GDG- Ewell and the High Ground

[James Cameron]

> But in the circumstances that prevailed, was a "well-planned assault" 
> feasible? It seems to me that inevitably a Civil War attacking force 
> became disorganized, just by the nature of things (one of which was slow, 
> poor communications in that pre-radio age), and that any attack by Ewell 
> at that stage of the battle would have had to have been  of a somewhat ad 
> hoc character, grabbing whatever units came to hand and ordering them 
> forward in an assault without much in the way of formal preparation.
And does it even have to be "well-planned" at all?

Consider Barksdale on the next day - he just kept pushing his brigade
forward even though they got disrupted after their initial successes. I
don't think there was a lot of planning on his part: just a series of
actions in concert with Lee's dictum "the enemy is there, and I intend
to strike him there".  >>

The two situations are very diferent.  Barksdale was pressing an attack 
already in progress.

Jim Cameron