“I’ve often wondered, what the hell was General Lee thinking. Longstreet knew the attack would fail and warned Lee against it.”
Had the artillery been effective, then it very well might’ve worked. It had worked in other battles, notably for Napoleon. However, the firepower of the era, combined with the fact that the firepower was intact after the artillery barrage, doomed the effort.
The alternatives were:
- Yet another day of attacking the high ground on the edges of the Union line, notably the Round Tops and the hills on the north end of the line.
- Leaving and going back to Virginia
- Make an end-run for DC, leaving the Union Army to attack from the rear while the considerable reserves left in DC attacked the front.
And he could have bled off troops overnight, marching westward toward Chambersburg in search of better ground, and using cavalry as a rear-guard defense in the morning while Meade decided what he was going to do. It would have taken Meade the better part of the day to make a move if not two days, by all accounts.
If he'd done that, Lee could have chosen his ground and strategically arrayed himself at the base of the Blue Ridge and made the Union forces approach the Confederates uphill against entrenched firepower. He could have mounted ambushes where the mountain roads passed through narrow defiles. He could have positioned his forces in places where artillery could command every approach.
Lee already had the better leadership in his officer corps, and knew it. His mistake was in thinking that such an advantage was enough to carry the day.