GDG- Your learned opinon, please!

[Mike and Clare]

Hi Alan,
Thank you for your answerr.  But is it not also true that Lee's army was 
just as bad off, if not worse, than Meade and his army?  Lincoln often 
stated such a similar observation when trying to persuade his generals to 
keep advancing.
Clare
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan D. Brunelle" <alan.brunelle at hp.com>
To: "GDG" <gettysburg at arthes.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: GDG- Your learned opinon, please!


> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
>
>
> 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
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