[Tublecane]

“Problem is that Lee had in fact gotten away with successful full frontal attacks against well-intrenched federal troops holding high ground at least twice before.
The first was at Gaines Mill during the Seven Days’ Battles), and the second was at Chancellorsville (just two months before Gettysburg) when Stuart (taking over for the wounded Jackson) overran Hazel Grove.

Lee thought his men could do it a third time during Pickett’s Charge, but he was wrong.”

It is my understanding that Lee had many victories in absolute numbers, given that the South was always outmanned, but the Union generally prevailed proportionally (i.e. their deaths as a percentage of the whole was less than the South’s). The author I read ascribed to the South’s disproportionate death rate to their cavalier kill or die attitude in charges.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The author I read ascribed to the South’s disproportionate death rate to their cavalier kill or die attitude in charges.

Grady McWhiney's Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage?

Yeah, McWhiney's famous for his famous "Celtic" and "Cracker Culture" theses. I've got a big problem with his "Celtic" argument since the Federals launched their share of big frontal attacks as well, for instance at Fredericksburg, Kennesaw Mountain, Cold Harbor, and Nashville.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I just don't see such a big cultural difference between Union and Confederate soldiers than people like McWhiney do. Both sides were composed of hard men who led a harder, more survival-driven life than modern Americans. Was it a special cavalier or cracker culture that led to the Confederates panic-driven charge to the rear off a strong position on Missionary Ridge? The myth of a superior southern martial quality during the war has long served as a sort of a consolation prize to offset coming up second best in the great contest, but the final result would suggest that the fighting qualities of the soldiers of the two armies were much more similar than conventional myth acknowledges. There were the brave and occasionally not-so-brave on both sides.

Behavior on a day was driven by factors external to the soldiers' martial fiber. The Yankees at First Bull Run were hampered by bad generalship, lack of training and the task of an untrained force to take a field in the age of rifles. The rebs that day had the easier task of holding their ground. By the time of Chattanooga, the rebs there were handicapped by a bad commanding general and mass weariness and disgust for fighting for an unworthy cause. On that day the American farmers of the Northwest routed their cousins, the American farmers of the Southwest.