 Cavalcade of America, starring Dick Powell. It's a hopeful man. With a mighty dream. In a living land. The unconquerous dream. It's for people. Good evening, everyone. This is Ted Pearson welcoming you to another series of the Cavalcade of America, our 14th season. In bringing to the air once again the story of America, and the men and women who have made its glorious cavalcade, the DuPont Company hopes you'll enjoy our plays, our stars from Hollywood and Broadway, and the stories of chemistry we present on each program. We're all of us glad to be back with you again. Cavalcade of America, Gettysburg, told by Dick Powell. This is the story of what happened during a day of great crisis in American history, the Battle of Gettysburg. It is not the story of Gettysburg told through the eyes of generals and statesmen, but through the hearts of six very human and very ordinary people who were there. Men, women, and two little boys. Midnight, the beginning of July 3rd, 1863. As that clock strikes, we're moving in space to one specific spot on this continent. A sleety Pennsylvania town of 2,000 people. But on this certain July 3rd, 200,000 people are packed in and around this town. They're going to pound out a passage of history, but will last as long as there are men to write and children to read. July 3rd, the first minute of the day. Mrs. Broadhead, or Mrs. Broadhead? Sally, Robin's Broadhead? Yes. Asleep? Yes. Well, don't get up. You don't have to start your day yet. But for the record, we want to place you. My name is Sally, Robin's Broadhead. This is our home. We live on the Chambersburg Pike. Married? My husband's right here. My baby sleeps in the crib in the corner over there. You have to sleep yourself. Oh, so much to do today. Bread to bake, baby's wash. Sleep on. You'll be fully awake soon enough. John Dooley, John Dooley. I'm from Virginia. Visit for the day, you might say. Maybe if I have time tomorrow, I'm going to hunt up a girl I saw in town. Now I want to go to sleep. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. Excuse me. Sleep while you can, John Dooley. Tomorrow is here. Billy Bailey. Oh, Billy Bailey. Bill. What do you want? Are they coming? Are they? Are they? No, not yet. Calm down, Billy, and go back to sleep. What is coming? You can't stop. Harm and luck. If my paw wasn't a farmer, and if his farm wasn't smack in the middle of things, I wouldn't be smack in the middle of things either. Go to sleep, Billy. Frank Arteas Haskell. Frank Arteas. Yes, I'm awake. Just standing out here on a hilltop enjoying the night. Won't be so quiet in a few hours. Glad the men could sleep. Strange feelings standing alone here. Thousands of men sleeping on the slopes below. Where are you from? I was born in Vermont. Studied at Dartmouth in New Hampshire. Then I practiced law out west in Madison, Wisconsin. Now? Now I'm with the 2nd Division. Aged to camp at General Gibbon. You know, we've been waiting so many days for this to get started, but... But now it's a relief. It's a relief to have these accidents at the time and place established that a battle is going on. Tomorrow is the second day of that battle. You better get some sleep, Haskell. I can't put my mind to rest. Oh, excuse me. I see the general's light just turned on that farmhouse over there. So if you'll excuse me, please. Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Lieutenant Colonel in Her Majesty's Cold Stream Guards. Sir Arthur. Colonel. Oh, I said, you mind not now. I'm really not involved, really. Only a military observer, so if you don't mind, old man... You understand a little bit. Cornelia Hancock? Or Miss Hancock? I'm Cornelia Hancock. The nurse. I only arrived from Baltimore right this minute. The driver was drunk. He dumped me in the dark. And I know I have to start right in. I'm the very first nurse to arrive. Well, it's none too soon. But I didn't expect to be the only nurse in the whole Northern Army. A hundred thousand men and only one nurse. There were a hundred thousand men, but there's been two days fighting already. Now there are eighty thousand. That's what I mean. When stepping up... And even in the dark I could see the wounded lying and waiting. Nurse Hancock, those lights in the woods are ambulance stations. They're working all night. They need you. Walk over to them now. I don't know how I could ever stand... Just do one thing first, one little thing. Pick up something, give a man some water. Then do another, then another. And in ten minutes you'll be indispensable. Thank you. You've helped me to collect myself. When the daylight comes and the wounded can see my face, I should like to be very collected. You will be. Believe me, I know what's going to happen. Goodbye, sir. Goodbye, Cornelia. It's good that you're at Gettysburg. Sally Robbins Broadhead, housewife. No librarian will ever catalog your name under history. But even this minute you're sleeping at Gettysburg. And so you, Sally Broadhead, you're part of history. John Dooley, you handsome aristocratic southern lad dreaming of a girl. Do you know that students at West Point will be studying about this day for a hundred years to come? But they'll not be concerned about a Confederate soldier named John Dooley. Billy Bailey, farmer's boy, age 13. Something tells me that the world's generals won't look to you for a lesson of today. But I will, Billy. Lawyer Haskell, aide-de-camp for the Federals. There are the James Lyon Fremantle, military observer with the Confederates. Cornelia Hancock, nurse. Someday a nation will think it knows this day. But it won't ever mark your names and monument. Still here you all are. You're real. You're alive. Each of you will live out this day, July 3rd, 1863, at a place of battle in American history. July 3rd, 1863, Gettysburg. A mist lies in the valley blurring the Emmitsburg Road into one soft gray, shrouding the peat orchard to a darker gray. It blots away that ripened wheat field over there, but not the hills. And look, Cemetery Ridge cuts a clear edge. Round top is harsh against the early sky. On those heights there, the Federals have been driven back. Now their blue lines are fixed. From round tops straight along Cemetery Ridge, like the shank of a two-mile fish hook, and then curving back around Cemetery Hill to Culp's Hill. Two stones throw to the north of here lies Gettysburg, and three miles beyond Gettysburg, you can barely see the Bailey Farm in the early light. Two southern officers are sleeping in this northern farmhouse. Down the corridor to their door, creep Billy Bailey and his brother. Don't you come tagging along. If you're going to shoot them, I want to see. Are you? They're confederates, ain't they? Sleeping right in our house? First we got to open the door. Look at their pistols hanging right over the chair. I'm going to take one and get me that Johnny Redd. You get the other one. Me? Oh, there are two pistols, ain't there? Uh, I'll count three. Go ahead, take the pistols. One. What happens if you open the side? He won't. Two more. Billy, what are you doing? Now get right out of there. Boys, how could you ever... What's come over you? What's this ward doing, even the children? July 3rd, 1863, Gettysburg. Not a sound of a gun or a musket is heard on all the field. Skies look bright. Only the white, fleecy clouds floating over from the west. Sun beats down. Soldiers laugh and long for the shade. Silence and saltiness at noon. Flies buzz, generals wrangle. Sally Robbins' broad head has started her baby's wife by now. Cornelia Hancock is in the midst of her 23rd amputation. The British military observer sent to Gettysburg Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Lieutenant Colonel in her Majesty's Coldstream Guards has climbed a tree on Cemetery Ridge. On the same limb sits Captain Shriver, the Prussian military observer. Captain Shriver, do you observe any movement? No, not a northern soldier in sight. How do you explain this, silent? You find me, sir, as perplexed as yourself. I must say General Lee seems most awfully calm. Can you see him now? Look right straight down through the branches below it. There, see him? Yeah, extraordinary. General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate forces, is sitting on a stump and whittling. I think we should most certainly include that in our respective reports. What, that an American general knows how to whittle? Rather, sir, that the American temperament when it finds itself in a crisis may be inclined to squat and whittle. Do you perceive my inference? From this he does not follow that the American, while so engaged, will passively permit any destructive element to bluster up behind him and take away any of his liberties. You're listening to Gettysburg, starring Dick Powell on The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the depart company. Makers of better things for better living through chemistry. This is a story of what happened at the Battle of Gettysburg. Told not in terms of generals and statesmen, but of six very human, very ordinary people who were there. Two little boys, a lawyer, put soldiers, a nurse and a housewife. You, Sally Robbins Broadhead, it's good you got up early to do the baby's wife. You might as well bake a pan of shortcake, too. There'll be time. From ten until one o'clock this afternoon, everything will be amazingly quiet. But when one o'clock comes, get your baby and husband down in the cellar and get them down there fast, because four hundred artillery pieces will open up. General Lee will stop whittling, and General Mead will put out his cigar. How's today, Sally? A lot of the neighbors high-tailed it for sale. They're there, baby. We're safe in our cellar, Harold. Why don't you snap some of these beans and keep your fingers busy? That's why I brought them down here. After all, you planted them. Oh, listen to that. I pray to God it will mean something. I pray to him for all the world outside our cellar. What it is like. I am unable to think on it. Lawyer Haskell. Lawyer Haskell. Yes, what is it? What's the world like up there on cemetery ridge? Who can describe such a conflict? Thunder and lightning of hundreds of guns. Smoke completely blackening the sky. Incessant sounds, hail stones exploding fire. Tell us of the men. The guns are great and furious demons, none of this earth. The gaping mouths blaze with smoky tongues of living fire. The smoke of hell. Projectiles shriek long and sharp. They hiss. They scream. They growl. They sputter. All sounds of life and rage. Tell us of the men. Hell swoops down among the battery horses standing there apart. Half-dozen horses start. They stumble. They fall. The lake stiffens. Haskell. Tell us of the men. Men. Men don't budge an inch until they're blown there. Cemetery ridge. The tree again with its foreign military observers. Witness a longer cannonade. Never, sir. Here we are in the top of the tree and not the soul can be seen moving on these fields. Only the forces gallop without their riders. Take your glass. You will note over there in the hollow of that field under those apple trees. General Pickett infantry waiting to start a charge. And yet look. Look what they do as they wait. They seem to be pelting each other with very small green apple. What a fine spot this is to observe what is in store. I wouldn't miss it for anything. I would give anything to miss it. John Dooley, you young Virginia blood. The Englishman was looking at you down there with an apple in your hand. Might as well lie on your back, John, and tell your friend of the girl you saw. Talk, boy. Talk to this girl. Because when the cannonade stops and the silence falls, then the bugles will blow charge. You'll start your walk up to Cemetery Ridge. And you won't walk down again. You know how, when I faced my first fight two years ago, I thought I'm only scared because I'm beginning. Me too, Johnny. I thought the more I fought, the less scared I'd be. Yeah, works just the opposite. Sure, I wasn't half scared in the Second Battle of Manassas as there was an anteater. And I wasn't a scared ass. I was at Fredericksburg, a chancellors' village. Me too. And now, whew. You know, in Chambersburg last month, I saw a bad-foot girl. I just can't shake her loose from my head. Was she pretty? Oh, pretty and a peach orchard full out. But it wasn't just because she was pretty. Oh, you think I'm gone, Tracy, but this is what I can't get out of my mind. The simple way she walked all barefoot and silk. Moving along so beautiful. So what'd you do? Well, I'm not telling you what I did. I'm trying to tell you how I felt. That's what I can't figure out. That's why I'm going back and trying to see her again. Try to puzzle out why I felt so far. Basin, it's quiet. Yeah, quiet we've been waiting for. So what'd you feel for her? Well, I'll tell you when we're finished. As big as butler. To charge. We gotta go. The supreme moment at Gettysburg has come. The Confederates advance. Not a shot is fired. The first line is followed by the second, and that at third succeeds. And columns between them support the lines. The arms of 15,000 men barrel and bend at gleam in the sun. A sloping forest of flashing steel. Right on they move. Loyer Haskell, are you ready on the heights of Gettysburg? And cemetery heights all as orderly and quiet, sir. The Federals wait. They need no commands. The survivors of a dozen battles know well enough what this array in front portends. This is the beginning of the end. This is it. This is the end of Gettysburg. And it's midnight. It's cool again and quiet and dark. And today is now yesterday. The battle is over. Almost everyone sleeps. Some will sleep longer than others. This is Broadhead. Sally Robbins Broadhead. Yeah? Today is over. What does it mean to you? I'm behind in the baby wash. Is that what you mean? Never mind. It wasn't a fair question to ask now. A question like that needs time and perspective. Lily Bailey? Well, you're asleep with a smile on your face. Why? Oh, wounded Southern boys asleep in the next bed. That's why. He's only 14. He came knocking at the door and wanted to be took in. So you took him in? Sure. You're not going to kill him? No, that's all over now. When he gets well, he's going to stay and play with us. Good sleep to you, Bill. Askel, you awake still on that hill at Gettysburg? Yeah, riding my brother on Michigan. Not really riding him, you know. Riding it more for myself. Mind if I read it? No, go ahead. Already nature's mysterious loom is at work. Joining and weaving on her ceaseless web, but the shells have broken here. Another spring shall green these trampled slopes. Another autumn and the yellow harvest shall ripen here. And a higher perfection for this poured-out blood. And then tradition shall glean on this field and hand on her terrible sheath. That sound too much to you? No, it's not too much. John Dooley. John, where are you? Why don't you answer? John? John Dooley is gone. Cornelia Hancock. Nurse Hancock, are you there? I've been working every minute since you left me early this morning. What do you make of today? How can I answer? I haven't had a minute to think for 24 hours. If you'd seen the man... Well, think now. What meaning is there to Gettysburg? Ask the day. Maybe they know. No, nurse Hancock. I have a feeling it will come from the living. And once it comes, as it will, when a tall, gaunt president shall dedicate Gettysburg to all mankind, the meaning of this day, this struggle, will live with the living forever. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the great task remaining before us, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The audience joins the audience in a theater tonight in applauding Dick Powell and our cast for their performance in Gettysburg on the DuPont's Cavalcade of America. Dick Powell will return in just a moment. Tonight's Cavalcade star who's winning new products for his performance is star of Pitfall, produced by Samuel Bischoff and released by a United artist. Mr. Powell, it was a pleasure to be on the Cavalcade opener for the new season. I want to wish this fine series lots of luck. There's some very exciting stories ahead for Cavalcade listeners and the host of stars, Robert Montgomery, Anita Louise, Walter Pigeon, Faye Bainter and the Cavalcade star of next Monday night, Mr. Lorraine Day. The story, the proud way, a romantic drama of a young girl, Marina Howell and the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. So join Cavalcade, won't you, each and every Monday night this season. Now, good night and thank you. Tonight's Cavalcade drama was based on the book Gettysburg by Earl Skank Myers and Richard Brown, published by the Rutgers University Press and was adapted for radio by Halstead Wells. The DuPont Cavalcade of America is directed by Jack Zoller, music composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Breyer. This is Ted Pearson, inviting you to listen next week to The Proud Way with Cavalcade star Lorraine Day. Cavalcade of America is presented each week from the stage of the Longacre Theatre on Broadway in New York and is brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware.