Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Pickets Charge
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Message 1.Β
Posted by DukeofParis (U3951495) on Wednesday, 10th May 2006
What would have happened at Gettysburg if Pickets charge had not been ordered? Opinions and thoughts are appreciated.
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Message 2
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Wednesday, 10th May 2006
The Army of Northern Virginia would have withdrawn in good order. The war would have gone on for another two years, the North would have won.
But a couple of thousand rebels would have lived (at least for a while), and Pickett would have stayed friends with Lee. -
Message 3
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Thursday, 11th May 2006
C3Square, totally agree that one of the options would have been for the Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw. I'll have to think some more before venturing an opinion about other options, e.g. as to whether Longstreets proposed manouevre round the Federal left was still a possibility, first thoughts probably not.
As to the war lasting another two years, maybe not. A more pivotal event was happening a bit further west in my opinion at Vicksburg. (And Pickett would have stayed friends with everyone).
Cheers AA. -
Message 4
Posted by jesw1962 (U1726423) on Thursday, 11th May 2006
The differences between Longstreet and Lee reflect, IMO, the difference between a corps commander and an army commander. Lee had no eyes (His calvery). So he had no way of knowing where the union army was. While today we know a movement around the left of the Army of the Potomic and headed for Baltimore would have forced Meade to attack Lee on Lee's terms. But Lee didn't know that, thus the battle.
IMO the true losses at Gettysburg were the loss of excellent Division and Brigade Commanders. Every Brigade commander in Picket's Division was lost. Many of these people were never successfully replaced.
Also, Ewell was a total loss as a corps commander. He, IMO, more than anyone else lost Gettysburg. -
Message 5
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Thursday, 11th May 2006
If it hadnt have happened then. It would have happened later. Lee went north knowing that he needed a desicive victory to preserve the Confederacy. He had to attack, there couldnt be any question mark hanging over the campaign.
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Message 6
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Thursday, 11th May 2006
Sorry C3Square, om more careful rereading I see you mean that the war ends in 1865 anyway.
Whoops AA. -
Message 7
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th May 2006
There is excellent food for thought on this very what-if in a book entitled Gettysburg co-authored by Newt Gingrich and some less public writers. Keep in mind that Gingrich, before entering politics, taught military history. They walked the ground extensively, studied the characters of the commanders, and wrote a fictional what-if that is much more realistic than anything Turtledove has ever done. They also offer supplemental material that explains their reasoning.
The fact is, what Lee did at Gettysburg was very un-Lee-like. He usually gained his victories by manuvering to the high ground, digging in, and letting the Federals come to him. It is true that he went North to gain a decisive victory, but their is no reason to believe that he had to achieve it by being the attacker. Gettysburg happened where it did because Lee was blind and the battlefield was accidental, no chosen.
They have Lee listening to Longstreet, calming down, and pulling a characteristic Lee manuver by moving far to the left, taking high ground across a creek. By interposing himself between the federals and Baltimore-Washington, the federals would have been compelled to attack. What had denied Lee decisive victory prior was, while he would usually gain the day with bloody federal looses by taking the defensive, the federals would then break-off, with a bruised army still much greater than his own. Moving into the North could have forced that decisive victory he wanted even with him taking a defensive role if he placed himself in such a position (between the feds and Washington) that the political pressure on the union commander forced him to push the attack to the point of destroying the Army of the Patomac. I will not ruin the rest of you for you--it is a great read for those interested in the topic.
The problem is, Vicksburg fell simutaneously, which alone was a death blow for the Confederacy. Had she won either of those contests, but lost the other, she still would have been left with only the hope of a political victory (al la vietnam) in the 1964 election, which she would have gotten anyway but for the timely fall of Atlanta. A victory in Pennsylvannia might have actually hurt the chances of that by rallying the pro-war faction in the North--which is why Lee did not move North in '62 as urged by Jackson.
Kurt -
Message 8
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Friday, 12th May 2006
According to most civil war historians, Lee's movement into Pennsylvania was intended to be a raid, not an invasion. He was trying to force Meade into a pitched battle and of course, on ground of his own choosing....
But as noted above, Stuart's cavalry was off staging a wild series of raids in the vicinity of Hanover, Penna., and Lee had no eyes...he needed to know where Meade's army was if he was to choose the ground on which to fight, but he didn't. As a result, Gettysburg was a battle neither side really wanted nor had planned for. It began as a series of minor skirmishes that gradually grew into a full-scale battle as more and more units from both sides joined the fighting. That the Union managed to take the high ground was at least partly due to the failure on Ewell's part to attack them on Cemetery Ridge when he was ordered to by Lee. He could have been successful had he done so since the Union positions hadn't yet been established and fortified, but he didn't and Lee didn't press the issue.
It was a fight neither side intended to wage, but circumstances turned it into a battle that neither side could avoid.
Pickett's charge wasn't as hare-brained as it's been made to appear by historians. It was, at the time, the only real chance that the South had to dislodge the Union infantry and it actually came closer to succeeding than it ever should have. But it didn't, and Lee retreated back to Virginia.
I should probably note that while the Union believed it to be a victory of surpassing importance, Southerners, at the time, considered it a minor battle of no real significance to the overall conflict. Vicksburg was a catastrophe, and everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line knew it..... -
Message 9
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Friday, 12th May 2006
Kurt,
I may be misssing several points here. For example, what "Lee did at Gettyssburg was-un-Lee like".
That'll be Fredericksburg then. In which case his two Corps Commmanders Jackson and Longstreet chose the ground.
Eh?, AA. -
Message 10
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th May 2006
AA
Lee, with few exceptions, did not attack when the enemy had the good ground, and certainly not when he was expected to attack. He did at Malvern hill with unfortunate results. He would manuver to a desirable position and dig in, luring the Federals into disasterous head-on assaults. Gingrich, et al present an alternative scenario where he does just that in Pennsylvania.
Kurt -
Message 11
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th May 2006
Erik,
You surprise me! That is of course the Old Southern defense of Old Marse Robert, the one I heard from the old folks growing up. While it has been perfectly acceptable in the last generation to question Lee's generalship, if not his character, hearing this from one such as yourself makes me wonder if it isn't true!
It seems the more common view today is that Picketts charge was more than just a misjudgement, it was a gross misjudgement, usually attributed to the cognitive and emotional effects of a probable heart attack.
Kurt -
Message 12
Posted by craigd1973 (U2853338) on Friday, 12th May 2006
I have often heard that Lee was left blind by Stewarts wanderings. Was Stewarts cavalry the only cavalry in the whole army? Did each army corps not have it's own contingent of cavalry?
I always thought that an army corps was a balanced independent fighting force comprised of all units i.e. infantry, cavalry and artillery. If there was cavalry attached to each army corps shouldn't they have been acting as advanced guards scouting for the enemy and reporting any movements back to their corps commanders who in turn would advise Lee as the Commander in Chief? -
Message 13
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 12th May 2006
If I remember correctly, Lee's first contact with the federals was calvary so attatched. The however provided only local information about the presence of a particular unit. What Lee wanted and needed from Stuart was sweeping recconaisance of the entire region that would provide more comprehensive information about the location and movement of the Army of the Potomac, which was a gargantuan somewhat ameboid entity.
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Message 14
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Saturday, 13th May 2006
If memory serves, the first contact between the two armies was between Buford's Union cavalry and Harry Heath's division of Confederate infantry, part of A.P. Hill's corps. Buford's dismounted men were fighting hard, but they were badly outnumbered, and Union General Reynolds drove his infantry corps (including a number of crack riflemen known as the Iron Brigade) as rapidly as he could into action. Hill's whole corps started pouring into the fighting and the skirmish slowly developed into a full-scale battle. Lee hadn't wanted to fight there or then, but he was an opportunist. Most of Meade's army was heading for the battlefield, but only a small contingent was already there, and Lee had them seriously outnumbered. Even if he hadn't outnumbered them, he would have attacked. He felt his Army of Northern Virginia could beat anybody in the Union Army so he ordered his entire line into the fray. The Union army took a helluva beating on the first day. If Ewell had attacked the position he was ordered to occupy on Cemetery Ridge, he could have taken it easily, but he hesitated, and by day 2, it was too late. Overnight, the Union army moved rapidly into the area and occupied the heights -- Culp's Hill on the right of the line, Cemetery Ridge that ran along the centre to the two Round Tops on the left of the line.
Lee did attempt to flank the Union position on the second day of the battle. He hit both flanks very hard, and nearly took Little Round Top on the left, but couldn't quite do it. A final bayonet charge by Maine troops cleared the hill and the Confederates retreated. Meade had expected the assault on the right and had that position heavily fortified. The Confederates there were repulsed relatively easily.
Pickett's Charge took place on July 3rd, the last day of the battle but it wasn't the first or only attack of the day. The Confederates tried again to take Culp's Hill on the far right flank of the Union line but the position was too strong and they had to withdraw. Things quieted down while Longstreet assembled his corps in the centre for the central assault and both sides relaxed slightly.
The centre charge started with heavy artillery fire. Confederate artillery was supposed to pound the centre of the Union line to weaken it, and it might have succeeded had it not been for the fact that due to some error in ranging, their cannon were aimed too high and nearly all the balls landed on the reverse slope of Cemetery Ridge where there were no troops. Longstreet's Corps advanced in several waves...six brigades, all experienced troops, plus Pickett's fresh division -- 15,000 men in all.
The Union artillery had been relatively quiet until the charge began but then it started pounding away. It took a tremendous toll of the Confederate troops. The flanks were driven in but Lewis Armistead's spearhead drove into the clump of trees which was the main target of the charge, ploughed into the Union centre and overran the Union artillery position there. They very nearly broke the Union line, but Meade managed to get reinforcements into the breach just in time and the Confederates withdrew. They did it slowly and reluctantly, but they left. Union musketry and artillery hammered at them all the way back to their lines. They lost nearly as many men during the retreat as they did during the charge.
Lee took the blame for the debacle, and it was a mistake, but in actual fact, it nearly worked. 'Nearly', however, was not quite good enough.
The casualties during the battle were evidently horrendous. Something like 50,000 dead in the 3-days of battle. Historians say that the city of Gettysburg and nearby towns were swamped with wounded -- both Union and Confederate -- and the people in those towns did their best to care for troops of both armies. -
Message 15
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Saturday, 13th May 2006
craigd1973,
It's a question of terminology. In the ACW a Corps was an organisation of divisions, generally exclusively Infantry or Cavalry. Artillery was then attached in at Divisional and Corps level, also leaving an artillery reserve under the nominal control of the Army Commander. It wasn't the Napoleonic concept of a Corps combining all arms and being able to function independently. It was more an administrative term.
I think it was Hooker who reorganised the Army of the Potomac Cavalry into one Corps to counter the Confederates who had organised their cavalry into one Corps under Stuart earlier in the war.
When Stuart went on his ride prior to Gettysburg he took with him almost all the cavalry available (as was his right as the Cavalry Corps Commander). I think he left a small force of cavalry with Lee under Imboden, a force that could not hope to perform the job of advance guards for three infantry Corps.
There would have been small (company size) detachments of cavalry with the Infantry Corps. They were there primarily as HQ guards.
Note Stuart, and it was Henry Heth (not Heath), (Heths Division, AoNV, Third Corps) who encountered Bufords Cavalry (First Division AotP Cavalry Corps).
Cheers AA. -
Message 16
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Saturday, 13th May 2006
Kurt,
Not quite, Bufords Division was in the front of the Union Army performing the traditional role of Cavalry to scout the advance. However it was part of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac (AotP) and not attached in to Reynolds First Corp.
The first information that Lee had that the AotP was in the area came from a "scout" (spy) named Harrison. Up until that point Lee knew nothing other than Stuart had disappeared and his army was on the march.
At least that is my understanding, AA. -
Message 17
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Saturday, 13th May 2006
Lee, with few exceptions, did not attack when the enemy had the good ground, and certainly not when he was expected to attack. He did at Malvern hill with unfortunate results. He would manuver to a desirable position and dig in, luring the Federals into disasterous head-on assaults. Gingrich, et al present an alternative scenario where he does just that in Pennsylvania.
°³ά°ω³ΩΜύ
Kurt, Certainly what Lee did very early in the war (in Western Virginia) and then later in the war post the Wilderness. In between I don't see that it was an intended tactic of Lee. I sort of see what you mean about Gettysburg as being an untypical Lee battle, however don't see it as being untypical of Lee to attempt it. He did it at Fredericksburg, no doubt, but this was in response to Burnside, rather than something Lee had engineered and as I've said Longstreet and Jackson did most of the work in choosing the positions
Just my view, AA. -
Message 18
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 13th May 2006
Thank you all for the correction on the calvary contact, the additional information, and the alternative perspective regarding Lee's actions at Gettysburg.
Kurt -
Message 19
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Sunday, 14th May 2006
Kurt,
Having waited for over two years for someone who can discuss the American Civil War on this board I hope I haven't offended you. It's a fault of mine that my posts can seem somewhat dogmatic. They aren't meant to be. They are meant to present my view, and as it's my view it can change.
Thank you for your thanks. AA.
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