GDG- What if Pickett's charge had worked?

[Batrinque at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/16/06 6:24:04 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
chaplain.chuck at gmail.com writes:

> It certainly creates a presumption that there was a coordinated plan, or
> concert of action to include the forces Lee had at his disposal. It's hard
> for me to imagine a captain of war with Lee's brilliance leaving so large a
> force idle during what he expected to be the crucial action of the
> battle. 

It strikes me that there is a bit of circular reasoning here: Lee must have 
had in mind some important role for Stuart's cavalry because he was so hellfire 
brilliant, and we know Lee was so brilliant because he never made a wasteful 
or purposeful deployment of his resources ...

MIght it not be instead that Lee, on July 3, was more mortal than usual?  I 
don't see much in his conduct that day that elevated him above the rest of 
humanity.  HIs first intention to strike the Union left/center with the same 
troops Longstreet had employed the day before (plus Pickett) seems to me to 
indicate a bit of detachment from reality.  And the replacement troops next slotted 
into the attack (Heth/Pettigrew and Trimble) had been pretty well chewed up the 
first day of battle and were not perhaps in the finest shape to undertake 
such an assault (you may argue that Lee had to use them because they were all he 
had available, but I would then question whether making the attack was such a 
good idea, considering the paucity of resources available).  And the attack 
itself seems to me more the product of wishful thinking than sound military 
judgement.

Bruce Trinque
Amston, CT