcoat buttons.

In the afternoon, the call goes out to the USSS again. This time more physical demands are made of us. We must run single file and downhill through the woods as shell bursts go off (henceforth to be known as the USSS Goes Down Scene). We repeat this many times. Once, one of our members ran straight into a tree and "fall down and go boom". Neil recited the memorable "Ode to a Tree" to recognize the event. Each time we repeated the run, we waited many minutes as the commanders up front exchanged their spoken lines. We were never close enough to hear them. But alas, ISO of USSS on Video would disclose what we all fortunately missed - more on this later. To our chagrin, we repeated the downhill runs first thing the next morning on arrival at the set. Late in the day we do a brief fire fight in the woods - it turns out this is the only USSS effort that does not make it to celluloid/video.

Readers, I transcribed for you below the USSS scenes that made it into the final 4-1/2 hour movie and video versions of Gettysburg :

THE USSS GOES UP SCENE

The scene opens up with the Sharpshooters marching in columns of four up through the woods.

BOOM & SMOKE !!

Joshua Chamberlain -
"They are over-shooting again"

Unidentified soldier -
"Hey fellows, you notice how that Reb Artillery always overshoot."

BOOM & FLASH !!

J. Chamberlain -
"Tom..."

Tom Chamberlain -
"Yes sir."

J. Chamberlain -
"Yes. If another one a bit closer, it could be a hard day for mother. I want you to go back to the rear and watch out for the stragglers. Keep your distance from me."

T. Chamberlain -
"Lawrence, I, I, I .....

BOOM & FLASH !!

The camera pulls in closely to Tom. The individually recognizable Sharpshooters march behind Tom.

END OF USSS GOES UP SCENE.

THE USSS GOES DOWN SCENE:

The scene opens with the sub-title, Below the Summit. Ellis Spear, Joshua Chamberlain, and Strong Vincent appear on the screen from left to right and start the dialogue.

Vincent (excitedly) -
"The whole damn Reb Army is down there ... (puff of shell bursts appear around a view of South Mountain) ... and coming up around our flanks. They could be here any minute. (Pause - Vincent takes his hat off & on during this whole scene) Well, all right. I place you here. Put your colors here. Set your regiment to the left of this line. The rest of the brigade will form on your right. Understand ?"

Chamberlain responds soberly with unconcern and directs Spear-
"Yes Ellis, this is the point."

Ellis -
"Yes sir."

Vincent -
"Now your regiment is to the left of this point. Colonel sir, you are the end of the line."

Chamberlain (again low keyed) -
"Yes."

Vincent -
"You are the extreme left of the Union Army. Understand? The line runs all the way from here back to Cemetery Hill. But it ends here."

Chamberlain (ready now for NoDoze) -
"Understood."

Vincent -
"You cannot withdraw under any circumstances. If you go this line will be flanked. If you go, the enemy will sweep up over the hillside and take this entire Army from the rear. You must defend this place to the last." (Author's note: At this point in the dialogue I realize that I am no longer sorry for what the USSS contingent did to Vincent that morning prior to filming).

Chamberlain (with eyes as droopy as his mustache) -
"Yes sir".

Vincent cracks a sound with his glove. Chamberlain and him handshake.

Vincent -
"Now we will see how professors fight"

Chamberlain and Vincent exchange salutes and Vincent departs.

Chamberlain -
"Ellis, position the regiment. All company commanders here."

Ellis -
"Yes sir." (He now barks out the commands) "Sharpshooters to the left !! (Author's note: Oh my, movie goers now know who we are !!) Battalion on the right by files into line !! March !! "

BOOM DOWN-TREE !!! (This scene dramatically shows the top of a tree being blown off by the blast of a shell)

The scene now changes to Sharpshooters running downhill through the woods.

BOOM !!!

BOOM-FLASH !!! Roy & Doug run-away. (Author's note: I must confess that like a fanatical student of the Zapruder film, I have religiously studied this video frame at the precise moment of the flash. I am frozen in time to the left of the frame and Roy is to the right at the peak of the blast.

Ellis blares out -
"Bugler, sound the officers call."

BOOM!! Leaves fall on Ellis, Chamberlain, and Killrain. They all flinch. The bugler beckons and Chamberlain thinks.....

"Oh to the last. To the last what. Exercise in rhetoric. The last shell. The last man. The last foot aground. The last breath."

END OF USSS GOES DOWN SCENE

The image of blowing smoke and Skip Cosper's exhortation of "Rol-Ling --- Back-Ground --- AcK-TION" still lingers in my mind. I remember clearly Skip reminding the Union infantry during the 20th Maine bayonet charge scene: "Gentleman, remember where you died". On the way back to camp after a long day on the set, we are all grateful that as 20th century Civil War soldiers that we have the luxury to get up after taking a lethal hit.
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D W Orr
Environmentalist, Weimaraner/Dachshund Companion, Photographer, and Poet-Provocateur
Harford County, Maryland,
Here, where it all began, 251 years ago, in the USA

September 17, 2020

Screenshot The USSS Goes Up Scene