Happy birthday to John Gibbon, the artillery officer who molded the famed Iron Brigade and served at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg (where he helped repel Pickett’s Charge). Even more courageously, he once withstood a historically CRINGEWORTHY joke from Abe Lincoln …

Lincoln was inspecting the Army of the Potomac early in the war (probably making sure McClellan hadn’t let it go stale). When he was introduced to Gibbon, Abe frowned at the name and said: “Is this the man who wrote ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?’”
#Crickets

Don’t get the joke? Don’t worry! The only people who reference “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” these days are conservative pundits straining for metaphors to describe America’s moral collapse -- without realizing the book blames Rome’s fall on Christianity! #Oops #LOL

See, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was written by famed historian EDWARD Gibbon. Get it? Gibbon/Gibbon? (Sigh) Yeah, nobody in the Civil War did, either. So Abe said: “Never mind, General, if you will write the decline and fall of this rebellion, I will let you off.”

A thoroughly confused Gibbon threw himself on the Comedy Grenade, saying: “Why, Mr. President, the only book I ever did write -- the Artillerist’s Manual -- the War Department refused to subscribe to.” And Lincoln burst out laughing -- cuz he loved to hate his own cabinet.

“I shall have to tell Stanton to give you another hearing,” Lincoln said, then pivoted into Much Safer Comedic Territory: a folksy story about two guys walking down a road that segued into an obscure Shakespeare reference.

Hey, that’s what I want in MY Lincoln Netflix special.

OK, one more John Gibbon anecdote: Although not a corps commander, Meade invited him to the famous Gettysburg Council of War on the second night (Meade knew the 2nd corps, which Gibbon belonged to, would be hit hard the next day, and probably wanted him there to weigh in) …

“I had never been a member of a council of war before,” Gibbon wrote, “and did not feel very confident that I was properly a member of this one.” At least the question at hand (“Should we fight it out at Gettysburg?”) wouldn’t seal the fate of a country and a people. No pressure!

And in a hilarious twist of fate, military custom dictated the junior officer got to vote first! Since an exhausted Gouverneur Warren was asleep, that made Gibbon the junior officer present. Slowly, all the famous faces (Hancock, Meade, Sedgwick, Howard, etc.) turned to Gibbon …

So whaddya think, young Gibbon, son of a North Carolina slave owner, whose brothers fight for the Rebs?

“Remain here,” he said “and make such corrections in our position as may be deemed necessary but take no step which even looks like retreat.”

Ladies and gents: John Gibbon.

After the officers agreed to stay and fight at Gettysburg, Meade called Gibbon over and famously predicted: “If Lee attacks tomorrow, it will be in YOUR FRONT.”

If I’m Gibbon, I reply: “Honestly, general, I wish you would have told me that BEFORE I’d voted …”