GDG- Your learned opinon, please!

[Alan D. Brunelle]

Tom Ryan wrote:
> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
>
>
> <snip>
> Evidence of this is seen in a letter to his wife after Lee had escaped
> across the river in which he complained rather strenuously that the
> authorities in Washington were pushing him to attack Lee when in reality he
> believed they needed time to *rest and refit* before going into action again.
>
> 	<snip>
(emphasis on "rest and refit" added)

One of Lee's stated intentions was to hit the AoP as it came up - he 
believed (with good reason) that it would be worn out from hard marches 
before the battle. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think that 
after the battle how drained the AoP must have been from top to bottom - 
long hard marches to get to the field, 3 days of touch-and-go fighting, 
and then the natural let-down after the euphoria of actually winning the 
battle.

I wouldn't be surprised to have this apply especially to Meade - after 
getting up to speed on 6 other corps, fighting a major battle, and then 
beating the unbeatable - Meade must have been pretty low on energy by 
the 5th - if not earlier.

Another tactical issue that Meade had to deal with was the mixed up 
nature of his corps - both in terms of the loss of a couple of key corps 
commanders (Reynolds & Hancock, and I guess Sickles too), but also the 
corps all-in-all weren't necessarily in collected areas by the end of 
the 3rd (some jumbling up of the troops). And with the 1st, 3rd and 11th 
corps pretty much used up, it would be hard to get a major offensive 
effort going.

So, I think I'd agree with the author concerning the good job Meade had 
done; perhaps question the total lack of offense (the morning of the 3rd 
saw Meade's ordered attempt to retake portions of Culp's Hill which 
collided directly with Confederate attempts to expand those holdings); 
and then I'd empathize with Meade's reluctance to immediately conduct a 
counter-offensive based upon all the factors involved.

Regards,
Alan