GDG- Your learned opinon, please!

[Alan D. Brunelle]

Mike and Clare wrote:
> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
>
>
> 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.
Hi Clare -

I'm not so sure: the Confederate advance was more "leisurely" in 
general, so in that respect they would have been fresher (if one can say 
that). Also: there was still plenty of fight in the Confederates, even 
after the defeat (at least on Seminary Ridge - I don't recall the state 
of morale on Ewell's front; in any event, that side of the battlefield 
was thought to be hard for the Union to attack on as well.)

I would agree that the Confederates had their casualties spread much 
more broadly across the 3 corps than the Union had in its 7 (a couple of 
which were not too badly affected, while a few had been mauled quite 
badly). So, one could logically assume that Meade had some intact troops 
to hit back with.

But, armies can be disorganized as much by a victory as defeat - look at 
day one for example, once the attack had progressed into Gettysburg 
proper, it became harder and harder to control events for the 
Confederates. And as noted previously, having (in effect) 4/7ths of the 
corps under new management (Meade's promotion + the loss of the 
aforementioned 3 corps commanders) would also cause some disarray.

Once you get to the point where you think Meade should have attacked, 
the question devolves into: Where? When? With whom? And those are pretty 
hard to answer - immediately after Pickett's repulse, there still was a 
lot of ready Confederates to repulse whatever Meade could gather 
together. [The Confederate artillery probably didn't use much 
short-range ammunition, and they were well placed to hit anything 
following the Confederate route in reverse. And there were significant 
troops available from Longstreet's corp still on the field, not to 
mention Hill's troops not used in the assault. Plus Lee & Longstreet 
were rallying the troops that did return.]

Overnight, the Confederates contracted their lines, and occupied good 
defensive ground along Seminary & Oak Ridge. And Meade didn't really 
know what Lee was doing on the 4th - so, it would be hard to generate a 
reasonable plan of attack without the requisite intelligence. After the 
4th, Lee was moving troops on the other side of the mountains - and it 
would be pretty hard to hit him there with a large amount of infantry. 
(And give Lee some credit here - he knew he could defend the passes 
pretty well.)

And there was recently a pretty good discussion along the lines of what 
could have been done once Lee entrenched near Falling Waters.

It would take a different man, with a different outlook, a few months 
later to do what Lincoln would have wanted here - fighting, and 
fighting, and then some more fighting. (Which is not necessarily a knock 
against Meade - what would work for Grant, might not have worked for Meade.)

(PS. And Lincoln's similar "we're all green alike" prodding of McDowell 
into action earlier in the war didn't exactly turn out so well, so 
Lincoln's military input wasn't always right! :-) )

Regards,
Alan
> 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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