There’s little in which to defend Lee’s charge against prepared positions on the Third day of Gettysburg July 1863. It was foolhardy anyway you look at it. The better than three quarter mile march across open ground against those two Federal corps, the First and parts of the Third that held the higher ground. It speaks of Lee’s disrespect for his opponent. Mind you he had time and time again defeated them, as recently as May, 1863 at Chancellorsville.
There was no finer general and man in the Civil War than Bobby Lee. His character was such that men would go anywhere he led. Contrast him with Confederate General Braxton Bragg, who fought in the West, who managed to alienate all around and about him from his senior officers that called for his removal and the front line troops that basically would no longer fight for him as evidenced in the Battle of Chickamauga in November 1863. Here Grant’s troops pinned down in Chattanooga amazingly were able to drive the Confederates off the commanding heights of Missionary Ridge and break the siege of Chattanooga. Bragg was finally removed from command. I’m off point already, lets go back to Lee and Gettysburg.
Between July 1 and 3 Lee cast the dice in hopes of destroying the Federal Army in a Cannae, a decisive annihilation, as the Ancient Romans had suffered under Hannibal in the Carthaginian Wars. The Confederacy couldn’t invest the North. So from the beginning his strategy was a gamble. His army had to live off the land for supplies. There was no thought of a permanent presence in the North and he knew it; nothing like the North was trying to do in the South and had been relatively successful in the West. Lee needed to strike the larger Federal Army in detail; overwhelm a portion of it to gain a decisive victory. The fear was this larger Federal Army could smother the Confederate Army as it did the year before around Richmond with McClellan in 1862.
If you slept through your history lesson (then again they may not even be teaching the Civil War in school any longer) Pickett’s Charge of some 12,700 Confederate troops, under command of General Longstreet including Pettigrew’s, Trimble’s and Pickett’s divisions, was a frontal assault against prepared positions with the Federal infantry having the benefit of high ground on Cemetery Ridge.
In rough figures off the top of my head they would have been crossing some 1000 yards of open ground. The last 400 yards would be under the fire of canister, a tomato juice can size of ball bearings which would be exploded just above the marshaled troops as they march forward by the thousands. Cannon could fire three of these a minute and there were some 80 cannon directed toward the charge. And rifled musket began to be deadly at that range as well. Surprisingly, at what was called later the “Angle”, the Union lines were breached momentarily by the small fraction of what was left of the total number in the charge. The Confederates needed support to hold the breach, which was not forthcoming, and they were driven back. Less than have half made it back; meaning some six or seven thousand casualties, including thousands of prisoners. The charge took something less than an hour.
There have been a couple books with Lee’s Real Plan in the title that surprisingly purport Lee had something up his sleeve that day but it all went array. I don’t have the time to pour over them but one seems to say that Lee was just naturally trying to get the high ground on Cemetery Ridge that the Federals occupied so a charge up the hill made sense. The other seems to place the blame on Jeb Stuart’s failure to push past the Union Cavalry that same afternoon Northeast of the battlefield and disrupt the Federal rear. My apologies to both gentlemen for most likely butchering your theses, however the little I have read doesn’t support either one of those ideas, if my understanding is correct.
Note the purpose of cavalry was for reconnaissance primarily. If the author is correct about having the cavalry become an assault force, I don’t know of any other instance where cavalry was meant to have been used as an assault force against infantry (meaning to say if they were successful at brushing the Federal Cavalry aside); on any given day infantry would wreck attacking cavalry. Union Cavalry General Buford is highly praised for simply delaying for a short while the Confederates approaching Gettysburg from Chambersburg until the Federal Infantry could arrive the morning of the First day of battle. The Confederate cavalry was no where to be seen until late in the Second Day.
The rap against cavalry: “I never saw a dead cavalryman” was mostly true but there’s mitigating circumstances. They were constantly skirmishing with the enemy, many times over the instances in which the infantry would see battle. These cavalry, if they fought pitched battles, would soon be wasted away and cease to be able to perform their scouting and reconnaissance functions.
I’m not sure what the author Lee’s Real Plan had in mind when he mentions firing off of a single cannon in all four directions by Stuart, Confederate General of Cavalry, as a signal to Lee to coordinate attacks, Pickett and Stuart. At this very time the Confederate artillery barrage of Union positions prior to Pickett’s charge was taking place. Nobody over there would have been able to hear it.
If Lee had a plan, it doesn’t appear he told General Longstreet who had very grave reservations about the charge.
He was to have told Lee:
General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.
Longstreet didn’t even have 15,000; he had some more than 12 thousand. You really have get out on that battlefield and see the expanse across where they would have marched and have to wonder, what was Lee thinking? Longstreet had those same thoughts. I read he even tried to distance himself from responsibility by giving General Alexander, commander of the artillery barrage prior to the charge, the authority to cancel it, if Anderson deemed his barrage ineffective. Anderson, a junior officer, did all he could to place responsibility back onto Longstreet.
As far as the futility of frontal assaults there is an example a half year before. Fredericksburg was fought in December of 1862 with Federal General Burnside using frontal tactics against Lee’s fortified positions much to Union forces futility; they were shooting ducks.
Later in the war in June 1864 at Cold Harbor 1o miles outside of Richmond, Federal troops would attempt to advance on fortified positions; Grant would hear of some 6,000 killed and wounded in a matter of less than an hour and the advance was halted. Orders to renew the assault were ignored. The battle around Richmond and Petersburg would last some 10 months.
A much lesser know frontal assault was made later in the year in December at Franklin, TN by Confederate General Hood where some 19,000 assaulted Union troops over a period of 5 hours; it was a disaster with some 6,000 Confederate casualties and 6 Confederate Generals killed or mortally wounded. The Federal General Schofield withdrew in the night but Confederate troops were decimated. Federal General Sherman was meanwhile marching through Georgia to the inspiration of many of a Civil War novel. General Hood’s army wouldn’t last much longer after that battle. Lee wasn’t the only one who tried these sanguinary charges. And the military genius of the day figured they were worth bloodshed. See the success of a frontal assault up a mountain a the Battle of Chattanooga as the exception that proves the rule.
Lee left much to the discretion of his subordinates, which worked when he had indomitable General Stonewall Jackson, who was killed in May at the victory at Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg Lee remained at his headquarters issuing nary an order the 3rd Day of battle. The hands off style let him down miserably.
On the First day Hill’s corps fought the 1st and 11th Corps at McPherson Ridge, then with the assistance of Ewell’s corps pushed the Union army off McPherson and Missionary Ridges through the town of Gettysburg to the heights and hills southeast of town. Ewell was ordered by Lee to take Cemetery Hill (not to be confused with the long Cemetery Ridge that ran south of it) if practicable, having driven as we said the Federals off Missionary Ridge through Gettysburg. He chose not to attempt to take even it though Brigadier General John B. Gordon felt it was missed opportunity, whose opinion being on the spot holds great authority.
After chasing the Federal troops through Gettysburg, the Confederates were disorganized. They were no longer ordered for battle; they were chasing down Federal prisoners and such. Ewell would have had to quickly re-organize them to continue to attack on the heights which may have not been practical. Only for a short while, a window of an hour or so, were those heights lightly defended. By 5:30 PM there were some 27,000 Federal troops there.
One author suggested that the real failure was Lee’s decision not to send in Anderson’s Division of Hill’s Corps on the right to Ewell’s assistance. A follow up was needed to take the heights; very likely the Confederates didn’t have it in them after a days fighting but without it the re-enforced Federal Army had a commanding position for days 2 and 3 of the battle.
Lee also had suggested to Ewell that he might swing from the left his, current position, to strengthen the Confederate right. A swing of that nature might have made a charge like Pickett’s more formidable. Lee was dissuaded from it for military reasons, one of which was a proposal to invest unoccupied Culp’s Hill. Culp’s Hill would command Cemetery Hill. Once again the window of opportunity was small, a couple hours and before Ewell moved that hill was occupied as well. This is the difference between great generals and the others, knowing when to act decisively. With Lee leaving Ewell where he was on the left, without result as it turned out, this allowed Meade, the Commanding General of the Federal forces, the interior lines in the next two days, meaning to say Federal troop movements left and right would be quicker to supply re-enforcements than the Army of Northern Virginia.
Prior to thee charge Confederates fired the most massive artillery barrage of some 150 to 170 guns of the war. This was to have softened up the Federal positions, but most of the ordinance went over the heads of the lines. In fact General Mead’s headquarters behind the lines were hit; one of his aides was wounded and 16 of their horses were cut down. It was decided to move back from the lines for safety. All in all, the barrage was ineffective.
In addition due to low ammunition artillery couldn’t move up with Pickett’s charge to support it. This is a glaring oversight of the commanding generals, since they were far from supply bases and had been fighting for two days. The question of how much ordinance should have come up. When Pickett asked if it was time to start out Longstreet was too choked up with emotion and simply nodded.
Failure of the campaign began by sending the Confederate Cavalry off, as it ended up, to harass the Union Army not provide reconnaissance and intel. The Confederate Cavalry was lost for 10 days, the eyes and ears of the Army. If Lee was going to be able to hit the Union Army in detail he would have had information as to its whereabouts. The hesitance of Lee on the First day of battle was lack of information and as a result troops weren’t marshaled ahead of time, the Union Army locations being unknown before hand. The Union Army somewhat outnumbered on the First day was able to quickly gather itself with four corps the 12th, 3rd , 2nd and 5th Corps coming up by the end of the First Day. Longstreet’s Corp would arrive on day 2. Note Confederate Corp were much bigger than Union; there were three (3) corps in the Army of Northern Virginia versus seven (7) for the Army of the Potomac about the same size. So on the First day, Confederates had about two thirds (2/3) of its Army and Union two sevenths (2/7).
After the battle the Army of Northern Virginia would no longer be an offensive weapon. The gamble, that this campaign was, might have been the only way to crush the Union Army and break the will of the Northern people, giving the Northern Peace party some credence. Yet with the invasion into the North the Confederate Army was conceived as a threat and with its defeat the North could claim a great victory. The Peace party, the Dixiecrats, was silenced at least for a while.
