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What the heck?
Previously I've understood the topic to the point where I've asked well-formulated questions. Okay, maybe I'm overstating both my understanding and how well-formulated they were, but at least I was able to bring it to one query worthy of discussion. With Gettysburg I've got nothing but questions:
Did Lee even need to cross the Potomac?
If Lee hadn't given battle at Gettysburg, would his campaign have been more successful?
How large of a change would you need to make to get the South to win the battle? I can think of a couple that may or may not have done it.
If the South had won the battle, what could Lee have further accomplished? Would it be enough to tip the war?
I'm going to pull this one out because I'd like to explain it a bit further, but why did anyone think Pickett's charge was a good idea? Napoleon said you can do anything with a bayonet. By the time the Battle of the Somme rolled around, that was no longer a viable idea. Reading about Pickett's charge, it seemed to me that weapons had improved too far to charge like that, but the generals hadn't quite caught up. What did they model Pickett's charge on?
No, seriously, what the heck?
Discussion (52)
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What do you get when you cross a rhinoceros and an elephant? Elifino!
It has certainly been the cause of much speculation in the past. Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore was probably one of the first of those.
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I visited the site of Pickett's charge on a spring day in 2005. Even in the fresh morning air, it was a steep enough hillside to put me out of breath. The thought of charging up that hill wearing combat gear and then engaging in bayonet battle is incomprehensible.
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It was probably a bad idea. It caused Northerners to rally to the defense of their land against an invader. Even if Lee had won at Gettysburg, that would have likely increased Northern determination to defeat Lee, not lessen it. The longer he stayed in the North, the more the North would mobilize against him, including the informal-type militias that plagued Northern armies in the South.
The South's best chance after Chancellorsville was to continue to patiently conduct a defensive war and hope the North eventually got tired of it and quit. An outright defeat of the North was simply impossible.
Longstreet advised Lee, after the first day, to slip away to the east and get between Meade and Washington and force Meade to attack him. Longstreet was perceptive enough to know that the state of technology and tactics in 1863 was such that the defense had a great advantage.
Lee said that he had simply become overconfident after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and thought his infantry could prevail in virtually any situation. Lee was a great man who could admit his mistakes and learn from them. He didn't make this mistake again the rest of the war.
Longstreet had caught on, but Lee hadn't.
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As the firepower of small arms increased, the bayonet's importance decreased, and the bayonet became shorter in proportion to the increased firepower. My first job in the Army Guard was Company Armorer. Our standard issue arm at the time was the M14, but I had a single, five - round magazine Winchester 1200 shotgun in my vault, and it came with a bayonet. I don't remember the dimension, but the bayonet was hilariously long when compared to the M14's with their 20-round magazines. But throughout the Civil War, the single - shot "musket" was the primary infantry arm. So bayonets were still significant. Looking it up, the last actual bayonet charge by an American unit was in 1951, in the Korean war. Still, certainly in hindsight at least, Longstreet was right.
I think Lee's order for Pickett's charge was based on the best information he had at the time. Much was wrong of course. Meade had not weakened his center to reinforce his flanks after the Confederate attack on the south end, at Little Roundtop. Then there was the mistaken belief that the Confederate cannonade had rendered ineffective the Union artillery. It had not. Pickett's bayonet attack had to cross 3/4 mile of open ground. That's 3/4 mile of cannon fodder.
Lee would have had much better intelligence had his cavalry, under J.E.B. Stuart been there, but he wasn't. If Stuart had made it back, Lee may very well have overrun the Union army. I think it's very likely that, had that happened, Washington itself would have been threatened enough to force the Union Armies to withdraw in order to protect the capital. That was Lee's plan in the first place. In other words, many little things could have changed the course of history.
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In my opinion there were 2 opportunities to win at Gettysburg,
On the first day, AP Hill did not fully appreciate the opportunities afforded by the ground south of town ... the ground eventually occupied by the Union. His division faced determined resistance from a Union cavalry brigade armed with breech-loading rifles. The Union forces were well armed and well led, but Hill had more than enough numbers to overwhelm them if the initial attack was pressed hard from the outset. But Hill thought he was facing only some Union militia and oddments of cavalry which he'd quickly brush aside. When Hill's men encountered the Union picket line, it took the better part of an hour for his leading regiments to shake out of column on the road into battle lines out in the fields northwest of town. It was an hour he'd wish to have back. Lee's Army in general showed a lack of initiative on Day 1 of Gettysburg, probably caused by their missing Stonewall Jackson. If Lee had managed to put his Army on the hills south of Gettysburg the whole battle could have played out in reverse, with long lines of blue infantry charging Confederates on the heights.
On Day 2, Longstreet was in a snit. He had made a determined plea to Lee the night before to slip the Army away from Gettysburg to the south and east and find a nice piece of ground between the Union Army and Washington. But Lee wasn't having it. Longstreet's STRATEGIC movement to the right was declined. When on day 2, his forces were finally deployed for what became the attack on Little Round Top, Devil's Den & The Peach Orchard, his right-most regiments reported back that they could see into the enemy's rear ... that the supply trains were in plain view. They urged Longstreet to amend his orders and TACTICALLY move his forces a bit farther right to take the enemy in the rear. But as I said, Longstreet was in a snit. Lee had said no moving farther right so not one foot further it would be. But it's possible that if that attack had hit the North's rear instead of their flank it might have rolled up the entire Union Army.
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