"Gettysburg and Pickets Charge ???" Topic

I have been reading an entertaining book with fictional accounts from Rebs called "Leaving Gettysburg" and it brought a few questions up for me?
1. I think it is safe to assume that Gen.Lee had some knowledge and wisdom as to what he was doing here?
Was the attack on Seminary Ridge doomed from the get go and just a foolhardy last ditch "throw it all at em cause nothing else has worked" attempt?
What was the thinking here ?
Was it born from arrogance and disrespect for the foe ?

2. Why did the Yankee commander's not launch a all out assault on the Confederate lines after witnessing such catastrophic losses --or attack their flanks more aggressively during the rebs retreat?

3. Was this truly a major blow to the Confederacy and their hopes for success?

Russ Dunaway

I have toured the battlefield several times as part of staff rides with various Army schools and on my own with battlefield guides.
1. A common opinion is that Lee believed that Meade could not be strong on the left, right, and center. Since the left and right appeared to be strong, the weak point must be the center. In reality, a stronger effort on the right or the left probably would have achieved success but not necessarily victory. Lee was confident, probably overly so, and may not have realized Meade's ability to use internal lines to move forces around nor realized the sheer number of effective forces that Meade had at his disposal.
2. While Meade's lack of a counter attack has been criticized, to some degree it can be understood. Union forces were tired, having force marched to the battlefield, in need of water and ammunition, and in some cases leaders. Units had to be re-formed, leaders replaced, the wounded treated and the dead moved out of the way. Having walked around the battlefield in weather comparable to that on the days of battle, I can understand the need for rest. I only walked around 5 hours and had ready access to potable, cool water. I was beat. The lack of an attack during the retreat is not understandable and did result in Meade being subordinated to Grant a few months later.
3. Gettysburg was a hit to Confederate morale and incurred losses that could not readily be replaced. It was probably not the war-ending blow some believe it to be. Lee certainly had a lot of fight left, as the battles of the Overland Campaign show, but his freedom of maneuver was reduced. This is in part due to the defeat at Gettysburg but also the increased Union pressure in the West and the loss of Vicksburg.

Short answers, it is much more involved.

1) Lee believed he had thrown Significant punches at both Union flanks and that the Union would be weakened in the center. Yes I believe this specific attack was doomed, even if the coordination had worked. The Union was up in force, on the defensive and on home ground. I think he over estimated his own men, especially since they were not defending their homeland.

2) the Union had taken a beating too, plus they had a hard earned respect for Lee and were Cautious. Maybe over cautious.

3) Gettysburg was a major blow for the Confederacy. Especially when added to Vicksburg on July 4th. 28,000 plus casualties plus many excellent officers. How much longer could the Confederacy have held out if they had not sustained those casualties? Plus this led to Grant and Sheridan being transferred to the East. So, Grant not in the East, some of your best troops and officers not gone, the Union having to stay on the offensive, potentially more disasters for the Army of the Potomac and the Confederacy hanging on additional months and possibly McClellan winning the election and a negotiated peace.

All possibilities without Gettysburg.

Again this is the short answer

The Charge itself. Don't neglect poor Confederate staff work and intelligence in particular. There's reason to believe that Lee was not aware of the severity of his 1st Day losses, and that he didn't know the entire Army of the Potomac was up. (By contrast, the Yankee Bureau of Military Information was almost spot on, and those reports were reaching Meade.) Lee believed himself to be somewhat stronger and suspected Meade to be much weaker than was in fact the case.

The counter-attack. Read up on the first two days, and watch the Union command meet crises by moving small units here and there. By July 3rd, there was hardly such a thing as a corps area. If you replayed the battle with any sort of command and control system, I don't think you COULD launch a counter-attack: you just couldn't get enough units moving at one time. There's no intact contiguous AoP unit above division strength, and lots of brigades out of touch with their chain of command.

Longstreet thought it was a major blow, but not a mortal one. (He says the failure to pursue after Chickamauga ended the last chance of an outright military win for the South.) As Rakkasan says, the manpower losses would be hard to replace, and the prestige more so. They really needed a Fort Donelson or a Vicksburg, or in the context of other wars, a Saratoga, Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu--taking a complete Union army off the board. Now Lee had no further chance of doing so, and Bragg wasn't up to the job.

Pace Rakkasan about the pursuit, Meade is very new to command, and the commanders of his strongest corps were notably reluctant to take on Lee in a prepared position. It may have been a missed chance, but I think it's an understandable one. If an attack on Lee had failed, which was certainly possible, everyone on TMP would be asking how Meade could have been dumb enough to try, having just witnessed the power of the defensive on July 3rd.

Could they not see the Union artillery in such a strong defensive position and have some concept as to what would happen crossing the open field's?
Several times I have stood at the site on the field where the assault began -- looking across those open field's and just shook my head ??

Russ Dunaway

I think some hubrous was involved in the arravk decision.

I think Meade was unfairly criticized for the lack of pursuit. He was new to the army command, his staff was not in agreement as to pursue, his troops had uniformly been involved in a fierce and trying battle, etc.

Vicksburg was a much more significant Union Victory but Gettysburg gets all of the press.

link

This excerpt from John Priest's book helps put a light on the numbers. It was just not feasible and a lot of Reb soldiers knew it, they were veterans.

*attack*

*hubris*

Robert P. has the gist of it.

As for a counterattack, Meade and the AotP were just not up to it in the immediate aftermath of the attack, nor on 4 July (he didnt want Lee to do to him what his troops had just done to Lee).

I do think his pursuit in the following days could have been better. As Grant told Meade on the way to Appomattox, We don't want to follow Lee, we want to get ahead of him.

Right you are Robert. I figured that auto correct would recognize what I was trying to write, but it did not.

Sorry 79th. I just couldn't resist.

Autocorrect may fix more problems than it creates, but it's a close call. Its vocabulary seems to be missing a number of relatively common English words, which doesn't help.

+79thPA
Lee was a more aggressive commander than most folk realize. Even in the Hundred Days Campaign, he was looking for that opening to hit an Union Corps in open battle and while it was not fully deployed. He also consistently over estimated what his men could achieve and admitted this after the attack.

The generally accepted supposition is he thought the Union was weak in the center.

I don't think Meade had a fully assembled corps left. He frittered away most of VIth Corp as it arrived and that would have been the best one to perform a followup attack. But it was scattered the previous day by the attacks on both flanks. He might been able to engage the Confederates more strongly than he did before they crossed the Potomac

Vicksburg and the severing of the Confederacy in two (and later three or more) portions was the determining campaign.
Gettysburg was a major win for the Union, but not a deciding blow.

Not intended to be a petty nit picking grammar or spelling critique --TOPIC is -- Gettysburg and "Pickets charge?"

Russ Dunaway

OK, my last sentence should have said "No."

Question for debate and discussion -

How influential was Hunt's Artillery Reserve (its fresh batteries and ample ammunition stocks) in the Repulse of Pickett?

B

The discussion includes mention of the ANV's manpower
loss, but doesn't breakout perhaps the most significant
segmeent of loss, that being leadership at the brigade
and regimental levels. Not just the losses during "The
Charge" but those of the previous two days as well.

Not just the leadrship of troops, but the ability of
staffs to effectively co-ordinate movments, alignment
and so on the failure of which significantly influeenced
the attack on Meade's center.

To some lesser extent the same could explain Meade's
decision not to attack Lee as the ANV withdrew – Meade's
subordinates at all levels were exhausted/wounded/etc.

And, of course, the loss of the ANV leadership continued
to be felt throughout the rest of the war.

Could they not see the Union artillery in such a strong defensive position and have some concept as to what would happen crossing the open field's?

Two words – Malvern Hill

How influential was Hunt's Artillery Reserve (its fresh batteries and ample ammunition stocks) in the Repulse of Pickett?

Gottfried's "The Artillery of Gettysburg" and its contrasting narratives of how the AOP and ANV Artillery arm was handled at the battle, have left me in no doubt that Hunt and his Reserve Artillery commanders, were instrumental in the outcomes on both the 2nd and 3rd July.

Short version:

1. Lee was probably thinking the same thing on July 3 that he was at Malvern Hill. The enemy had come close to breaking the day before. If better coordination could be achieved then one more effort might be decisive. It was a similar thinking that lead to the attack at Cold Harbor in 1864, so not unique to Lee.

2. Army of the Potomac's consolidated return on July 4: I Corps 5,400 men, II Corps 6,900, III Corps 6,100, V Corps 9,600, VI Corps 12,800, XI Corps 5,500, XII Corps 9,800. Plus Meade had only been in command of the army for a week.

3. Yes and no.

Porter Alexander said the war was lost, not at Gettysburg, but while the ANV was sitting in camp thinking Grant could do nothing but come and attack them head-on again, when in fact he was busy crossing to the south side of James River.

To stay on topic of Russ's original questions, I highly recommend the book "Pickett's Charge" by George R. Stewart.

While this is an older book, it is still considered one of the best accounts of the attack and provides insights that answer Russ's original post.

The rest of us pundits could kick this around till the bars close with more "what ifs" then we'll remember the next day.

Kim

While we're not being nit-picky, Russ, surely the tile is "Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge???"

And yes, I've walked from the Confederate start line to the Union gun positions myself. But we're both coming from a century or more of "crossing open fields is suicidal." ACW generals were not. And as Paddy Griffith points out, we're cherry-picking to a degree, focusing on disasters and ignoring things like Longstreet cracking the Union line a Chickamauga. Lee had to be optimistic and aggressive to order the attack. He didn't need to be stupid or crazy--then. Fifty years later, things would be different.

Chickamauga: Don't forget, Longstreet was lucky enough to be able to exploit Rosecran's error, leaving a hole in his line.

"Thomas Wood's division took their place. For the next two hour's Rosecrans' men repeatedly defeated the Confederate attacks. Around 11:30, Rosecrans, not knowing the precise locations of this units, erred and issued orders for Wood to shift position.

This opened a gaping hole in the Union center. Alerted to this, McCook began moving the divisions of Major General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis to plug the gap. As these men were moving forward, Longstreet launched his assault on the Union center. Exploiting the hole in the Union line, his men were able to strike the moving Union columns in the flank. In short order, the Union center and right broke and began fleeing the field, carrying Rosecrans with them. Sheridan's division made a stand on Lytle Hill, but was forced to withdraw by Longstreet and a flood of retreating Union soldiers."

To error is human, to admit it is Devine, to point it out in others is ignorant.

Russ Dunaway

Russ, I believe you meant Cemetery Ridge, not Seminary Ridge? The CSA were successful in taking Seminary Ridge on the first day..

Yeah, Longstreet was lucky at Chickamauga. But he might just as well have been lucky on the Third Day at Gettysburg. He had been on the Second Day, after all. My point was not that it was a good idea, but that it wasn't a crazy one: in 1863, infantry frontal assaults were still among the things which worked sometimes. (Note that Longstreet tended to be lucky with considerable prep time and very deep assaults--mostly on flanks. I still lean toward the notion that he was more micromanaged on the Third Day than anyone spoke of afterward. That attack was much too shallow to have been Old Pete's tactical idea.)

Russ, I had no idea you knew Bill Devine. He was my opponent in my first CLS battle, back at the dawn of time.

Rmcaras, Dam spellcheck

Yeah, spellcheck keeps wanting to spell rats r-i-g-h-t-s, and suh s-i-r!