It's a debate. I would argue that Lee's sprains at Gettysburg were a lesser concern that the nearly-fatal bout of pericarditis he suffered just before Chancellorsville, and I would argue that the pressure was greater at Chancellorsville - at Chancellorsville he was very poorly provisioned and risked being encircled and destroyed by a vastly superior Union force with Longstreet's division posted more than a hundred miles away. At Gettysburg he was as well-provisioned as he had ever been and did not have to risk battle if he didn't want to.
I think the stress at Chancellorsville was greater: had Hooker been successful in his plans, the Army of Northern Virginia would have been destroyed in detail.
It is also my opinion and that of others that Longstreet did not direct the effort on the third day to the best of his abilities as he wanted that to fail as he disagreed with Lee over tactics.
Longstreet did not want Pickett's Charge to fail - he believed it was doomed to failure from the beginning, and he was concerned that the aftermath of the charge would have been the destruction of the ANV.
I don't think he was engaging in a petty squabble - he was trying to stave off total disaster. If Longstreet's men hadn't survived sufficiently intact to cover the retreat, the ANV could well have been smashed to pieces. One could with equal justice argue that Longstreet's foresight saved Lee's blunder from becoming a total strategic defeat.
Stuart was supposed to sweep around behind the Union lines and hit them from the rear at the same time and place as Pickett. He was delayed by an attack by Custer. Due to Custer’s attack the planned assault by Stuart on the rear of the Union lines never occurred. Had it succeeded the result of the battle and possibly the entire might have been very different. It is of course, not possible to know exactly what was planned as Lee never discussed it and no documents remain if any ever existed on this subject. Read “Lee’s Real Plan at Gettyburg” by Harmon.
That's a good read. A thumbnail summary is this: on Day 1 there was no real plan. On Day 2 the plan was to roll up the Union's left and right flanks, but that plan failed at Culp's Hill and Little Round Top. On Day 3 the plan was to make a frontal assault combined with a cavalry flank movement on the Union right. In the event, Pickett's Charge came far closer to success than Stuart's flank movement.
But it was. Lee assumed Meade would be as inept as his several precedessors
Thus it was not the luck of the draw. Lee blundered. It was not as if Lee correctly anticipated a strong cavalry defense on the Union right, and despite his preparations it failed anyway. That would be bad luck. In assuming that Meade would make the exact same mistake that McClellan made at Antietam, Lee allowed his contempt for Union captains - and not any actual reconnaissance - to dictate his battle plan. That was bad generalship.
It was a very ineffective one and was not directed by any responsible leaders. Had Lee been involved, or any of his lieutenants, it would have been a far more serious matter.
Jubal Early, John Bell Hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest all attempted to get a guerrilla war going. Two of them were Lee's lieutenants. All three were leaders of national reknown in the Confederacy. Their attempts failed because the South was used up - thanks to Farragut, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.
Numerous books have described Sheridan’s destruction and warfare against civilians in the Shenandoah valley as well as Sherman’s incredible swath of destruction in the deep south.
Again, there are any number of books that will retail the most scurrilous stories about Sherman and Sheridan, but they did not send their troops to attack civilians. Sherman's goals and actions are very frankly described by him: to seize all forage and materiel in his army's path and to destroy all rail links that could be used to reinforce the Confederacy along its internal lines. When he moved from Georgia to South Carolina, he amended these goals to include the destruction of the property of the leaders of the secession, just as the ANV had fired the property of abolitionists and Unionists in MD and PA.
The British government used a deliberate polic of interning the wives and children of Boers in what would later be called “concentration camps” during the Boer War.
Is that an attack? I guess it depends on hiow you define "attack." In any case, Sherman did not intern the wives and children of the Confederates. So obviously he was not responsible for setting any precedent in that regard.
The Germans didn’t deliberately target civilians in Serbia and in Belgium in WW1? Hitler targeted civilians in WW2 and so did Stalin. The Japanese rape of Nanking was just one in a series of sordid attacks on Asian civlians.
Nothing Sherman did in Georgia is even remotely related to those atrocities. Stalin and Hitler were intent on eliminating populations. Sherman's goal was the seizure of property.
He had no interest in slaughtering Confederate civilians, and he never enacted such an alien policy.
We did also. At Hieroshima and Dresden.
Leftist propaganda. Both Hiroshima and Dresden were legitimate military targets and their destruction was undertaken not to kill civilians but to cripple enemy logistics.
So, maybe I WOULD have been a Copperhead. Maybe not. So what?
The choice between evil and good is an important choice. Vallandigham chose slavery and treason.
You know, you had me there until the last comment.
One ma’s traitor is another man’s hero. I don’t know much about Vallandigham beyond the fact that he was a militant copperhead.
In the Revolution, Tories were considered traitors but the Whigs. But were they really, or just following their consciences like Anderson, Lee, and perhaps Vallandigham.
I would consider Arnold a real traitor as he changed sides for purely personal profit. If a person sincerely believes that what they are doing politically is correct, does that make them a traitor?
“Leftist propaganda. Both Hiroshima and Dresden were legitimate military targets and their destruction was undertaken not to kill civilians but to cripple enemy logistics.”
Not sure about that. I wouldn’t waste tears on civilians killed in either situation, personally, but I think the “collateral damage” in those attacks was so massive and would have been so obvious to the planners that its hard to think they were not planned. There is no doubt in my minid that Dresden was payback time by the Brits for the bombing of London.
“He had no interest in slaughtering Confederate civilians, and he never enacted such an alien policy.”
Perhaps. But all things proceed by degrees and by the military practise of the time his acitons were pretty shocking. Its also hard to believe that these actions did not result in substantial civilian collateral damage either directly or due to exposure and starvation created.
“Nothing Sherman did in Georgia is even remotely related to those atrocities. Stalin and Hitler were intent on eliminating populations. Sherman’s goal was the seizure of property.”
Again, all things proceed by degrees. And I think Sherman himself stated that he intended to make war so horrible to the civilian population by this actions that they would no longer support the war effort. Connecting the dots there leads to some frighting conclusions.
“So obviously he was not responsible for setting any precedent in that regard.”
All things proceed by degrees.
“..just as the ANV had fired the property of abolitionists and Unionists in MD and PA.”
Is the source for this the book you mentioned in this post?
“Jubal Early, John Bell Hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest all attempted to get a guerrilla war going. Two of them were Lee’s lieutenants. All three were leaders of national reknown in the Confederacy. Their attempts failed because the South was used up - thanks to Farragut, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.”
Aside from Forrest, the other two were not very effective leaders, were they? The South had many leaders - these were but three. Even one of those - Mosby - became a good Republican afterwards.