GDG- Corp size at GB

[James Cameron]

<< I Listened to Civil War Talk Radio's show from last Friday last night. 
The
topic was a book about the  'Commanders of the AoP'.  The question was asked
by the host to the author of the book about the size of the Corps at GB.
ANV with 3 and AoP with 7 - who had the best organization?  The response of
the author was that Lee had the best Corps organization because of the
larger Corps that could hit harder because of its size.  Given the number of
discussions here about command decisions and communications within the two
armies during the battle of GB - I wonder if everyone would agree.  The
Author pointed out that later in the war the AoP went to much larger Corps
of about 20,000 because of the greater punch they provided,  instead of the
~ 10,000 Corps size at GB.  I think that Hill and Ewell did not handle their
Corps very well during the battle.  Whether because of their inexperience at
Corp command or other reasons is debatable.    But Lee kept giving
Longstreet larger responsibility over numbers of troops  >>

Three infantry corps gave Lee a much smaller span of control than Meade, who 
with seven infantry corps, plus a cavalry Corps and the artillery to deal 
with, had more people reporting directly to him.  Lee's three Corps were 
each, moreover, individually more powerful than any of Meade's.

Still, the organizational differences between the two armies involved more 
than just the number of Corps.  While the ANV's Corps were very powerful 
formations, some of their divisions had five brigades, which was really a 
couple too many for a division commander to handle effectively in a fight. 
Both Anderson and Rodes had problems with this during the battle.

The AOP, in comparision, had too many Corps, but they varied too much in 
both size and composition.  Meade couldn't take it for granted that an 
infantry Corps represented a specific, predictable amount of combat power. 
Some of his Corps had only two divisions each.  And several divisions had 
only two brigades instead of the usual three.  Both situations seriously 
limited the tactical options of the Corps and division commanders.  With 
only two brigades, for example, a division commander can't but two on line, 
and hold one back as a reserve.  He has to either put one up, and one back, 
or, if both are on line, carve any reserves he can out of the brigades on 
line, which in turn limits their fighting ability.

The AOP's artillery organization, the powerful Artillery Reserve in 
particular, and its cavalry Corps, OTOH, were both in my opinion superior to 
the ANV's organization of the two arms.

Jim Cameron