LOL! You're from Wisconsin and you can d@amn well say whatever you want. I have a uncle in Manitowoc . . . we have to make every effort to NEVER bring up politics or the economy when talking to him . . . remember our earlier discussion on forms of "extinction level events"? There you go!
BTW, I was fasinated by your history rewrite on the "what if" question. I know you want to visit Gettysburg one day . . . read Newt Gingrich's history rewrite "Gettysburg" wherein Lee takes Longstreets advise and allows him to move his Corps down to Emmitsburg over Monocacy Creek bridge and into Taneytown in order to flank the Union and cut off it's supply routes. I don't want to give away the rest . . .
Howdy, W,
Big weak spot to the east of the Union position. The Confederates were about marched out, though. Remember the shoes situation and that all of the wells on the march route had been drunk dry. No shoes and no water makes for poor marching, eh?
A huge weakness to the Union north but also hard to exploit. No roads.
Gettysburg looks to me to be very well done by the Federals. I think Lee was too impressed by Napoleon. Lee's "Cee cubed" really collapsed under the strain of long and rapid march and deployment. Napoleon got away with this sort of thing before the invasion of Russia (Napoleon for a while had a seemingly infinite supply of well motivated soldiers and sure did use those guys up) but Lee did not pull it off.
Same thing got Jackson killed and defeated Hooker at Chancellorsville. Bragg was so bad at this art that Forrest just went nuclear over it. Command, communications, and control was vastly easier in prepared defensive positions (even an hour for organization made a big difference) than in attack. The world had shifted from Napoleonic manuever to Great War supremacy of defense.