Posted on 09/10/2004 3:46:54 AM PDT by carton253
Could you ping the Dixie list?
Here is new subject to discuss.
Here is a subject that I thought would be worthy of a brisk Friday discussion.
Its Bush's fault...
The "War of Northern Aggression" is one of my favorite subjects, being a Richmond VA area resident. I have always been fascinated particularly with the battle at Gettysburg, and have just started to dig into it in earnest. This thread couldn't come at a better time. I may not have much to contribute, but I am sure to learn something. Thanks for posting this.
It was still sending 15,000 men across an open field, up a slope, against entrenched infantry, heavily supported by artillery. Not the wisest course of action, it had failed Lee at Malvern Hill and it had failed the Union at Fredericksburg. The Union army was consolidated, it was in a compact position where it could easily reinforce any part of it's line, it had the entire VI corps (the largest in the Army of the Potomac) in reserve. Lee must have known all this, but he carried out his plan anyway. All in all, it was a last ditch effort by Lee, one not very well thought out given his commanders, and not one which was likely to succeed.
I'm so tired of everybody acting like Stuart was some great "war leader". When it came time to serve in the Mexican War, he got a spot in the champagne unit of the Virginia National Guard due to his family connections. I have the memo from his CO right here!
LOL I know I hate the font they used back then... so 19th century
It is!
At this exact moment, I am more interested in the Battle of Franklin....which was the "Gettysburg of the West".....
Being that I am participating in the 140th Anniv. Reenactment in about two weeks :)
Contrary to the "lost cause" advocates, I fail to see any way that the Rebs could have won after Day 1, regardless of what Hood, Longstreet, or Stuart did or didn't do. I have been to Little Round Top. Contrary to the myth, there were already Union troops up there when Lee "discovered" it. The 20th Maine and the PA regt. were already en route long before Lee's planned attack. The fact that Longie found he would have been exposed through the clearing would not have made any difference: had he gone ahead and attacked 2 hours earlier, he still would have met the same amount of resistance (though his men would be slightly less tired).
Anyway, back to LRT: that's a tough climb. It would be very difficult for any army to climb that under fire and take that hill, especially when the forces were about equal.
On day 3, Lee could have BROKEN the Union lines . . . if he had a reserve already on the way behind Pickett AND if Stuart's cavalry had galloped through immediately. But breaking a line and exploiting it are two different things. Imagine Armstead's units in a pocket, surrounded by the Union forces on each side with enfilade fire, and in front of them by the entire Yankee reserve, and, by that time, Buford's reinforcing cavalry. IMHO, Lee was LUCKY he didn't have a reserve, because the entire army would have been annihilated had his forces actually taken a narrow strip of Cemetary Hill and tried to hold it. The war easily could have been over that day if Lee was "successful."
Bumping for later...
The Round Tops weren't discovered by Lee. Lee wanted nothing to do with the Round Tops. His objective was a converging attack on Cemetery Hill. Longstreet was never to attack the Round Tops. They were specifically ordered to attack up the Emmittsburg Road...not to attack the Round Tops. The prime objective was the Peach Orchard.
Wow, cool! We visited the Franklin field a couple of times while we lived in Manchester, TN. Nightmarish.
At the end of the Seven Days, Lee took a fractured army with many independent leaders and made it a great army. And if Jackson was the screw-up that Foote and others portray him to be, then why was it that Jackson along with Longstreet became his most loyal lieutenents...and why is it that Jackson became Lee's go-to guy.
Congratulations! That is very cool!
I think we have to beware of hindsight, in all this. Realistically, we'd have to say that the "objective" of the campaign as a whole was simply to win a decisive victory over the Union Army.
The whole Gettysburg battle was improvised, after all, once the leading units made contact without any orders from the commanders. As the saying goes, "No plan survives contact." In this case, contact came first, followed by plans based on inadequate information; followed, sadly, by sticking with those plans in spite of events.
Gettysburg is a pure tragedy, in my view.
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