GDG- What if Pickett's charge had worked?

[Batrinque at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/16/06 5:59:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
cameron2 at optonline.net writes:

> What i think may have been the case was that Lee did, as you say, have a 
> plan in mind.  But, I think he may have thought the planning and orders put 
> in place to carry it out were more complete and effective than they actually 
> 
> were.  Supports did not follow, because the commanders of the units one 
> would expect to constitute those supports had no clear orders to do so. 
> Rodes for example, who wrote that his orders for the 3rd were general, and 
> that he was "on the lookout" (I don't have my books handy, so it may not 
> have been those exact words, but words to that effect) for a chance to 
> cooperate.  That isn't the kind of order that assures timely support for an 
> attacking force, or prompt exploitation of any success.  Likewise, on the 
> other side of the attack, McLaws writing that he knew nothing about it until 
> 
> it was already over.

Yes, to me a rather vague guideline of more or less "pile on when you see an 
opportunity" falls shy of a real plan that specifies who should move where 
when.

> The AOP of July 1863 wasn't the raw 
> militia of July 1861, ready to be thrown into a panic at the cry that the 
> "Black Horse Cavalry" was about to ride them down.  But, this goes back to 
> my first point.  If Lee's plan depended on such a rout taking place, then 
> it was dependent on the best case scenario coming to pass.
> 

It is one thing to implement an operation and hope that the best case 
scenario will result, but quite another to EXPECT that to happen.  And it seems to me 
that Lee at least came close to that latter condition on July 3.

Bruce Trinque
Amston, CT