Posted on 07/30/2025 8:46:17 AM PDT by Borges
I saw nothing in the media marking it. Pickett's Charge is certainly a keynote moment in American history.
“That old man destroyed my division.”
From Gone With The Wind
RHETT:
There’s a little battle going on right now, that
ought to pretty well fix things. One way or
the other.
SCARLETT:
Oh, Rhett, is Ashley in it?
RHETT:
So you still haven’t gotten the wooden headed Mr.
Wilkes out of your mind? Yes, I suppose he’s in it.
SCARLETT:
Oh, tell me, Rhett, where is it?
RHETT:
Some little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.
Things may have been different if Stonewall Jackson had been there. Lee relied on him quite a bit.
Agreed. I think Chattanooga was the most decisive battle of the war. Not only was it a brilliant victory but it convinced Lincoln to give Grant command of the entire Northern forces.
Longstreet was correct, of course. The quality if Lee’s thinking as a commander deteriorated along with his decline in cardiovascular health during the war. Much of the post-war hostility against Longstreet was due to his embrace of reconciliation and Republican political loyalty.
Perhaps. Jackson has been mythologized. People forget his failures. He disappeared during the battle of 7 days and he was the only southern General whose lines were completely breached at Fredericksburg. Not saying he wasn’t a good General, he was. But he had his failures.
Not so sure about blaming Stuart for leaving Lee “blind.” Stuart did not take all of the ANV cavalry brigades on his flanking march around the AoP. He took about 1/3rd of the cavalry force leaving the rest to screen the ANV’s line of march. Lee could have taken interest in which brigades that Stuart took with him, or he could have used the remaining cavalry units more aggressively. Lee did neither.
JEB Stuart commanded seven brigades of cavalry, he left four of them with Lee. This video is great discussing how Lee's biases, and the refusal of those brigade commanders to work together, left Lee "blind." (fast forward to 24:25)
I saw a history show a few weeks ago. Apparently Lee used the same strategy in a previous battle (attacked the flanks, then the middle); he thought it would work again
Wilson Picket died 19 years ago in January.
Mistake by Lee
Should have taken high ground first afternoon
Can’t win forever in a strategic long shot war anyhow
Yes he contributed
Bedford would have known butter
Jackson was really good in the Valley and in the Wilderness of northern Virginia, and was just OK everywhere else. He performed poorly in the 7-days. It would largely have depended on “which Jackson” showed up in Gettysburg. I would say that Jackson would have likely taken Culp’s Hill on the first day, so the “real battle” probably would have taken place at the Pipe Creek line a few days later.
Inventer of the slide rule. And fence.
Yep. Visited the battlefield 20 years ago and wept when I looked from the Union position at what the Confederates were ordered to do. No army in the world could walk (not charge) a mile in open field against cannon, then, at 50 yards, massed musketry from an entrenched enemy. It was suicide.
There is a fence at Gettysburg that is pretty significant from a historical-trivia standpoint.
Prior to the Civil War, Daniel Sickles had been serving in the US House as a representative from NY. While in DC, he found out that Daniel Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, had been diddling his wife. Sickles tracked Key down in Lafayette Park across from the White House, and shot and killed Key. Sickles would be acquitted in the first successful use of a temporary insanity defense in the U.S.A.
When war broke out, Sickle, who had held a commission in the NY militia, but never had any formal military training, was promoted to Brigadier General, and despite his lack of military experience acquitted himself quite well, certainly when compared to other "political generals," in the course of the war. Ultimately, Sickles lost his right leg to a cannon ball at Gettysburg.
Years after the war, Sickles played a prominent role in the preservation of Civil War battlefields and the establishment of the Gettysburg National Military Park. In order to separate the bounds of the park and the national cemetery from the existing Gettysburg town cemetery. Sickles, through political maneuver, was able to secure the iron fence from Lafayette Park in DC, where he had killed Barton Key, and had moved it to Gettysburg where the fence stands to this day.
Comradeship between Custer and classmates who had become confedrates during the war, including attending a confederate wedding.
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/george-custer-and-the-confederate-wedding.191231/
Pickett followed orders. RE Lee threw the dice and got snake eyes that day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.