From the June 28, 2018, ListVerse "10 coincidences that helped shape US history" by Christopher Dale.
As brutal and impassioned as the Civil War was, historians like Shelby Foote know that the South's chances of surviving were never very good. There was just too much arrayed against them.
One of the rare chances the Confederacy had was at the battle of Gettysburg. A victory there could very well reverse their fortunes. That spot on the second day was at the confrontation at the Little Round Top. If the Confederates had taken this strategically important hill, they could have turned the Union flank and imperiled the whole Union line on Cemetery Ridge.
Many know about Union Col. Joshua Chamberlain's desperate bayonet charge as his 20th Maine attacked the Confederates as they ran out of ammunition. This caught the Confederates by surprise and many surrendered while others dropped back quickly toward a wall to regroup.
As fortune had it for the Union, that very wall was being also held by a group of 40 Union soldiers under Captain Walter Morrill, who had been cut off from Chamberlain's lines hours earlier. They had been hiding there so well that even Chamberlain did not know about them.
They let loose a volley on the surprised Confederates , killing many and causing the others to either surrender or flee.
The hidden heroes of Little Round Top had saved the day and perhaps even the Union cause.
--Old Secesh
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