GDG- Lee's Plan for July 2nd

[Alan D. Brunelle]

Todd Estabrooks wrote:
> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
> 
> 
> I recently purchased the book "Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and
> the Gettysburg Campain". In this book, the authors argue that Lee planned
> for Pender's division to attack later in the day (I assume they would have
> attacked West Cemetery Hill). Conventional wisdom seems to believe that the
> reason this attack didn't happen was because of Pender's wounding. Now
> suppose for a moment that Mahone and Posey's brigades attacked with Wright,
> and Pender's division attacked afterward. Do you think the Union could have
> successfully defended against this additional attack? Did the Union still
> have enough reinforcements left, especially when Ewell attacked on the
> right, and with the weakened regiments positioned on Cemetery Hill?

1. Pender's division was used on July 1st, so they had lost some men on 
that day

	a. McGowan/Perrin's brigade was at a 1,000 or less men [Gottfried's 
_Brigade's of Gettysburg_ pg 641 lists them as 1,882, with 1 regiment 
(1st SC Rifles missing), bringing them down to 1,516. Then they lost on 
the order of 593 on 7/1. Thus a total of about 900-1,000 for Gottfried. 
Busey & Martin's _Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg_ has it 
at 647 casualties (pg 303), so it could be even below 900 men available 
on 7/2 (as most of the casualties occurred on 7/1]

	b. Lane's brigade was probably mostly there on the afternoon of 7/2 - 
about 1,700 [Gottfried's BoG pg 646 has it at 1,734. Busey & Martin (pg 
34) concur]

	c. Scale's brigade strength is harder to judge as it was heavily 
involved on both 7/1 & 7/3, liberally a count of 1,000 out of the 1,351 
may have been available on 7/2 [Gottfried has them at 1,351 with a total 
of 704 casualties (pg 651), while Busey & Martin has the same values. I 
figure about 50% of the casualties on each of the 1st & 3rd days.]

	d. Thomas' brigade strength was probably near his advertised 
1,250-1,350 engaged [Gottfried (pg 656) lists it at 1,326, Busey & 
Martin have it at 1,248 (pg 302)]

So the total available for Pender would have been on the order of 5,000 
men to attack...

2. It's hard to assume that if Pender wasn't wounded, that he'd have 
been able to get more out of Anderson/Mahone/Posey than what they did 
(or didn't) do. (Or, put another way, I'm going to remove them from your 
supposition - and just go with Pender getting his troops going after 
Wright advanced.)

3. If Pender got his men going soon after Wright, and if he tried to get 
  his right near Wright's left, he'd probably be aiming in the general 
direction of north of Ziegler's grove [Using Imhof's _Gettysburg Day 2 - 
A Study in Maps_, Map 40, pg 201 as a reference.]
	a. Using Imhof, it would appear that it would be Thomas (right,south) & 
Perrin (left,north) in the front line, with Scales (behind Thomas) & 
Lane (behind Perrin) in support.
	b. Using Desjardin's map set, it would appear that Thomas (right,south) 
& Lane (left,north) in the front line, with Scales (behind Thomas) & 
Perrin (behind Lane) in support. Scales would also have to go 
through/around Mahoney, and the northern brigades (Lane/Perrin) would 
have to veer southwards to evade the town. Also: Rode's men may or many 
not have been advancing at this time, so more confusion would have to be 
added.

4. In any event, I'd assume there was still enough light at that time 
for the artillery on Cemetery Hill to severely punish Pender's division 
as it crossed the 3/4 to 1-mile it would need to get to the Union lines. 
I'd hazard a guess of at least 10 partial or whole batteries that could 
hit them that whole time.

5. There's also a lot of fencing in the area just south of Gettysburg - 
more so even then that which Pickett/Pettigrew would have to contend 
with the next day. In particular, the fencing running roughly nw/se 
would have disrupted regimental lines I would think.

6. The Good News for the Confederates, is that they'd probably be mostly 
hitting 11th Corps troops (Steinwehr, Schurz, Ames & Shimmelfennig) - 
perhaps some of the northern part of the 2nd Corps. The Bad News is that 
Rode's also was slated to hit that area, but he was suitably impressed 
with the significant defensive capabilities of the position to call off 
his attack. (Not to mention that what was left of Doubleday's & 
Robinson's commands were crammed right behind the 11th Corps lines.)

7. To paraphrase Longstreet's comment on Day 3: "I doubt there are any 
5,000 men that could have taken that position."

Now, having said that, you can try to multiply the ifs - it might have 
been possible: (if Posey & Mahoney got all their troops going) and (if 
Pender got all his troops going) and (if Rode had all his men going) and 
(Early got 2 or 3 of his brigades going) and (if Johnson had all his men 
going)  then the Union certainly would have been hard-pressed to hold 
that salient...

Alan