GDG- Alternate Gettysburg

Tue Mar 4 20:22:25 CST 2008

Rick: It's almost like Reynolds buying the farm "makes " the battle. Not anyone looking for shoes or armies accidentally colliding. And yes, I understand how everything ties together, but still, talk about being in the exactly wrong spot at exactly the right time....

  Thanks for the run down and  as usual, you've clarified things for me with an unexpected perspective.

  If Reynolds had accepted command, would it have been Meade under that tree?

  Did Lee really make fun of Pickets hair?

  Where's my map?
  K.

elcarto at comcast.net wrote:
  Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:

>>thanks Rick. So I'm thinking it isn't so much an "Alternate History" as it is a "What 
If". And just out of curiosity, does Gettysburg last three days in the gaming 
world if Reynolds survives more than a half an hour? I checked the Gingrich 
book, and they kill him pretty quick too. Is that where all the "alternate" 
historys diverge? - K.

Well, to put it into gaming terms, several turns into what should be a very long game, you have occurring one of the most random of events - the sudden death of an overall commander on one side - doesn't happen in games any more often than it did in real life. In fact, were the game being played as a playtest - that is prepublication to help knock the bugs out of the rules or scenario setups - I would require the game to be started over at that point simply because of how badly it would inevitably skew things from that point on, probably negating its value as a play test.

Authors interested in exploring 'what ifs' at Gettysburg almost always have Reynolds get shot, because not doing so so greatly alters what happens afterwards. In real life, I think that it was his death that pushed Gettysburg into 'alternate history', in that I think its effects pushed events down a far different path than I think that they would likely have gone otherwise, and in fact gave the Rebs their best real chance of winning.

I think that Reynolds and Meade were very much on the same page regarding what they were trying to do in an operational sense, and having Buford and Reynolds as the 'point men' on the wing of the army most likely to be in harm's way certainly gave Meade his best chance of staying on top of things. To tie into another thread, I think both Buford and Reynolds recognized the 'good ground' they found at Gettysburg (particularly in view of where they both knew major portions of both army's to be (the value of any piece of ground must always be placed in that context.), and the need to hold off the Reb forces that they knew to be heading in their direction until Meade could bring up the rest of the AOP.

What I believe was happening was this - Reynolds was responding to a very local crisis when he was shot; as I don't believe that he knew exactly how close the Rebs were, and was as surprised as anyone else by the volley that got him. The lines were where they were because that's the situation that Buford had left for him. He deployed Wadsworth's Division to stop Heth's disjointed attack, and succeeded in doing just that.

Had he not been shot, and the fighting died down as it did with the repulse of Davis and Archer, I believe from what he and others did write that he would have stopped right there and written several rather important messages - the first to Meade, restating that this was the 'good ground' they were looking for, and to bring up the rest of the troops ASAP - his close relationship with Meade, and the trust they held leaves little doubt that Meade would have done just that. 

The second would have been to Sickles, who was, after all, under his direct command as Advanced Wing Commander, ORDERING him to come forward from Emmitsburg immediately And in Sickles defense (now there's a new one!) historically he responded to the then conflicting orders he had from both Reynolds and Meade by leaving two Brigades at Emmitsburg and marching forward with the rest of his troops, a very commendable move under the circumstances, but certainly not arriving as early or in as great a force as he might have had he been directly ordered up by Reynolds at that point.

And the third would have been to Slocum and his XII Corps at Two Taverns, who could have gotten to Gettysburg by early afternoon. Reynolds didn't have the seniority to ORDER up Slocum under the circumstances, but would have retained Command of the Field had Slocum arrived - and I believe that a hesitancy to take over another commander's mess was at the root of Slocum's historical 'slows'.

So, with Reynolds still in the saddle you have the I and XI Corps deployed forward, with their command structures intact and overall command in the hands of someone they both trust, and by the time that Early arrives with Rodes' Division, with Early coming up behind, you'd have both the III and XII Corps well on their way forward to secure Reynolds flanks.

I don't believe that Reynolds had any intention of holding the forward position that he inherited from Buford, but most likely planned a collapsing defense to shield the much better ground behind him for the rest of the army's arrival. (And note that this would most likely have had Meade ordering that all out concentration around noon or so, almost six hours earlier than historically, when he waited for Hancock's report from the front.)

To make matters worse from Lee's POV, absent Stuart none of this would have been apparent from the Reb lines, and Lee might have gone ahead and allowed the afternoon attacks that historically broke both the I and XI Corps, locking himself in contact with an aggressive enemy who may well have now outnumbered him, with his own only reinforcements stretched out along that fatal 17 limes of the Chambersburg Pike. Not the greatest tactical or operational situation in which to find oneself!

The most likely outcome would have been a bloody nose for Lee, with little option but to fall back in the direction from which he had come - towards the Cashtown Gap, not Fairfield. In turn, this would have allowed Meade to get the inner arc in any race towards the Potomac, and possibly allowed him to cut off the ANV north of that river, somewhere in the upper Cumberland Valley. And all of this with Stuart still well out of position to screen for Lee, facing yet another hard ride or two to get back between the armies where he could do some good.

So yes, I do think that single bullet caused a lot of 'alternate history', and that's why a lot of authors and game designers accept his death as a 'given', just to keep the battle close to history. Dave Powell probably has more experience than me in this, but in games where there are historical constraints on what Lee is able to do on the 1st, the continued health of one John Fulton Reynolds DOES give him a worse than expected morning and afternoon! :-)

Rick (elcarto) Barber
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