"Lee at Malvern Hill" Topic

Hi,
What went wrong ?
Why did Lee not see that his plan for two massed batteries to provide the crossfire support did not happen ?
What happened among the Commanders on the field,was there any coordination at all ?
Anyone any info re actual artillery attached to both the Unionand Confederate forces ie battery sizes and types etc.
Info gratefully recieved
Grognard

Poor planning and execution by Lee and his subordinates. The confederate batteries were to be assembled from their assigned divisions rather than from Pendleton's reserve artillery.

The union artillery was well placed by Henry Hunt with around 40 pieces on the hill line, and many more in ready reserve including the siege artillery.

The confederates deployed and engaged their artillery piecemeal and as they opened fire, Hunt had the union artillery concentrate their fire knocking out one battery after another before it could have any effect.

Some batteries were destroyed as quickly as they were deployed.

With the confederate artillery being ineffective, the attack should never have been made, yet Lee was not in position to see this to countermand orders to attack.

Relying on orders hours old, Magruder and Hill still went forward, their brigades not coordinated. The Union artillery took a heavy toll as each brigade pushed up the long slope to the ridge line.

Some confederate brigades managed to get close enough to engage federal infantry and even closed to hand to hand combat, but for the most part it was a total debacle.

As D.H. Hill would say "It was not war, it was murder".

Here is an order of battle:

link

Kim

I have always said that nobody was better in the Civil War at killing Americans, on both sides, than Lee.

Lee had growing pains in the Peninsula. If the union had a better commander things could had ended badly for him.

"nobody was better in the Civil War at killing Americans, on both sides, than Lee."

According to pure statistics that is very true. He has a much higher rate than Grant, even though many just assume Grant was a "butcher" so his would be far greater.

I guess Grant was judged in relation to previous AoP leaders (though I would say Burnside deserves the title as well). Lee liked winning, and winning meant getting people killed, and in the 19th century you killed people by losing people. This is why I prefer Johnson E. Johnston, and the cause of much debate and argument of TMP.

I wonder if Hood also deserves it? If you exclude union casualties which of the confederate generals was the most deadly for their won troops?

Anyway to get back to the topic. Yes Lee had a hard time running his Army in the Peninsular. He usually demanded more than could had been done, and as a result his plans usually degenerated to frontal charges (Gaine's Mill). It really helped him that the Union CnC was not up to the task.

Tactical naivity seems to have been very prevelant on both sides during this campaign,even the basics seem to have aluded many General officers including Jackson plus an almost complete inability to work in unison makes the Peninsular fascinating to study.

The Sear's book was a good one on the whole situation.

Lee never intended to attack at Malvern Hill. He intended to surround it and siege the Federals out (who couldn't be supplied on the hill). He was in the process of sending off Stuart, Longstreet and AP Hill to envelop the hill when the attack started.

The attack was an accident. Armistead's brigade had advanced a skirmish line to drive off US shrpshooters. Due to control by "directing unit" the neighbouring brigade advanced to conform to this "attack", and then their neighbour etc.

67thtigers is correct. When the CS artillery was shut down before it could effectively engage the US artillery Lee called off the attack. It went in by accident.

The Sears book (To The Gates of Richmond) is good, but the best detailed battle narratives for the Seven Days that I am aware of is probably Brian Burton's "Extraordinary Circumstances". It has a good discussion of Malvern Hill, in some cases down to the battery and regimental level.

thanks keyhat. I might put it into the reading line.

It was a gamble to break through. IT didn't work.