Even the oft maligned ‘Pickett's Charge’ was a viable plan, one that went awry due to the poor aim of the artillery bombardment which failed to accomplish it's task.
Studies such as this one are usually informative to those whom are relatively uninformed. On the other hand, it does provide updated teaching opportunities to the students, which is probably what the whole point of the study was about (as opposed to adding any real new insight).
You mean, like not having Stonewall Jackson? I agree, but I still enjoyed going over the map.
In the face of uncertainty over the exact position and numbers of Union troops converging on Gettysburg, I have often wondered why General Lee didn’t simply refuse the battle there and establish himself on terrain nearby more suitable to defense. Since he would still remain, in the Liddell Hart formulation, strategically offensive, the Union commander would be compelled to attack him to dislodge the Confederate Army from Union territory. But now Lee would be tactically defensive and the 3 to 1 offense to defense ratio would favor him and not Meade.
One of the issues often missed in the third day of fighting at Gettysburg is that Pickett's Charge was one half of the battle plan. The other Half was Stewart's Calvary to sweep around the Union position and attack the rear thus forcing Meade into defending two fronts. However Stewart got tangled in a skirmish with some infantry and just as he was about to break out a newly promoted General led a Banzai charge of his Calvary Unit into Stewart's flank and stumped his breakthrough.
That Newly appointed General was brash and reckless and lost over 70% of his troops but his maneuver probably saved many Union lives and maybe even kept Lee from a third day victory. However at the time his name was not mentioned much as being a large contributor to the Union Victory like the praise given Chamberlain and Bufford and so on.
13 years later that brash General with the long blonde hair would achieve notoriety in a hilly area of Montana in a place called "Little Big Horn"...
I think this is a mistake, though a common one. The charge failed because the Union soldiers stopped it. The Confederacy wasn't the only army on the field, and their mistakes weren't the only thing affecting the outcome.
There is no doubt that the Union defeated the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg. The Southern Army and its commanders are always and forever felt to be gallant and noble. There is the concept, not understood today, of the noble enemy. The idea is partially illustrated by Grant’s statement regarding Lee: “ No finer man ever served a worse cause.” Lee was the noble enemy.
As a Gettysburg College alumni who walked the battlefield countless times over my four years there and on many return trips, I would suggest that the terrain between Seminary Ridge (what is now Confederate Ave) and the Union lines makes for a very, very subtle optical illusion which may have made Pickett's Charge seem a much more viable option and possibly accounted for the inaccuracy of the Confederate artillery.
Frankly, when you stand at the Confederate positions and look east across the Emmitsburg Road, the Union positions appear much closer, and lower than they actually are. Once you start walking it however, it's not really until you get to the Emmitsburg Road that you realize it's much further than it first appeared and, oh by the way, the slope up to the Union lines is longer and steeper than it appears from Seminary Ridge. I can only wonder what went through the minds of the CSA soldiers as they made that realization once they were out in the open, and turning back was no longer a viable option.