GDG- If Sickles had stayed put!

[Alan D. Brunelle]

Margaret D. Blough wrote:
> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
>
>
> Linda,
>
> Sickles commanded a corps within an army, not to mention having absolutely no experiencing in commanding an army or in military engineering.  He had no more idea of what the conditions on the rest of the line were than he did on what was on the dark side of the moon so he could have no idea how his actions would affect the overall defensive line, Yet, on his own, he decided to take an action that did not only affect his own line but affected the army's position as a whole.  I've never seen any evidence that he informed, much less consulted, Hancock, whose flank he was exposing, of his plans.  Units had to be pulled from the rest of the army to plug up the hole he created, and much relied on extraordinary performance by the artillery in buying time, especially in Bigelow's battery holding action in the Peach Orchard and Freeman McGilvery's improvising an artillery line, for relief to come.
>
> Regards,
>
> Margaret

Hi Margaret -

It is amazing "watching" Union forces basically sacrificing themselves 
over and over again, trying to slow down Longstreet's assault while a 
line is established (basically) where Meade wanted it in the first 
place. It should be noted that besides the artillery, a number of Union 
regiments & whole brigades threw themselves at the assault all the way 
from the southern edge of Houck's ridge up through the Wheatfield, Peach 
Orchard and then along the Emmitsburg road. Besides Bigelow fighting 
withdrawal and then courageous stand at the Trostle farm, one could 
certainly mention the heroic efforts of the 2nd NH buying time with 
their life's blood in the Peach Orchard which allowed some of the 
artillery to retire that were later used in McGilvery's Plum Rune line.

Regards,
Alan