"Do we know General Sickles intentions for creating a ..." Topic

….salient at the Battle of Gettysburg and having his corps cut to pieces by enfilade fire from three directions?.

"To understand why Sickles moved his corps out to the Emmitsburg Road at Gettysburg in July 1863, it is helpful to look back at his first battle as commander of the Third Corps that spring at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Chancellorsville is famous for Stonewall Jackson's march around Joe Hooker's exposed right flank and subsequent mortal wounding that night while riding between the lines. But after Jackson's attack, Robert E. Lee's army was still divided in two and significantly outnumbered by Hooker's army. Holding the position in between the two halves of Lee's army was Sickles' Third Corps, on an open spot of high ground called Hazel Grove. But the position created a dangerous salient in the Federal line, and Hooker ordered Sickles to pull back to the main line, surrendering Hazel Grove to the Confederates. Lee took full advantage of this mistake, as Hazel Grove was a perfect artillery platform, and the Confederate guns were able to gain a rare advantage, blasting apart the main Federal position around Chancellorsville and rendering it untenable.

So now we flash forward to the morning of July 2, 1863. Hooker had been replaced by George Meade a few days before the battle, and Meade had no faith in Sickles' competence as an officer (as an aside, Sickles was one of the Civil War's political generals – men with essentially no military background appointed to high positions in the volunteer army to help bolster political support. Professional officers like Meade were dismissive of the value of these officers, while political officers were dismissive of the supposed superiority of the professionals)…"
Main page
link

Do you agree?

Amicalement
Armand

Here we go……… :-)

I'll get the popcorn. :)

OK. I'll fire the opening volley.

I have no use for Sickles--and it doesn't matter whether the new position was better or worse. It does matter that it was a position too extended for his corps, and he moved his troops into it without making that clear to his superior. Either he didn't realize the position was too long a line, and he was incompetent, or he did realize and put himself out there where Meade would have to use the army reserve to support him, and he was insubordinate. He might be both, but he has to be one or the other. (My money is on incompetent, but either way, not someone a newly-appointed army commander should have to cope with.)

incompetent.

politically appointed "officer".

world class "character" who's mismanagement claimed the lives of… 's of Union troops.

Subsequent "Lover" of an European Queen?

Later "thief" of Funds for a Monument in Gettysburg.

yep.

Sickles.

(his medically preserved leg-bone is the best part of him surviving from the USA).

NOT his reputation as an "Officer"… NOR as an American!!!

FRAUD!!! (and PHONY!!!)

Sickles and Howard are the two saviours of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. Folks may feel free to disagree with that, but if they do, they are simply showing their own ignorance of those events, and their inability to do any real, responsible research. Basically, they are coasting on fumes. The fumes of a biased and severely jealous post-war class of thieves, beggars, and charlatans, who once had been called "West Point Officers".

I'll go with Howard? But Sickles?

What Scott said.

From what I gathered, Howard successfully managed the positions at Gettysburg until Hancock arrived, kept the high ground, could be said to have enabled the victory, and a few other things that can be discussed ad nauseum. But Sickles? I'll need to be walked through that if I'm to believe he did anything other than show up, disobey orders, and get a sound thumping for little gain.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Without Hunt, Sickles decision would have been even more of a disaster than it actually was. It anyone won the battle for the Union (in addition to Meade) it was Hunt and his artillery Reserve.

Mollinary)

thieves, beggars, and charlatans

Sickles was part of this club, except he wasn't a Point man.

Sickles' experience at Chancellorsville is absolutely the key to understanding his moving forward to the 'high ground' at Gettysburg.
After that, the sky is the limit to all the opinions of the results. Have fun with those arguments.

I agree that Sickles' experience at Chancellorsville affected his decisions at Gettysburg. Surrendering Hazel Grove was a bad move, but so was advancing to the Emmitsburg Road at Gettysburg.

Meade can take a bit of the blame for not paying more attention to Sickles' concerns; he was too focused on his other flank at the time.

Have to agree with you, donlowry.

I'm sure the reason Meade felt he could give more attention to the other flank was because he thought the left was securely anchored on the Round Tops.

If Longstreet's axis of advance was the to be the Emmittsburg Road, then when Hood and McLaws marched north with the road in the center of their formation (more or less) wouldn't Sickles and Hancock (at least Caldwell) been in an ideal position to strike them in the right flank? Doesn't that lend more credence to the idea that Sickles should have stayed where he was?

In Edwin Coddington's Gettysburg, A Study in Command I think he makes the case Meade made every reasonable attempt to have Sickles shown where it was the Meade wanted Sickles to be.

Alan Guelzo's "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" has some excellent stuff on what Longstreet's attack on the 2nd Day might have been like if Sickles had not advanced. A really good book!

I'm sure the reason Meade felt he could give more attention to the other flank was because he thought the left was securely anchored on the Round Tops.

I've never seen any evidence to indicate that Meade paid any attention to Little Round Top until Warren sent troops there. The reason he was paying more attention to his right flank was that he was looking to see if the terrain there was favorable for him to make an attack on Lee's left, but he decided it wasn't.

If Longstreet's axis of advance was the to be the Emmittsburg Road, then when Hood and McLaws marched north with the road in the center of their formation (more or less) wouldn't Sickles and Hancock (at least Caldwell) been in an ideal position to strike them in the right flank? Doesn't that lend more credence to the idea that Sickles should have stayed where he was?

Exactly!

No offense to TKindred, but this is funny.

Bit late to this fight but +1s to mollinary, Scott, Cleburne & Don.

The only question I have ever had, is would the 1st Corps really have just wandered on up the Emmittsburg Road without spotting III Corps in its intended position?

Then you get into when would they have seen each other. Could the Confederate Divisions changed front in time etc etc. And so it goes on.

Game it, and let us know how it turns out.

The Biggest problem would have been to have the divisions and brigades swing their left flanks when the entire line from Hood to Pender was formed on the left, leading by the right.

To change the forward motion of the attack to perpendicular from the original direction of attack would have been time-consuming at best, but probably confusing. Sickles' unexpected position was itself enough to confuse some of the attacks.

Sickles' unexpected position was itself enough to confuse some of the attacks.

Understatement of the day!

Lee's order was for Longstreet's attack to straddle the Emmitsburg Road and follow it to Cemetery Hill, but when his column approached the Emittsburg Road it found Sickles in the process of forming along it, right where Longstreet was supposed to form for his attack. He therefore had to, instead, form his 2 divisions facing more directly east and wound up attacking more in that direction.

The attack was meant to hit the left flank of the Union line, which Lee thought ran along the Emmitsburg Road -- so some of the Confederates kept trying to find and turn Sickles left, which is what led some of them all the way to Little Round Top, a long way east of the Emmitsburg Road.

Don,

You just reminded me of something.

McLaws was surprised to find Union infantry in front of his initial deployment point on the day. So Longstreet must have had an idea that he was going to hit Sickles in the flank if he followed orders. Although I would agree that his discourse with Hood makes that seem unsure.

That said if in our alternative scenario if McLaws sees no one in front of him, happy days, he just deploys as intended. At that point doesn't he see Sickles Corps on Cemetery Ridge where Meade wanted them?

If he does, surely he tells Longstreet that the advance up the Emmittsburg Road is suicide and the old option of Sickles flanking Longstreet instead of the other way round goes out the window?

Or am I missing something? Lines of sight, whatever?

The real issue would be Hood's division, which was supposed to deploy perpendicular to the Cemetery Ridge line. He would have had to either change front or move farther East over the Round Tops. As it was, because of Sickle's position, Hood had to move farther East to meet Sicle's line facing him, delaying the attack.

Mclaws and Anderson [and Pender, if he hadn't been killed before delivering his orders] were facing in the right direction. That wasn't a problem.

As I said, Lee thought the Union line ran down the Emmitsburg road from Cemetery Hill. He did not think it ran as far as the Peach Orchard, though.

As for whether Longstreet would have been able to see Sickles troops from there had they stayed in their original position, or, better, formed where Meade wanted them, I don't know. Someone more familiar with the terrain might be able to answer that. But Cemetery Ridge wasn't much of a ridge by the time it got to where Sickles was supposed to be -- which is the main reason he didn't like that position.

Longstreet's attack was NOT supposed to be at right angles to Cemetery Ridge -- it was supposed to be at right angles to the Emmitsburg Road, which ran northeast from the Peach Orchard to Cemetery Hill.

On July 1 Iverson's brigade advanced with its flank exposed to a U.S position, and paid the price. Longstreet had seen something similar at Second Manassas. It is hard to believe that if he knew Sickles troops were on Cemetery Ridge, Longstreet would have advanced along the axis that Lee originally intended.