GDG- 4th PA Cav on July 2

[James Cameron]

<< I often say that I take every opportunity possible to criticize 
Pleasonton's
performance... because he deserves it :-)

Hi failures beginning way back during Mac's Peninsula Campaign were indeed
egregious, and it never got any better right up to his booting to the West
in the spring of 1864.  Pleasonton connected himself with every single day
of the Gettysburg battle... claiming credit for sending Buford to hold
Gettysburg "at all costs" (a bald-faced lie); sending Buford off the field
on July 2 without replacing him; and not personally directing operations on
the 3rd, resulting in a subsequent cover-up of sorts regarding Farnsworth's
death.  His decisions (or lack thereof) during the retreat were abominable,
and is the reason he catches so much flack from Eric, Mike Nugent and I in
the Conclusion to our new book "One Continuous Fight."

J.D.  >>

What sums Pleasonton up, to me, is that Meade saw fit to have Seth Williams 
send him the following, almost astounding, message on June 30.  I say 
"almost astounding" because it's difficult to even imagine the commander of 
the army's cavalry corps having to have this spelled out for him not only in 
the middle of a campaign, but literally on the eve of battle.

     "The major-general commanding directs me to say that it is of the 
utmost importance to him that he receives reliable information of the 
presence of the enemy, his forces, and his movements.  His projected 
movement is toward the line of the Baltimore and Harrisburg road.  His 
instruxctions require him to cover Baltimore and Washington, while his 
objective point is the army under Lee.  To be able to find if this army is 
divided, and to concentrate upon any detached portion of it, without 
departing from the instrructions which govern him, would be a great object. 
People in the country are so freightened that he must depend solely upon the 
cavalry for all the information he can gain.  He looks to you to keep him 
informed of their movements, and especially that no force concentrates on 
his right, in the vicinity of York, to get between him and the Susquehanna, 
and also that no force moves on his left toward hagerstown and the passes 
below Cashtown.  Your cavalry force is large, and must be vigilent and 
active.  The reports must be those gained by the cavalry themselves, and the 
information sent in should be reliable.
       The duty you have to perform is of a most important and sacred 
character.  Cavalry battles must be secondary to this object.  the general 
does not understand why General Gregg (whose orders required him to move 
parallel with, and on the left flank of, the Sixth Corps, and forming the 
right wing of the army in the present movement) should have moved on the 
same line with that command"

This is something you'd tell a new 2nd LT his first day on the job, if you 
had some doubts about how well he'd been trained.  And the part about 
cavalry battles being secondary to gathering information points out part of 
the problem.  Pleasonton didn't seem to realize that it he was fighting 
enemy cavalry, that meant THEY were screening HIM.

Jim Cameron