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I was reading some stuff online about Pickett's Charge, and I thought this forum is always good for some additional info on the topic. So much is written about the details of the deployment of the confederate side, but the union side seems a bit harder to figure out. A few questions:

-The general theme seems to be that the Union had 7 Corps and 90k men at the battle, while the Confederates had 3 Corps and 70k men. I've seen estimates that the Union had between 6k and 10k to repulse Pickett's Charge. The question I have: if they only had 6-10k, where were the other ~80k men? I realize some were casualties or captured, and there were a couple Corps on Cemetery Hill, but were all the other Corps in reserve (besides II Corps on the ridge)?
-I've seen estimates that the Confederates had 120-150 artillery pieces involved in the pre attack bombardment, but Henry Hunt estimated only 75 Union cannon were in position to respond. The Union had over 300 artillery pieces in the area...considering I'd think that almost all the artillery in the line should be able to respond, where were the rest?
-Exactly how did the Confederates expect to disable the Union artillery? Kill the artillerymen? It doesn't seem likely that you would destroy the actual cannon from a mile away--how would you even do that?

Well estimated Union casualties for the first two days of the battle run about 19,000 for the first two days, so they probably only had somewhere between 65K and 75K available for battle. Then you have the V and VI corps covering the southern flank with the III Corps all blown to shit. The XII and XI Corps were covering the northern flank. So yeah I guess just the II Corps and what was left of the I Corps were holding the middle of the line, but it is not like if Pickett and Pettigrew and Trimble had made progress the Union didn't have plenty of reserves to bring up. I think the only reason more troops were not involved was just because they were not needed.

I think the plan was to drive some of the guns off the ridge just long enough for the infantry to advance right? They just wanted to quiet them for a short time. The infantry was right behind the guns ready to advance as soon as the right moment arrived.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2020, 07:52:08 PM
-Exactly how did the Confederates expect to disable the Union artillery? Kill the artillerymen? It doesn't seem likely that you would destroy the actual cannon from a mile away--how would you even do that?

By hitting the cannon with a big metal ball.  Unfortunately I can't find the max range for a Napoleon 12 pounder, which was the standard artillery piece of the Civil War, but I imagine they didn't choose to set up their batteries out of range of the Union line.

Guns of the US Civil war were mostly gun-howitzers like the 12# Napoleon, firing shell in counter-battery fire against entrenched enemies.  They'd attempt to have the shell explode above the opposing gun battery and kill or wound the crew.  In the open, they might use solid shot to try to knock the enemy guns to pieces, as the timing on shells was imprecise.

The Union had reinforced their flanks by the third day, as Meade saw the real danger as being Confederate flanking attacks.  An attack straight up the center against the entrenched Union troops was not considered likely, as it would result in casualties the Confederates could not afford to take.  Indeed, Lee probably knew the attack was a mistake when he ordered it, but he felt he had no other option if he was to end the war quickly.

Quote from: grumbler on May 27, 2020, 08:35:48 PM
Lee probably knew the attack was a mistake when he ordered it, but he felt he had no other option if he was to end the war quickly.

The Confederates were getting steamrolled. At this point in the war, it was arguable they never had even won a meaningful battle outside of Virginia. Lee was looking at a situation where he was at his own 10 with a minute to go, facing a fourth and 20, down by 7, and he chose to throw the ball to a guy in triple coverage downfield. Probably throwing the ball to a guy in triple coverage was the wrong choice, but punting or dumping the ball off wasn't going to work either.

That is my take on it at least.

General Lee was the Tony Romo of the Confederacy. Got it.

Quote from: FunkMonk on May 27, 2020, 08:55:52 PM
General Lee was the Tony Romo of the Confederacy. Got it.

:lol:

The Gettysburg battlefield is really big.  Pickett's charge only took place in small portion of the battlefield.  All the rest of the soldiers were spread out across a line that extended a few miles. You can only pack so many soldiers into a small space.

Quote from: Razgovory on May 27, 2020, 09:18:07 PM
The Gettysburg battlefield is really big.  Pickett's charge only took place in small portion of the battlefield.  All the rest of the soldiers were spread out across a line that extended a few miles. You can only pack so many soldiers into a small space.

But...it wasn't...I'm using google maps for this...if you look at the union line, Culps Hill to Cemetery Hill is a 0.6 mile walk, Cemetery Hill to Little Round top is 2.6 miles. If that is the line, the line is only 3.2 miles--less as the crow flies.

The angle is 1.0 miles from cemetery hill. That means that every soldier on the line above would be within a couple miles of the point of ultimate attack.

I'm surprised Culp's and Cemetery are that far apart.  They felt right on top of each other when I toured.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2020, 09:32:39 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on May 27, 2020, 09:18:07 PM
The Gettysburg battlefield is really big.  Pickett's charge only took place in small portion of the battlefield.  All the rest of the soldiers were spread out across a line that extended a few miles. You can only pack so many soldiers into a small space.

But...it wasn't...I'm using google maps for this...if you look at the union line, Culps Hill to Cemetery Hill is a 0.6 mile walk, Cemetery Hill to Little Round top is 2.6 miles. If that is the line, the line is only 3.2 miles--less as the crow flies.

The angle is 1.0 miles from cemetery hill. That means that every soldier on the line above would be within a couple miles of the point of ultimate attack.

True, but they need to hold the positions in front of them.  So long as the enemy is there, you need to be there as well or he will chase you down. I'm not sure what you asking here.  What is it you think the soldiers should be doing?

Quote from: Razgovory on May 27, 2020, 09:54:27 PM
True, but they need to hold the positions in front of them.  So long as the enemy is there, you need to be there as well or he will chase you down. I'm not sure what you asking here.  What is it you think the soldiers should be doing?

Soldiering!

I think Valmy had a good answer - initially I was surprised that the estimates of the #s of union troops opposing pickett's charge was so low. I'm not entirely sure what counts you in the # opposing the charge, but on a line of maybe less than 4 miles I would have expected more in the center (again I'm not sure what gets you counted, but I would think about a 1.5 mile stretch along the line would be included and available reserves brought up -- I'd have thought it would be more than 10k). A 1.5 mile stretch means you would be included if you were ~0.75 miles from the angle, which probably gave an opportunity to fire your gun--and obviously there were flanking movements by troops leaving the line.

I'm not totally sure why there were only 75 union cannon engaged, though I know there are estimates that more did engage and I guess it makes some sense--the guns on the northern flank to defend Cemetery and Culp's Hill were too far to engage, and only a handful of guns could get up Little Round Top.

Pickets division was not attacking alone, they were supported by IIRC Pettigrew and...someone else. Kemp? So it wasn't just Pickett attacking, he just had the center and his division had not fought in the first two days of battle, so was fresh.

The battle lines are basically linear. You don't know where you will be attacked, so your line is spread out along the length of the battle line. Yes, you might have lots more troops in nominal range of the attack, but

1. Are you sure this is the main attack, and not a feint to try to get you to pull troops from where the main attack will come?
2. Moving men out of line of battle, back, then marching them to another spot is doable, but not easy, especially when under artillery attack. Part of the purpose of that barrage is to (attempt at least) to isolate the target section of the battlefield. Artillery is MUCH more dangerous against moving soldiers than those in line.
3. The adjacent brigades and divisions are hopefully supporting the main attack, meaning that while they may not be looking to close and break the enemy in front of them, they are trying to move up and engage so as (again) to isolate the actual target for the decisive attack. Pickets division had three fresh brigades, but there were about a dozen actually involved in the attack.

This is why having reserves BEHIND the line is so critical, since they will be the ones available to close a off a breakthrough, since they can move into the line without needing to move laterally along it.

This ability to coordinate formations so they can support one another is kind of the crux of civil war battles, and is the reason why the South at this time used very large corps, while the Union used smaller, more homogenous ones. Lee was more confident in his corps commanders being exceptional leaders capable of manuevering much larger groups of men, while the Northern army was more designed to have similar sized Corps, and sized so that they could theoretically be commanded by anyone basically competent, rather than Lee's hand picked Corps commanders.

But in any case, "Picketts Charge" sounds a lot better than "Longstreets Assault using Pickets division along with supporting elements from some other units, some of which never really got into the fight at all".

The reasons for cannons engaged is essentially the same - the Union doesn't know where the attack is coming, so while they did concentrate a lot of their cannon in the center, they could not concentrate it all, while Lee was confident he was not going to be attacked, and hence was more willing to just strip his artillery to concentrate it at the point of attack. There is also a spacing issue - when attacking, you can spread it out in line, while aiming it into a point. When defending, you have to keep you artillery lined up alongside your infantry (mostly). But once it was clear what was happening, the Union artillery was definintely concentrated, and was used to devastating effect.

It was called Pickett's Charge because the Virginia media decided to pin the failure of the whole thing on the cowardice and ineptitude of the North Carolinians of Pettigrew's division for not helping their brave Virginians when they reached the stone wall. So it was Pickett's Charge, old Virginia going in to win it for the Confederacy, but those sucky North Carolinians screwed it all up. I mean what else were they going to do? Blame General Lee? So the Virginia newspapers at the time gave it that name and it has stuck for whatever reason.

So when you go to Gettysburg you can note the monuments North Carolina put up there for Pettigrew's division to try to counter this narrative.

Quote from: FunkMonk on May 27, 2020, 08:55:52 PM
General Lee was the Tony Romo of the Confederacy. Got it.

Man that is an amazingly apt analogy :lol:

Which makes Jeff Davis Jerry Jones.

So doing a bit more digging...maybe this will be interesting to someone other than me...

Hancock's II Corps had 5 batteries attached, with a total of 26 guns. These batteries were all close to the point of attack.

Of the 26 guns, it seems 10 were available as the infantry approached (6 of those from one battery in Ziegler's Grove).

1st New York Light, Battery B: 4 guns, only 1 was operational at the time of Pickett's Charge, and that gun was overrun. 10 were killed including the commander.

1st Rhode Island Light, Battery A: 6 guns, 1 was destroyed in the confederate bombardment, and 4 more ran out of ammunition and were withdrawn. The remaining 1 gun was wheeled to the line to fire cannister in the infantry attack.

1st Rhode Island Light, Battery B: 6 guns, 3 were damaged, the remaining 3 were withdrawn prior to the infantry attack. All officers were killed or wounded.

1st United States, Battery I: 6 guns, all guns were apparently operational by the time of the infantry attack. The commander was killed.

4th United States, Battery A: 6 guns, 4 guns disabled before the attack, 2 were moved to the line to fire cannister  in the infantry attack. The commander was killed (this was Cushing's Battery)

Quote from: Berkut on May 27, 2020, 10:53:14 PM

The reasons for cannons engaged is essentially the same - the Union doesn't know where the attack is coming, so while they did concentrate a lot of their cannon in the center, they could not concentrate it all, while Lee was confident he was not going to be attacked, and hence was more willing to just strip his artillery to concentrate it at the point of attack. There is also a spacing issue - when attacking, you can spread it out in line, while aiming it into a point. When defending, you have to keep you artillery lined up alongside your infantry (mostly). But once it was clear what was happening, the Union artillery was definintely concentrated, and was used to devastating effect.

The artillery fire was concentrated--the artillery maybe not as much.

The park service says the union had 360 cannon at the battle.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hh/9/hh9j.htm

The numbers engaged in Pickett's Charge are variable depending on the source -- they seem to vary from 80 to 125. The portion of the line engaged includes the line from Little Round Top to Cemetery Hill (a theory I have is the difference in cannon engaged is whether the cannon on Cemetery Hill are included, but I don't know that). There were only 6 cannon on Little Round Top and they engaged by any standard. That leaves something like 240 cannon elsewhere on the battlefield...that is a lot of cannon and I'm not sure where they would be. I don't think Big Round Top was taken until later in the day and while Culp's Hill would have a number, it won't be the bulk of that number.

Obviously it is an answerable question...you can just look up the units and count the artillery pieces...basically everyone's location is well documented at Gettysburg.

The question may be aswerable, but I have no idea what the question *is*.

Here's a map (easily found) of the artillery locations on the third day of Gettysburg:
(https://www.battlefields.org/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_1120/public/thumbnails/image/Gettysburg--July-3-1863--Picketts-Charge-Artillery-Positions-%28October-2019%29.jpg?itok=tNL0Qril)

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/maps/gettysburg-picketts-charge-artillery-placements (https://www.battlefields.org/learn/maps/gettysburg-picketts-charge-artillery-placements)

If you can ask the question, it can probably be answered.

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 10:08:22 AM
The question may be aswerable, but I have no idea what the question *is*.

Here's a map (easily found) of the artillery locations on the third day of Gettysburg:

That map shows 124 guns (if my quick count is correct).

That map shows artillery positions on Cemetery Hill (though I don't think it extends down to Little Round Top - I understand there were 6 guns there).

The park service indicated that there were 360 union cannon...that leaves well over 200 unaccounted for. The question is, where were all those guns?

Probably in the laundry.

 :area52:

Quote from: alfred russel on May 28, 2020, 10:19:54 AM

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 10:08:22 AM
The question may be aswerable, but I have no idea what the question *is*.

Here's a map (easily found) of the artillery locations on the third day of Gettysburg:

That map shows 124 guns (if my quick count is correct).

That map shows artillery positions on Cemetery Hill (though I don't think it extends down to Little Round Top - I understand there were 6 guns there).

The park service indicated that there were 360 union cannon...that leaves well over 200 unaccounted for. The question is, where were all those guns?

Either in the reserve or guarding other parts of the line.  Keep in mind that cemetery ridge was not the only place under attack that day and you can't have everyone just rush to spot of decision.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 28, 2020, 10:19:54 AM
That map shows 124 guns (if my quick count is correct).

That map shows artillery positions on Cemetery Hill (though I don't think it extends down to Little Round Top - I understand there were 6 guns there).

The park service indicated that there were 360 union cannon...that leaves well over 200 unaccounted for. The question is, where were all those guns?

I believe that your 360 Union guns number is wrong.  According to Gottfried's The Artillery of Gettysburg there were 355 total guns at Gettysburg. 

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 01:40:39 PM


I believe that your 360 Union guns number is wrong.  According to Gottfried's The Artillery of Gettysburg there were 355 total guns at Gettysburg.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hh/9/hh9j.htm

That number is from the national park service.

Well if the Confederates really had 270 cannons and Pickett's Charge was their big attack that Lee had staked the whole war on, it seems far weirder that they would not have used more of their guns in their attack. It makes much more sense that the Union would disperse their guns along their line of defense. Though I suppose there are only so many guns you can park in a 1.5 mile long line.

It could also be a question of ordinance. Maybe they only had so much available or so much they could safely store in one place they expected to be under fire.

Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2020, 02:02:54 PM
Well if the Confederates really had 270 cannons and Pickett's Charge was their big attack that Lee had staked the whole war on, it seems far weirder that they would not have used more of their guns in their attack. It makes much more sense that the Union would disperse their guns along their line of defense. Though I suppose there are only so many guns you can park in a 1.5 mile long line.

It could also be a question of ordinance. Maybe they only had so much available or so much they could safely store in one place they expected to be under fire.

As you mention the limiting factor was ordinance.

I can't get their numbers to work either, but they didn't have an artillery reserve--all their artillery was with the corps. If you factor in that it probably didn't make sense to bring down Ewell's Artillery and the horse artillery would stay with Stuart, 100 cannon not participating in the barrage isn't crazy (the number included is debatable--and apparently 50 or so never fired despite being included in any event--because of the ammunition issues).

Quote from: alfred russel on May 28, 2020, 02:24:47 PM

Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2020, 02:02:54 PM
Well if the Confederates really had 270 cannons and Pickett's Charge was their big attack that Lee had staked the whole war on, it seems far weirder that they would not have used more of their guns in their attack. It makes much more sense that the Union would disperse their guns along their line of defense. Though I suppose there are only so many guns you can park in a 1.5 mile long line.

It could also be a question of ordinance. Maybe they only had so much available or so much they could safely store in one place they expected to be under fire.

As you mention the limiting factor was ordinance.

:huh:

I just looked at a map of the third day.  Man, the Confederates were really fucked.  They had fewer men, exterior lines, and a small town splitting their force.  I wonder why the Union didn't attack.

Valmy--here is why I think the confederate numbers are plausible--but not saying they are correct of course.

Lets assume the park service is correct that the confederates had 270 cannon. Probably 40 were horse artillery with Stuart.

That leaves 230 cannon for infantry. The confederates did not have an artillery reserve, so all else being equal each corps should have 1/3 of the artillery--or about 75-80 cannon.

If you assume Alexander pulled the artillery from Longstreet's and Hill's Corps to be available to support the attack, but not Ewell's (on the north side of the battlefield), that means about 150-160 would be available for the attack. How many were there?

QuoteConfederate general Robert E. Lee ordered a massive artillery bombardment of the center of the Union line prior to the attack that Friday afternoon. The responsibility for lining up the guns fell to Colonel Porter Alexander, who poached cannons from wherever he could find them. "Nothing remotely like it had been seen before in this war," the historian Stephen W. Sears has written, continuing:

"With their crews hidden from sight, the guns stood silent in their long ranks like deadly, solitary sentinels. Heat waves radiated off the black iron Parrott and Rodman rifles; the bronze Napoleons gleamed brightly in the sunlight. On Little Round Top an awed Major Thomas Hyde, viewing this array "seemingly directed toward the centre of our line," counted 100 guns visible just from his vantage point."

But how many guns were there in total? Historians' numbers have varied. Sears claimed 163, while others, such as Douglas Southall Freeman, have cited Alexander's postwar memoir in concluding that there were 140 guns altogether, 56 of which went unused. In two different books, the British historian Brian Holden Reid has provided two different numbers: 164 in one, 172 in the other (while noting that 56 of those went unused).

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/numbers_at_pickett_s_charge

That directionally makes sense.

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 03:05:42 PM
I just looked at a map of the third day.  Man, the Confederates were really fucked.  They had fewer men, exterior lines, and a small town splitting their force.  I wonder why the Union didn't attack.

Meade was not that kind of guy, though I guess I should give him a little credit since he had only been in command of the army for about five days by the third day of Gettysburg. He might just not have been confident enough in his staff or commanders to organize such an attack, most of his staff were Hooker's guys who were not his friends.

On the other hand in Meade's two campaigns against Lee in 1863 he consistently failed to force a battle, hesistant to fight except under the most favorable condidtions. So I think launching a major counter-attack after 20,000 casualties was just not something he had the stomach for.

Meade was an expert at not losing.

Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2020, 03:19:58 PM

Meade was an expert at not losing.

(https://i.postimg.cc/Z5TFctrs/beamer-0.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)

It makes sense now...Meade was reincarnated as Frank Beamer.

I mean that might as well be a photo from the Mine Run Campaign.

So for confederate artillery:

each battery had 4 cannon, at full strength.

There were 9 infantry divisions, each with 4 batteries: or 144 theoretical divisional cannon.
Each of the 3 corps had an artillery reserve averaging 9 batteries: or 108 theoretical corps reserve cannon.
Jeb Stuart had 8 batteries: or 32 theoretical cannon.

If the confederate batteries were at full strength, they would have had 284 cannon.

Still no match for Frank.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 28, 2020, 01:50:00 PM

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 01:40:39 PM


I believe that your 360 Union guns number is wrong.  According to Gottfried's The Artillery of Gettysburg there were 355 total guns at Gettysburg.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hh/9/hh9j.htm

That number is from the national park service.

Okay, but what I am saying is that the number looks to be misleading.  There were 352 guns in the total Union OOB for the Army of the Potomac (I just counted them up using Scott Bowden's Last Chance for Victory), but not all of the units were present for the battle, and not all of the artillery reserve was deployed.  Gottlieb has 229 Union and 164 Confederate guns listed as having "fought" at the battle (not the 355 I listed earlier, as I left out some Confederate guns that were there on day 3).

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 04:20:55 PM

Okay, but what I am saying is that the number looks to be misleading.  There were 352 guns in the total Union OOB for the Army of the Potomac (I just counted them up using Scott Bowden's Last Chance for Victory), but not all of the units were present for the battle, and not all of the artillery reserve was deployed.  Gottlieb has 229 Union and 164 Confederate guns listed as having "fought" at the battle (not the 355 I listed earlier, as I left out some Confederate guns that were there on day 3).

I'm trying to come back to the park service numbers...and I think they are plausible - if the count is cannon present in the area rather than cannon engaged.

As I showed earlier, the Army of Northern Virginia had 71 batteries present...which at a full strength of 4 cannon would be 284 cannon. That is reasonably close to the park services 270. Was it realistic that they would be so close to full strength? I'm doubtful, but there were overstrength batteries, and the army was just reorganized. With most Confederate guns captured from the Union, and the Army of Northern Virginia coming off a series of victories, it isn't the most insane thing.

The Union is more of a problem. They had 7 corps, each with 5 batteries. They had 9 batteries attached to cavalry, and the artillery reserve had 21 batteries. This gives a total of 65 batteries. A full strength union battery was 6 guns, so theoretically that is 390, but that isn't realistic--less than a year later the army reduced artillery batteries to 4 guns because of trouble filling them out (horses being the bottleneck). If they averaged 5 guns / battery, that is 325 guns - still 45 short of the park service number.

I wonder if the missing piece to the puzzle is militia. Militia did have artillery units and militia from Pennsylvania and I know at least New York militia went to Pennsylvania.

The number of guns assigned to a Union corps varied widely, from the 20 attached to the XII Corps to the 46 attached to the VI Corps.

Quote from: grumbler on May 28, 2020, 07:58:35 PM
The number of guns assigned to a Union corps varied widely, from the 20 attached to the XII Corps to the 46 attached to the VI Corps.

Of the 7 corps, 5 had 5 batteries. The two exceptions were the corps you mentioned: XII had 4 batteries and VI had 8. So net, there were 2 extra batteries attached to corps from what I said (37 rather than 35).

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 03:05:42 PM
I just looked at a map of the third day.  Man, the Confederates were really fucked.  They had fewer men, exterior lines, and a small town splitting their force.  I wonder why the Union didn't attack.

I guess defending is always easier than attacking.  If the enemy will attack anyway, then there is no need to attack.  Strategically, Lee was on the offensive.  He will attack to force a political solution.  So the Union could simply wait.  That worked, I think. 

Quote from: Monoriu on May 28, 2020, 09:58:11 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 03:05:42 PM
I just looked at a map of the third day.  Man, the Confederates were really fucked.  They had fewer men, exterior lines, and a small town splitting their force.  I wonder why the Union didn't attack.

I guess defending is always easier than attacking.  If the enemy will attack anyway, then there is no need to attack.  Strategically, Lee was on the offensive.  He will attack to force a political solution.  So the Union could simply wait.  That worked, I think. 

Sure it worked to not lose the war.

But attacking might have won it, especially after Pickett's Charge.

Quote from: Monoriu on May 28, 2020, 09:58:11 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 03:05:42 PM
I just looked at a map of the third day.  Man, the Confederates were really fucked.  They had fewer men, exterior lines, and a small town splitting their force.  I wonder why the Union didn't attack.

I guess defending is always easier than attacking.  If the enemy will attack anyway, then there is no need to attack.  Strategically, Lee was on the offensive.  He will attack to force a political solution.  So the Union could simply wait.  That worked, I think.

Lincoln seemed to think otherwise, that's why Grant was put in charge shortly after this (Grant would win a huge victory over the South the next day).

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 10:51:27 PM
Lincoln seemed to think otherwise, that's why Grant was put in charge shortly after this (Grant would win a huge victory over the South the next day).

Well Meade was never actually replaced, Grant actually took the job of Meade's boss General-in-Chief Henry Halleck. Meade not only succeeded in not losing the war, he also succeeded in not losing his job.

In hindsight it is easy to criticize Meade and with the information we have it is clear he should have attacked...but we know that the Union Army was larger and better equipped. Meade received intelligence that Lee had 100,000 men in Pennsylvania and thus probably the larger army at Gettysburg.

On the other side, for reasons I don't really understand, Lee seems to have thought that the Union Army hadn't fully reached the battlefield. There is some evidence that the vantage point on the Lutheran Seminary appears to give a great view of the union line on Cemetery Ridge, but actual conceals a significant portion of it. Putting those together, if the Union really had 25% less troops on Cemetery Ridge, Pickett's Charge would have had prospects for success.

Prospects for success.....hmmmm.

I think I am going to defer to the opinion of someone who was there. A confederate in fact, who was considering the prospects of success, and probably, maybe....had some idea of those prospects, and was, by all accounts, perhaps one of maybe a dozen human beings at that time who could best evaulate such things. He was, in fact, the Major General who was in charge of the attack itself. General James Longstreet.

He said, BEFORE the attack, to Lee, arguing that they should leave the field:

QuoteGeneral, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.

Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2020, 10:58:54 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on May 28, 2020, 10:51:27 PM
Lincoln seemed to think otherwise, that's why Grant was put in charge shortly after this (Grant would win a huge victory over the South the next day).

Well Meade was never actually replaced, Grant actually took the job of Meade's boss General-in-Chief Henry Halleck. Meade not only succeeded in not losing the war, he also succeeded in not losing his job.

He kept his job, but Grant was micro-managing him, apparently.  Sort of like a carreer bureaucrat being sidelined but still keeping his pay.

Quote from: Berkut on May 29, 2020, 10:20:22 PM
Prospects for success.....hmmmm.

I think I am going to defer to the opinion of someone who was there. A confederate in fact, who was considering the prospects of success, and probably, maybe....had some idea of those prospects, and was, by all accounts, perhaps one of maybe a dozen human beings at that time who could best evaulate such things. He was, in fact, the Major General who was in charge of the attack itself. General James Longstreet.

He said, BEFORE the attack, to Lee, arguing that they should leave the field:

QuoteGeneral, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.

Damn he was low energy.

I suggest read Gettysburg by Sears. He has excellent books on Chancellorsville and Antietam as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-W-Sears/e/B000AP6ZW2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Quote from: alfred russel on May 29, 2020, 08:18:25 AM
On the other side, for reasons I don't really understand, Lee seems to have thought that the Union Army hadn't fully reached the battlefield. There is some evidence that the vantage point on the Lutheran Seminary appears to give a great view of the union line on Cemetery Ridge, but actual conceals a significant portion of it. Putting those together, if the Union really had 25% less troops on Cemetery Ridge, Pickett's Charge would have had prospects for success.

- The charge only started toward 1pm.
- The soldiers had to walk/run 3/4 of miles under artillery fire, and close fire of a well entranched bunch of soliders once they got close to their target.
- The North likely had reserves to fill the gaps in the center.
- The artillery did not have sufficient ammunitions to sustain a heavy artillery barrage on the ennemy well before the attack and while the attack was taking place.

Even with 25% less Union soldiers, I fail to see how that charge could have succeeded.  Advancing with no artillery support while continuously taking ennemy fire and relying on the braveness of your soldiers is usually a recipe for disaster.

Granted, Lee did not think there was so many soldiers.  He probably expected Longstreet to attack early in the morning and underestimated the required time to prepare the divisions for combat.  Stuart failed to provide adequate reconnaissance.  But he should have at least known there wasn't enough ammo for his plan to succeed.

I understand not wanting to listen to Longstreet, he's the senior commander, his mind his set.  But a great leader knows to listen to his subordinates.  Lee failed there.

His plan was sound on paper with everything perfectly aligned.  More guns and more canon balls at the ready, better coordination of his artillery corps, better coordination with Longstreet, less well entranched union troops, etc, etc, etc.  But since the only chance for success relied on everything being perfect on his side and everything being imperfect on the other side, he most likely made a mistake.

Of course, it's easy to judge from my armchair general's position, but it's not saying he was a bad tactician that he committed a mistake at some point.  He committed it at the worst possible time, but mistake happens.  Longstreet had had a better view of the field and of the opposing force than him, and he should have taken his advice under consideration.

Quote from: Berkut on May 29, 2020, 10:20:22 PM
Prospects for success.....hmmmm.

I think I am going to defer to the opinion of someone who was there. A confederate in fact, who was considering the prospects of success, and probably, maybe....had some idea of those prospects, and was, by all accounts, perhaps one of maybe a dozen human beings at that time who could best evaulate such things. He was, in fact, the Major General who was in charge of the attack itself. General James Longstreet.

He said, BEFORE the attack, to Lee, arguing that they should leave the field:

QuoteGeneral, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.

Obviously there was disagreement by the military men at the time - hence the attack was made. Also, Longstreet was looking at the world as it was, not with the union forces reduced 25%.

There was a mathematical model looking at this.

QuoteData from conflict used to build model

That debate was the starting point for research I conducted with military historian Steven Sondergren at Norwich University. (A grant from Fulbright Canada funded my stay at Norwich.) We used computer software to build a mathematical model of the charge. The model estimated the casualties and survivors on each side, given their starting strengths.

We used data from the actual conflict to calibrate the model's equations. This ensured they initially recreated the historical results. We then adjusted the equations to represent changes in the charge, to see how those affected the outcome. This allowed us to experiment mathematically with several different alternatives...

Finally, we considered the Union Army. After the battle, critics complained that Meade had focused too much on preparing his defences. This made it harder to launch a counter-attack later. However, our model estimated that if he had put even one less infantry brigade in his defensive line, the Confederate charge probably would have succeeded. This suggests Meade was correct to emphasize his defense.

https://theconversation.com/picketts-charge-what-modern-mathematics-teaches-us-about-civil-war-battle-78982

Confederate losses are debatable of course, but wikipedia puts killed at 1,123 and wounded at 4,019. What really increased the losses for confederates was the large number of captured (presumably connected to the retreat/defeat). If you reduce the 5,142 killed and wounded by 25% (a conservative estimate - one would expect that reducing the enemy 25% would reduce casualties by more than 25%), the confederates would have taken 3,857 killed and wounded, probably about 30% of the attacking force. That is high, but it isn't catastrophic.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2020, 07:52:08 PM
I was reading some stuff online about Pickett's Charge, and I thought this forum is always good for some additional info on the topic. So much is written about the details of the deployment of the confederate side, but the union side seems a bit harder to figure out. A few questions:

-The general theme seems to be that the Union had 7 Corps and 90k men at the battle, while the Confederates had 3 Corps and 70k men. I've seen estimates that the Union had between 6k and 10k to repulse Pickett's Charge. The question I have: if they only had 6-10k, where were the other ~80k men? I realize some were casualties or captured, and there were a couple Corps on Cemetery Hill, but were all the other Corps in reserve (besides II Corps on the ridge)?
-I've seen estimates that the Confederates had 120-150 artillery pieces involved in the pre attack bombardment, but Henry Hunt estimated only 75 Union cannon were in position to respond. The Union had over 300 artillery pieces in the area...considering I'd think that almost all the artillery in the line should be able to respond, where were the rest?
-Exactly how did the Confederates expect to disable the Union artillery? Kill the artillerymen? It doesn't seem likely that you would destroy the actual cannon from a mile away--how would you even do that?

Books are great

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-First-Day-Civil-America/dp/0807871311

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Second-Day-Civil-America/dp/0807847305/ref=pd_lpo_14_img_0/133-3885716-9778356?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0807847305&pd_rd_r=6e4ff1da-3f40-440d-976c-780dc58cdb91&pd_rd_w=oG5Pq&pd_rd_wg=X6hed&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=SJRMV422Z1PW45TRWHJE&psc=1&refRID=SJRMV422Z1PW45TRWHJE

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Culps-Hill-Cemetery-Harry-Pfanz/dp/0807849960/ref=pd_bxgy_img_3/133-3885716-9778356?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0807849960&pd_rd_r=b1ca6df2-509b-4d58-93cb-047a51b6c713&pd_rd_w=v2Ttt&pd_rd_wg=L3Pvd&pf_rd_p=4e3f7fc3-00c8-46a6-a4db-8457e6319578&pf_rd_r=2EE1MJK7EQB2EV7ASF4H&psc=1&refRID=2EE1MJK7EQB2EV7ASF4H

Quote from: alfred russel on May 30, 2020, 09:28:00 AM

Quote from: Berkut on May 29, 2020, 10:20:22 PM
Prospects for success.....hmmmm.

I think I am going to defer to the opinion of someone who was there. A confederate in fact, who was considering the prospects of success, and probably, maybe....had some idea of those prospects, and was, by all accounts, perhaps one of maybe a dozen human beings at that time who could best evaulate such things. He was, in fact, the Major General who was in charge of the attack itself. General James Longstreet.

He said, BEFORE the attack, to Lee, arguing that they should leave the field:

QuoteGeneral, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.

Obviously there was disagreement by the military men at the time - hence the attack was made.

By that logic, every attack, or defense, or military action ever taken of any kind, if justifiable, since some military man did it.

The attack was foolish. It was Lee's ego, his inability to believe that he could be beaten, that no matter how crazy his plan, it would work.

And the past fooled him. He had done things before that made no real sense in a sober analysis at the time. Chancellorsville, just a few months earlier, was fucking crazy, and it worked.

He did not make that attack because his military training made him think it could work, or would work. He ordered that attack because his ego would not let him believe that he had been beaten. That he could pull off another crazy move, and somehow the Union would follow his plan, and voila! victory.

He had rolled the dice on low odds moves before, and it had worked, mostly because the Union commanders had been reactive and, well, stupid. Meade was not some brilliant commander, but he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't reactive. He was careful, and whatever he did, there was no way he was going to let Lee pull another Chancellorsville on him. Which was very much the exactly right way to fight Lee in that moment.

Longstreet was right, and I don't care what "modern model" say about single brigades. There was no fucking way that attack on that day against the Union Army was going to work. They can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them. The battle was over on the second day. Hell, it might have been over on the first when Ewell failed to take the hills above Gettysburg and Lee wasn't capable of just pulling off the field and going operational (which was how to beat Meade). The third day was just ego killing a lot of men to no purpose.

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 10:24:49 AM
They can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them.

In these kind of things lie parts of the key, is my impression. I know dick about the ACW, but my impression is that the Confederacy was in a fairly desperate situation. I wouldn't be surprised if Lee reasoned that only spectacular battlefield victories might offer a chance of victory. If the alternative you see is ultimate defeat, how insane odds are you willing to brave? Mistakes made before that day were regrettable, but you have the moment you have. If you don't buy that lottery ticket you KNOW you're not gonna hit the jackpot.

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 10:24:49 AM


By that logic, every attack, or defense, or military action ever taken of any kind, if justifiable, since some military man did it.

Absolutely not. I posited that if the union had 25% less strength to repulse attack it would have had prospects of success, and you disagreed quoting Longstreet's belief the attack had no prospects. My point was that is not a sufficient argument because:

1) Longstreet was talking about the attack as it was, not with a hypothetically reduced Union force, and
2) If the chief reason you are citing for an attack being doomed is a well educated, experienced, and informed military man saying so before the attack, it is worth pointing out the position wasn't universally shared by an equally (or even better) placed military man.

Quote
The attack was foolish. It was Lee's ego, his inability to believe that he could be beaten, that no matter how crazy his plan, it would work.

And the past fooled him. He had done things before that made no real sense in a sober analysis at the time. Chancellorsville, just a few months earlier, was fucking crazy, and it worked.

He did not make that attack because his military training made him think it could work, or would work. He ordered that attack because his ego would not let him believe that he had been beaten. That he could pull off another crazy move, and somehow the Union would follow his plan, and voila! victory.

He had rolled the dice on low odds moves before, and it had worked, mostly because the Union commanders had been reactive and, well, stupid. Meade was not some brilliant commander, but he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't reactive. He was careful, and whatever he did, there was no way he was going to let Lee pull another Chancellorsville on him. Which was very much the exactly right way to fight Lee in that moment.

Longstreet was right, and I don't care what "modern model" say about single brigades. There was no fucking way that attack on that day against the Union Army was going to work. They can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them. The battle was over on the second day. Hell, it might have been over on the first when Ewell failed to take the hills above Gettysburg and Lee wasn't capable of just pulling off the field and going operational (which was how to beat Meade). The third day was just ego killing a lot of men to no purpose.

So...what percentage do you judge is needed to reduce Union strength against Pickett's Charge to give the attack prospects of success?

(though bizarrely I will note that you say "they can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them"...which seems to mean that you think the Confederates had prospects of success even with everyone at full strength.)

Quote from: alfred russel on May 30, 2020, 12:00:41 PM

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 10:24:49 AM


By that logic, every attack, or defense, or military action ever taken of any kind, if justifiable, since some military man did it.

Absolutely not. I posited that if the union had 25% less strength to repulse attack it would have had prospects of success, and you disagreed quoting Longstreet's belief the attack had no prospects. My point was that is not a sufficient argument because:

1) Longstreet was talking about the attack as it was, not with a hypothetically reduced Union force, and
2) If the chief reason you are citing for an attack being doomed is a well educated, experienced, and informed military man saying so before the attack, it is worth pointing out the position wasn't universally shared by an equally (or even better) placed military man.

Quote
The attack was foolish. It was Lee's ego, his inability to believe that he could be beaten, that no matter how crazy his plan, it would work.

And the past fooled him. He had done things before that made no real sense in a sober analysis at the time. Chancellorsville, just a few months earlier, was fucking crazy, and it worked.

He did not make that attack because his military training made him think it could work, or would work. He ordered that attack because his ego would not let him believe that he had been beaten. That he could pull off another crazy move, and somehow the Union would follow his plan, and voila! victory.

He had rolled the dice on low odds moves before, and it had worked, mostly because the Union commanders had been reactive and, well, stupid. Meade was not some brilliant commander, but he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't reactive. He was careful, and whatever he did, there was no way he was going to let Lee pull another Chancellorsville on him. Which was very much the exactly right way to fight Lee in that moment.

Longstreet was right, and I don't care what "modern model" say about single brigades. There was no fucking way that attack on that day against the Union Army was going to work. They can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them. The battle was over on the second day. Hell, it might have been over on the first when Ewell failed to take the hills above Gettysburg and Lee wasn't capable of just pulling off the field and going operational (which was how to beat Meade). The third day was just ego killing a lot of men to no purpose.

So...what percentage do you judge is needed to reduce Union strength against Pickett's Charge to give the attack prospects of success?

(though bizarrely I will note that you say "they can re-run that scenario 100 times, and the Union wins 90 of them"...which seems to mean that you think the Confederates had prospects of success even with everyone at full strength.)

You have to throw in the 10% because you never know what crazy shit might happen in a battle. Some dumbass Union corps commander might decide that his corp is better situated a few hundred yards back or forward, and ignoring orders to the contrary, move all his men off to some idiotic position. For example.

I don't know how much you would need to reduce Union strength, or what that even means. The Union lines were well positioned that deal with an attack along their frontage - do you mean what would happen if the Union on Day 3 had 25% less men than they did everywhere? Or at the point of attack?

If they had 25% less men everywhere, that would mean they had taken radically higher casualties in the first two days, and hence likely would not have the same positions they had - I'm not sure how to evaluate that counter-factual, since it would presumably also mean the rebel troops likely took fewer casualties?

As far as Lee *thinking* there were fewer men there....that is kind of silly. None of these men knew within 25% how many men were across the other line, and they didn't make decisions based on having that level of precision in specific battlefield alignments because they would never actually know that in most conditions. The best they could know was that the Union had about a certain number of units total, and they can certainly look across and see occupied positions. But they would not be able to say how many men and cannon occupied those positions beyond the most general sense (ie, their knowledge of standard alignments and frontages).

Given the information they had:

1. Their army was badly mauled, low on ammunition, but still able to fight. Many units however, were basically useless without rest, refit, and re-organization.
2. They had a large division, well led, or veteran troops that for a variety of reason was fresh.
3. The enemy was bloodied, but probably no moreso than themselves.
4. The enemy started the campaign with more men.
5. The enemy has had plenty of time to re-arrange their lines, so there is no reason to think that the point of your attack is weak.
6. The terrain is incredibly favorable to the defender. Lee would be very aware of just how difficult it would be to attack a prepared position, and Longstreet even more so - his division anchored the line when the Union attacked the left flank at Fredericksburg.

And my point here is that in this moment, Lee was NOT better placed to make that determination, because he stopped thinking like a military tactician, and let his ego drive his decision. Longstreet was right. There were no 15,000 men who could take that position, and the results pretty much speak for themselves. It didn't take some amazing or lucky turn of events for the Union to stop the attack with catastrophic casualties for the rebels.

So in summary...in the portion of Cemetery Ridge the Union attacked, the Union had the II Corps (3 divisions) and some beat up remains of a couple divisions of the I Corps.

You don't want to speculate regarding the amount of those forces that could have been redeployed before the attack to other parts of the battlefield with the line still holding, so are just going to keep saying the attack was doomed to fail as it actually happened. Never mind there have been studies to examine just this point.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 30, 2020, 12:33:59 PM
So in summary...in the portion of Cemetery Ridge the Union attacked, the Union had the II Corps (3 divisions) and some beat up remains of a couple divisions of the I Corps.

You don't want to speculate regarding the amount of those forces that could have been redeployed before the attack to other parts of the battlefield with the line still holding, so are just going to keep saying the attack was doomed to fail as it actually happened. Never mind there have been studies to examine just this point.

I am saying that your speculation is amatuer hour stuff. What would the line look like with 25% fewer men? I don't know, and neither do you, and neither do people who run simulations. You are asking that we speculate on something that had it been true would have had many OTHER consequences as a result, but we are asked to pretend those other things would not change as well. What is the point of that? And what would it mean for ME, today, to answer "I think if the line had had 29% fewer troops, it still could have held, but 30% fewer and it could not!". That would be a dumb thing to say, because I have no idea what the actual numbers needed would be anymore than you do. Obviously it is some sliding scale of success versus actual men and ammunition and cannon there. The specifics of that curve though, are completely speculative, and what is more, Lee did not know about the numbers anyway.

The attack was doomed to fail as it actually happened, and damn near everyone involved knew it. Lee ordered it anyway because he didn't know what else to do given his refusal to simply accept defeat and retreat. These kinds of mistakes happen all the time in military history, so I don't really know why you are working so hard to figure out a way to claim it was a reasonable decision to make. It was not. People with experise before the attack knew it was not, and the actual attack exactly bore that out.

Lee did not know there were 25% fewer men, nor did he suspect it. He had a basic idea of how many men were opposing him, the same way Longstreet had the same, basic idea. They had fought on that very battlefield against those same units for two days straight. This was not an error in intelligence, not on day 3. He didn't even have the men at that point to launch a spoiling attack to try to draw men from the main attack. He just basically hoped that elan and spirit would overcome the technical reality of humans and rifle bullets and grapeshot.

Note: There have been other studies using mathematical models of how Pickets Charge could have worked. They mostly involve Lee have like 4 more fresh brigades then he had, and they STILL tend to result in an outcome where the assault "works" but cannot actually be held as Union troops counter attack and drive off the briefly "victorious" troops. Lee had no reserves, nobody to throw in to exploit a successful assault anyway. His plan was that he would attack, Pickets and Pettigrews men would shatter the center, and then turn north and attack Hays division on its flank.

Even that just doesn't make any fucking sense. Troops that just marched over a mile into concentrated fire, even if they succeed, are going to be exhausted. Their officers are going to be wounded, their formations a shambles. There would be no way they could then turn and make ANOTHER attack. You would need more, fresh troops to follow up and exploit the assaulters success. No such troops actually existed, while the Union actually had ample reserves, especially once Meade realizes that his flanks are not threatened, and he would shift men to the center just like he shifted them to the left on day 2. The only reason this didn't happen historically is that the entire thing was over in an hour - the assault failed with 50% casualties in a matter of just a few decisive minutes. Once the men reached about 400 yards from Union lines and came under concentrated cannister fire from both flanks along with rifle fire, it was over in a matter of minutes.

Not even to mention that of course they would not be attacking the flank of Hays division anyway, since he would simply pivot to refuse his left, since he wasn't being threatened from his right.

The entire thing doesn't make any damn sense.

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 01:09:18 PM

I am saying that your speculation is amatuer hour stuff.

I don't understand the insult--to my knowledge there isn't a professional military historian participating on the forum. All speculation from you, and from me, is amateur.

What wasn't amateur was the analysis I linked to that the attack would have been successful had the union been a brigade weaker. Note:

"That debate was the starting point for research I conducted with military historian Steven Sondergren at Norwich University. (A grant from Fulbright Canada funded my stay at Norwich.) We used computer software to build a mathematical model of the charge. The model estimated the casualties and survivors on each side, given their starting strengths."

We have a lot more information than the generals at the time had. You know Longstreet's statement about "no 15,000 men"...? As you know, modern scholarship puts the number of Confederates participating at significantly less than that. Longstreet estimated the strength at 15,000--it looks like he was wrong. It isn't a stretch to assume that Lee was as well. The point being--there was tremendous uncertainty even regarding their own side.

It was not meant as an insult, just that the analysis is amateur.

Longstreet said 15,000 and the actual amount was about 12,500. It is pretty hard to count even today though, since it depends on how you count - do the men in the supporting brigades count? If they do, the number IS 15,000, but of course they never really engaged until the charge failed. But then, coordinating multi-division attacks is insanely hard, so the fact that some of the 15000 did not engage until after it had failed is not at all surprising, nor would be surprising to Lee or Longstreet. Nor is the difference between 12,500 and 15,000 the critical point, since Longstreet saying 15k cannot do it, doesn't mean an attack with LESS troops was a better idea.

Had all 15k gone in together...then it would still have failed. The model you cite says that. And it is a silly point anyway. It's like saying the attack was a great plan, it just wasn't executed well...when the people involved know exactly how hard it is to actually execute an attack like this perfectly. It almost never happened. It is like the speculation that maybe it would have worked if the rebel artillery had not run low on ammunition, and noting that in fact they actually had more ammo, it just wasn't available because of some errors made by the quartermasters. So? Errors happen. That is what we know (and Lee knew) about military operations. You don't get to fight with what you would have if everything went perfectly, and the enemy acts according to your plan. It is a fools errand to speculate.

I mean, if you are looking for someone to say "Had everything gone perfectly, and every possible variable gone in Lee's way, and Lee had more men,  and the Union had made many more mistakes than they did, and had fewer troops than they did, could the assault have possibly worked?" Then I guess the answer is "yes, it is possible". But I don't think you've learned anything, or taken away one iota of the responsibility for ordering a stupid, stupid attack from Lee. And in fact, for most people, you have likely actually misled them into thinking something that simply is not true - that the assault was anything other than a doomed effort foolishly ordered to no possible good effect.

But the outcome that DID happen was catastrophic. One of the most lopsided attacks seen during the war. Fredericksburg level of futility and result.

In regards to your original question, which seemed to be "Where was everyone else????",  take a look at this:


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/ (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/)


It is a pretty nice, interactive battle map through time.


The answer was that everyone else was, well, right there in the battle. The number of men available to Meade on the third was something around 60k or so, after the losses of the previous two days, disorganization, wounded, missing, etc. That number is rather hard to really pin down, of course. But the 7 Corps were all in line. It was a long line, to be sure, and Lee thought it might be thin in the center. But Meades position was actually pretty compact, and he could (and did) shift troops using his interior lines effectively.


The reason so few union troops were "involved" in Pickets Charge is that the number of troops attacked were the number of troops in position at the time of the attack...and they defeated the attack so quickly and thoroughly there wasn't even time for the battle to develop such that more troops would be brought in to reinforce them. Depending on how you count them, somewhere between 13k and 18k Confederate troops attacked, and were soundly crushed by a bit more than 1 union corps. But they weren't really crushed because the Union had some number of troops, they were crushed because they had to mount an attack across open ground while being hammered from both flanks by artillery and canister fire, and then once they got close enough to actually mount the assault (I think Confederate lines by the time they reached rifle/ musket range had contracted from about 1 mile long to less then half a mile) by massed rifle and cannister fire to their front.


That is why I don't like talking about "If the union was 25% weaker". The problem with the attack was not that there were so many Union troops, it was that attacks that require your men to march about a mile across largely open terrain into a held enemy position where they will be exposed to artillery fire the entire way, then once they get halfway are going to be exposed to flanking artillery fire, and the amount of flanking fire and direct fire they are exposed to increases radically as they get closer....culminating in a final need to charge with whoever is left into massed rifle fire and cannister from artillery and infantry that has been observing your entire attack from the beginning....


The problem with this plan isn't about how many men the Union had. It's a terrible, hopeless, desperate plan regardless of whether there are 1x Union troops are 0.75x Union troops.

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 02:20:59 PM
In regards to your original question, which seemed to be "Where was everyone else????",  take a look at this:


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/ (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/)

that's a great site! :)

Quote from: viper37 on May 30, 2020, 02:53:52 AM
Of course, it's easy to judge from my armchair general's position, but it's not saying he was a bad tactician that he committed a mistake at some point.  He committed it at the worst possible time, but mistake happens.  Longstreet had had a better view of the field and of the opposing force than him, and he should have taken his advice under consideration.

This was not some aberation though. Lee was constantly wanting to launch attacks like this and did. Look at the Seven Days Battles. Most of them were just frontal attacks by the Confederacy that freaked out McClellan so he would retreat despite successfully beating back the attack. Then at Chancellorsville he was getting ready to launch a suicidal attack against Hooker's dug in army but fortunately for the Confederacy Hooker retreated back across the Rappahannock River.

He just finally launched the big attack and the Union commander wasn't spooked.

Quote from: alfred russel on May 30, 2020, 12:33:59 PM
So in summary...in the portion of Cemetery Ridge the Union attacked, the Union had the II Corps (3 divisions) and some beat up remains of a couple divisions of the I Corps.

You don't want to speculate regarding the amount of those forces that could have been redeployed before the attack to other parts of the battlefield with the line still holding, so are just going to keep saying the attack was doomed to fail as it actually happened. Never mind there have been studies to examine just this point.

The study that claims Lee would have won if the Union just had one fewer brigade in the line against Pickett's charge is dumb, if it actually yielded the results reported in your link.  It assumes that everything else would have remained the same.  With less men, for instance, Hancock may not have allowed his guns to duel with the Confederate batteries, and they'd have had the ammunition to cut down Picket's men in an enfilade fire.  Or, Hunt could have moved more guns out of the reserve because there was now room for them, resulting in far more Confederate casualties and an earlier repulse of the attack. 

That the Confederates would have been likelier to succeed had they had more men or the Federals fewer is a mere truism.  That a disastrous attack could have been converted to a successful one by relatively minor changes in the numbers is highly doubtful.

I have a great deal of sympathy for Lee's decision to launch the attack.  He was aware that the attack was unlikely to succeed.  Longstreet told him as much, and, I believe, so did his own instincts.  But, while he knew that to launch the attack and fail meant the loss of the war, surely he understood that to not launch the attack would also mean the loss of the war.  If there was even a chance of pulling off a "Second Saratoga" he needed to take it.  He'll pulled off greater attacks against worse odds, he had to believe.

His situation was like that of Napoleon at Waterloo; things looked like they were unraveling, so the temptation to win it all on a big splashy attack was irresistible.

Sums it up rather nicely.

Now on to Hood and Franklin....

Quote from: alfred russel on May 30, 2020, 01:41:54 PM
I don't understand the insult--to my knowledge there isn't a professional military historian participating on the forum.

*Raises hand*

(Former) professional naval historian is probably more accurate, but I've been paid to research, write, and teach purely military history.

I've been paid to collect my own poop. BFD.

Quote from: The Brain on May 30, 2020, 05:50:44 PM
I've been paid to collect my own poop. BFD.

You may eve have been paid to collect my poop, but I couldn't be sure given that gimp mask you would have been wearing.

What happened in Russia stays in Russia.

Quote from: Valmy on May 30, 2020, 04:51:04 PM

Quote from: viper37 on May 30, 2020, 02:53:52 AM
Of course, it's easy to judge from my armchair general's position, but it's not saying he was a bad tactician that he committed a mistake at some point.  He committed it at the worst possible time, but mistake happens.  Longstreet had had a better view of the field and of the opposing force than him, and he should have taken his advice under consideration.

This was not some aberation though. Lee was constantly wanting to launch attacks like this and did. Look at the Seven Days Battles. Most of them were just frontal attacks by the Confederacy that freaked out McClellan so he would retreat despite successfully beating back the attack. Then at Chancellorsville he was getting ready to launch a suicidal attack against Hooker's dug in army but fortunately for the Confederacy Hooker retreated back across the Rappahannock River.

He just finally launched the big attack and the Union commander wasn't spooked.

Well, prior to the 7 days battle, he did reinforce Richmond's defenses first, digging trenches.  And once he retreated South after Gettysburg, I think he was way more cautious.

Chancellorsville, I don't know enough of the specifics to argue, but since he won, I guess it made him overconfident in his troops.

But his strategy prior to Gettysburg did work, and it would be mirrored by Grant later in the war.  He kept pushing despite not winning or even "losing", and it worked, even with mass casualties, because he could replenish his troops, something Lee couldn't, however.

On a purely militaristic point of view, Longstreet was absolutely right that establishing a strong defensive position and waiting for the ennemy to attack you was the best course of action.  Reading on him, his overall strategy of defending the east and attacking in the west with more troops was probably an ideal situation (my knowledge of the specific military situations everywhere is still limited).  However, from an overall point of view, it's difficult to arguee Lee's reasoning of replenish their supplies in the North and demoralizing the civilians was a bad strategy.  It shouldn't have been necessary, but it was. 

The Confederate States were a mess of governance, where every State was in it mostly for itself.  They had problems with supplies, they had not enough men, not enough ammo, not enough cannons and guns for a successful long term conflict.  They were all rebels at heart, but when it came down to organizing the fight, they were extremely bad.  It took the death of Jackson for Lee to be able to reorganize his army into something more manageable.

The strain on the finances of the Confederation was real, and Lee needed to relieve that strain.  The invasion of the North was probably a necessity if the Confederation wanted to pursue the war.  They couldn't count on much help from European countries, due their use of slaves, it had become morally unacceptable in most of Europe.  No country was willing to openly associate itself with a slaver state.

Onto the specific, did he need to attack at Gettysburgh, did he need to do things as he did it, I don't know.  It's hard to argue that after failing to obtain the high ground on the 1st day he needed to keep pushing.  But once there, could he have retreated safely?  I'm not enough knowledgeable in the subject to tell.  Pickett's charge couldn't succeed, even with a little less troops on the North's side, they were way too well entrenched and the logistics on the South's side was utterly deficient. 

Even if successfull, they had no reserve to keep on pushing after suffering 50% casualties and they would have faced the Unions' reserve being moved to the front lines.

If you spend any amount of time reading about Civil War battles, there is a pretty common thing that happens.

One side or another (honestly it seems more often by dumb luck than anything else) gets a local battlefield superiority and launches an attack the forces the particular units being attacked back. Maybe just pushes them back, maybe they even actually break and you get an actual hole in the enemy line. They "winning" side wants to take advantage, and the troops press on. But the troops pressing on are usually the same troops who made the break in the first place, and are tired, disorganized, and not well supported. So they get counter-attacked, and pushed back themselves. Sometimes this happens over and over again, with particular pieces of ground changing hand several times over a half day or a day. (This happened just the day before in the Peach Orchard).

Nobody says "Oh, that attack totally worked!" in those cases. An attack works when it takes the ground it is targetting, holds it, and then is able to use that success to actually achieve whatever it was that the commander was trying to do in the first place with that ground. If by some stroke of luck Pickets attack actually takes that spot in the Union line - say someone screws up and pulls troops away at just the wrong time, the battle doesn't end the moment they grab The Angle.

Quote from: Berkut on June 05, 2020, 02:20:10 PM
If you spend any amount of time reading about Civil War battles, there is a pretty common thing that happens.

One side or another (honestly it seems more often by dumb luck than anything else) gets a local battlefield superiority and launches an attack the forces the particular units being attacked back. Maybe just pushes them back, maybe they even actually break and you get an actual hole in the enemy line. They "winning" side wants to take advantage, and the troops press on. But the troops pressing on are usually the same troops who made the break in the first place, and are tired, disorganized, and not well supported. So they get counter-attacked, and pushed back themselves. Sometimes this happens over and over again, with particular pieces of ground changing hand several times over a half day or a day. (This happened just the day before in the Peach Orchard).

Nobody says "Oh, that attack totally worked!" in those cases. An attack works when it takes the ground it is targetting, holds it, and then is able to use that success to actually achieve whatever it was that the commander was trying to do in the first place with that ground. If by some stroke of luck Pickets attack actually takes that spot in the Union line - say someone screws up and pulls troops away at just the wrong time, the battle doesn't end the moment they grab The Angle.

Depends on the settings. Look under Options.

 :D

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 02:20:59 PM
In regards to your original question, which seemed to be "Where was everyone else????",  take a look at this:


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/ (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/)


It is a pretty nice, interactive battle map through time.


The answer was that everyone else was, well, right there in the battle. The number of men available to Meade on the third was something around 60k or so, after the losses of the previous two days, disorganization, wounded, missing, etc. That number is rather hard to really pin down, of course. But the 7 Corps were all in line. It was a long line, to be sure, and Lee thought it might be thin in the center. But Meades position was actually pretty compact, and he could (and did) shift troops using his interior lines effectively.


The reason so few union troops were "involved" in Pickets Charge is that the number of troops attacked were the number of troops in position at the time of the attack...and they defeated the attack so quickly and thoroughly there wasn't even time for the battle to develop such that more troops would be brought in to reinforce them. Depending on how you count them, somewhere between 13k and 18k Confederate troops attacked, and were soundly crushed by a bit more than 1 union corps. But they weren't really crushed because the Union had some number of troops, they were crushed because they had to mount an attack across open ground while being hammered from both flanks by artillery and canister fire, and then once they got close enough to actually mount the assault (I think Confederate lines by the time they reached rifle/ musket range had contracted from about 1 mile long to less then half a mile) by massed rifle and cannister fire to their front.


That is why I don't like talking about "If the union was 25% weaker". The problem with the attack was not that there were so many Union troops, it was that attacks that require your men to march about a mile across largely open terrain into a held enemy position where they will be exposed to artillery fire the entire way, then once they get halfway are going to be exposed to flanking artillery fire, and the amount of flanking fire and direct fire they are exposed to increases radically as they get closer....culminating in a final need to charge with whoever is left into massed rifle fire and cannister from artillery and infantry that has been observing your entire attack from the beginning....


The problem with this plan isn't about how many men the Union had. It's a terrible, hopeless, desperate plan regardless of whether there are 1x Union troops are 0.75x Union troops.

I wasn't ignoring the responses, I wanted to come up with a well thought out post, but didn't have the time, so I'll offer a half baked one.

First, the actual article is here:

http://dr.library.brocku.ca/bitstream/handle/10464/9359/ArmstrongSodergren_PickettsCharge_AcceptedManuscript.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

In summary, the model does seem to be using a threshold of success that I was thinking of: that Pickett's Charge establishes a Confederate position on Cemetery Ridge. I understand that the objective for the men making Pickett's Charge is poorly documented and a source of continued debate, but the general consensus seems to be for the attack to take an area centered on the Copse of Trees/the Angle. Obviously with the number of men involved, the area taken would extend beyond that point.

I don't think it is fair to hold the attack to a standard to then roll up Union troops and take Cemetery Hill, or even hold against counter attacks late in the day. There were reserves to reinforce those efforts, though the reserves were further away and less than the Union's.

It would be interesting to see a general framework for a mathematical model of the Civil War developed and applied to other battles, so a baseline of expectations could be established. It seems like an objective way to evaluate "what if" scenarios, but unfortunately the interest in the war has probably waned at this point, and future wars are going to be much more complex to model.

(https://i.postimg.cc/PJ4JfV4h/map-gettysburg.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/WqdTXnCf)

The point to this map is that, while the Confederate supply line was very tenuous (extending back to Virgina), by virtue of holding Gettysburg (where the roads converged), the Union was limited to just the Taneytown Road and Baltimore Pike. If the Confederates took a position in the vicinity of the Angle on Cemetery Ridge, the Union would be limited to Baltimore Pike, and even that was troubled--the Angle is less than a mile from the Pike at that point. In addition, Jeb Stuart's Cavalry position was in position to interfere with transit on the Pike.

Suppose Meade had deployed several brigades from the center to his flanks. If Pickett's Charge was successful in establishing a position on Cemetery Ridge, and were able to organize themselves, you would have 9k or so men there at 3:30 in the afternoon. Mahomes and Posey's Brigades could be brought up from reserve, theoretically Wright, Wilcox, and Lang as well (those three were shot to hell the day before, and Wilcox and Lang were called up in the actual event).

On the other hand, the Confederate position was the mother of all salients, the Union had a fresh VI Corps of about 13k men (though dispersed on the battlefield), many other troops beyond that (including the theoretically redeployed brigades), and good nearby artillery positions.

But it was 3:30, with sunset at 7:30, and organizing a counterattack at the corps size level in that short of a timeframe would be an epic undertaking. If night fell without the salient being reduced, all bets are off. The conservative decision, for a commander understanding the enemy to exeed his number, was to attempt to withdraw in the night.

Quote from: Berkut on May 30, 2020, 02:20:59 PM
In regards to your original question, which seemed to be "Where was everyone else????",  take a look at this:


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/ (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/A-Cutting-Edge-Second-Look-at-the-Battle-of-Gettysburg-1-180947921/)

I don't want to be mean to the map, but, map sucks (or at least falls short). :(

It looks like someone started with a very ambitious project and it stalled short of completion.

For example, it looks like the map goes down to the regimental level, but only identifies units at the brigade level. As someone who doesn't know all the brigades, that is frustrating. But while I can cross reference brigades with a listing of the order of battle (painstakingly), the existence of "unknown" brigades is perplexing. If the mapmaker didn't know what the unit was, how did he/she include a unit there in the first place?

For artillery, it is worse--the cannon represented are often in "unknown" brigades. I assume the cannon represent batteries, but the number of cannon in each is unlisted.

Your "suppose" that a successful attack would see 9000 men "able to organize themselves".

No, they would NOT be able to organize themselves, because nobody was ever able to organize themselves in that manner during the ACW. Successful attacks did not see the attackers all fresh and organized, it saw them with their brigades and regiments hopelessy mixed up, officers dead and wounded, the men exhausted, and most importantly....out of ammunition.

And the union would have, well, hours to respond. A counter-attack does not need to be organized "at Corps level", because it isn't going to be just a series of singular events, but rather a constantly evolving battlefield where both sides are desperately trying to feed in whatever reinforcements they can as quickly as they can. And the Union has several advantages here:

1. Their troops are less tired from the last two days fighting.
2. Their troops can move to the point of decisions (this salient) without any ability of the rebels to interfere, while ALL confederate reinforcements have to traverse that mile of space under artillery fire that destroyed the actual attack to begin with, and did so in a matter of minutes, not hours.
3. The Union also has interior lines, and more available troops at the point of decision.
4. The Union is not running out of ammunition.

Jeb Stuart's cavalry WAS engaged on the third day, and the Union cavalry fought it to a standstill south of the battlefield. No reason to imagine any different outcome there, so no, they don't actually cut off the Union. Nor would being reduced to one road "for supply" matter for the Union all that much anyway, at least not compared to the South's problem of being basically out of ammunition regardless of how many roads they could move ammunition they didn't have on.

Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2020, 04:59:25 PM
Your "suppose" that a successful attack would see 9000 men "able to organize themselves".

No, they would NOT be able to organize themselves, because nobody was ever able to organize themselves in that manner during the ACW. Successful attacks did not see the attackers all fresh and organized, it saw them with their brigades and regiments hopelessy mixed up, officers dead and wounded, the men exhausted, and most importantly....out of ammunition.

The day before, there was obviously a very significant attack and a couple of brigades reached cemetery ridge, with a couple more in striking distance. To keep them from organizing, Hancock sent in the 1st Minnesota that lost 80+% of its men in 15 minutes. Hancock traded a regiment to keep the enemy disorganized while he could bring up reserves. You know the story.

The attacks on the Union left July 2 involved more men than Pickett's Charge. They would not have been able at the base of Cemetery Ridge and 1st Minnesota was thrown away needlessly? Hancock didn't think so.

Look--if you've got 9,000 men on Cemetery Ridge after pushing Union troops off the center, how many men do you need to push them off?

Whatever you number you say, the Union had that number. They also had 4 hours to put the assault together and pull it off. Look at how long it took the Confederates to pull off the July 2 and July 3 attacks. The timing of the orders of July 2 are a major point of controversy, but suffice it to say they were at some point in the morning and the attack on the Union left didn't step off until 4:30 PM. On July 3 they were ordered at 8 AM and didn't step off until about 3 PM. There was a non trivial chance that the attacks couldn't come off in time, or if they did would be blundered.

Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2020, 04:59:25 PM
Jeb Stuart's cavalry WAS engaged on the third day, and the Union cavalry fought it to a standstill south of the battlefield. No reason to imagine any different outcome there, so no, they don't actually cut off the Union. Nor would being reduced to one road "for supply" matter for the Union all that much anyway, at least not compared to the South's problem of being basically out of ammunition regardless of how many roads they could move ammunition they didn't have on.

There is extensive debate on exactly what Jeb Stuart was trying to accomplish, but when the fighting stopped, he still threatened the Baltimore Pike.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 08, 2020, 05:23:22 PM

Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2020, 04:59:25 PM
Your "suppose" that a successful attack would see 9000 men "able to organize themselves".

No, they would NOT be able to organize themselves, because nobody was ever able to organize themselves in that manner during the ACW. Successful attacks did not see the attackers all fresh and organized, it saw them with their brigades and regiments hopelessy mixed up, officers dead and wounded, the men exhausted, and most importantly....out of ammunition.

The day before, there was obviously a very significant attack and a couple of brigades reached cemetery ridge, with a couple more in striking distance. To keep them from organizing, Hancock sent in the 1st Minnesota that lost 80+% of its men in 15 minutes. Hancock traded a regiment to keep the enemy disorganized while he could bring up reserves. You know the story.

The attacks on the Union left July 2 involved more men than Pickett's Charge. They would not have been able at the base of Cemetery Ridge and 1st Minnesota was thrown away needlessly? Hancock didn't think so.

Look--if you've got 9,000 men on Cemetery Ridge after pushing Union troops off the center, how many men do you need to push them off?

Whatever you number you say, the Union had that number. They also had 4 hours to put the assault together and pull it off. Look at how long it took the Confederates to pull off the July 2 and July 3 attacks. The timing of the orders of July 2 are a major point of controversy, but suffice it to say they were at some point in the morning and the attack on the Union left didn't step off until 4:30 PM. On July 3 they were ordered at 8 AM and didn't step off until about 3 PM. There was a non trivial chance that the attacks couldn't come off in time, or if they did would be blundered.

You are comparing the time it takes to mount a corrdinated assault against prepared defenses while trying to conceal from the enemy what your are doing with the time it takes to respond to an attack with a counter-attack. The first AND second days saw many, many attacks and counter-attacks, so clearly it does not take hours to mount a counter attack. Hell, the damn orchard at Antietam changed hands like 15 times in one morning! IIRC, the Peach Orchard changed hands a couple times on the 2nd.

You are creating a false comparison - comparing how long it took the rebels to coordinate and mount large, prepared attacks against known enemy positions with the ebb and flow of a battle once it is engaged, and how hard it is to order in more troops into an ongoing battle.

1st Minnesota was ordered to attack to counter attack a breakthrough, and did in fact by precious time. Indeed, that would argue AGAINST your claim that any counter to a Confederate assault would take "more than 4 hours" since in fact that happened in just minutes, and indeed, both the first and second days saw the Union respond to rebel attacks time and time again in radically less than hours.

You are inventing scenarios, and creating obstacles that did not exist, while simply ignoring the very real obstacles that DID exist. Pickets Charge was doomed to fail, and was never going to suceed. You could figure that out before it ever happened, and plenty of people did in fact know perfectly well it would fail. You can claim that other people thought it *might* succeed, but given the actual outcomes, it is pretty interesting that you want to make an in hindsight argument that what actually happened was NOT the likely outcome.

I point out that Longstreet said before the attack that it would fail, and you respond that Lee ordered it anyway. Well, I guess one of them was right, and one was wrong. It's bizarre to argue that the guy who was right....was actually wrong.

Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2020, 06:56:20 PM

You are comparing the time it takes to mount a corrdinated assault against prepared defenses while trying to conceal from the enemy what your are doing with the time it takes to respond to an attack with a counter-attack. The first AND second days saw many, many attacks and counter-attacks, so clearly it does not take hours to mount a counter attack. Hell, the damn orchard at Antietam changed hands like 15 times in one morning! IIRC, the Peach Orchard changed hands a couple times on the 2nd.

You are creating a false comparison - comparing how long it took the rebels to coordinate and mount large, prepared attacks against known enemy positions with the ebb and flow of a battle once it is engaged, and how hard it is to order in more troops into an ongoing battle.

1st Minnesota was ordered to attack to counter attack a breakthrough, and did in fact by precious time. Indeed, that would argue AGAINST your claim that any counter to a Confederate assault would take "more than 4 hours" since in fact that happened in just minutes, and indeed, both the first and second days saw the Union respond to rebel attacks time and time again in radically less than hours.

I assume you are talking about the Cornfield at Antietam? In either event, those are not comparables - an attacking force was attempting to reach an objective that was not achieved, while the defending force was attempting to hold its position. For example, when the Peach Orchard was attacked on the 2nd, the objective was Cemetery Ridge. The III Corps was trying to hold its position. Two lines were pushing against each other, and as reserves arrived the position of the lines would ebb and flow.

That is not the case with an objective achieved. Had Pickett's Charge achieved its objective, half the men presumably wouldn't set off to scramble up Cemetery Hill with the other half going for Little Round Top. They would have established defensive lines and waited for reserves and further orders. The Union troops in the immediate vicinity would have naturally fallen back as they were locally badly outnumbered. I'm speculating a bit because there was not an attack in the center of an enemy position during the war on a scale similar to Pickett's Charge that met with success (for obvious reasons they were not frequently attempted).

QuoteYou are inventing scenarios, and creating obstacles that did not exist, while simply ignoring the very real obstacles that DID exist. Pickets Charge was doomed to fail, and was never going to suceed. You could figure that out before it ever happened, and plenty of people did in fact know perfectly well it would fail. You can claim that other people thought it *might* succeed, but given the actual outcomes, it is pretty interesting that you want to make an in hindsight argument that what actually happened was NOT the likely outcome.

I point out that Longstreet said before the attack that it would fail, and you respond that Lee ordered it anyway. Well, I guess one of them was right, and one was wrong. It's bizarre to argue that the guy who was right....was actually wrong.

I am 100% inventing scenarios. I made it clear early in this thread that the attack as it happened as doomed - and I will reiterate that at this point.

What started this back and forth was that I stated that there was a study of Lee's observation point, and while it appeared to give a very good view of the Union center, in actuality a significant number of troops were hidden. I pointed out that I thought the charge would have had "prospects of success" had the Union strength been 25% less.

You keep coming back to what actually happened, and that isn't going to be determinative in a scenario where the Union is 25% weaker. I actually even came up with a peer reviewed model that projected the charge would have succeeded had the Union had one brigade less.

If you don't want to play in the invented scenario game, we really have not had anything to discuss.

1st Minnesota (a regiment with a couple of companies detached) with about 250 men was ordered by Hancock to charge a brigade (Wilcox?) that was marching toward an open spot on Cemetery Ridge on July 2nd (Too many other units had been ordered to help out III Corps and none had filled in yet.  Hancock ordered 1st Minn to charge the enemy colors and they did so, buying time for reinforcements to come up.  They were savaged with something like 80% casualty rate.

This showed that small units could react quickly to attacking threats, and could stymie forces seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough.  The Civil War was far more about the defensive (even if a local counter-attack) than the charge.

Quote from: PDH on June 09, 2020, 09:48:03 AM
1st Minnesota (a regiment with a couple of companies detached) with about 250 men was ordered by Hancock to charge a brigade (Wilcox?) that was marching toward an open spot on Cemetery Ridge on July 2nd (Too many other units had been ordered to help out III Corps and none had filled in yet.  Hancock ordered 1st Minn to charge the enemy colors and they did so, buying time for reinforcements to come up.  They were savaged with something like 80% casualty rate.

This showed that small units could react quickly to attacking threats, and could stymie forces seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough.  The Civil War was far more about the defensive (even if a local counter-attack) than the charge.

Wright's Brigade actually reached Cemetery Ridge, but was forced to retire because the brigades to their right (the small Florida Brigade, Wilcox, and Barksdale) were unable to, while the brigades that were supposed to be to his left never really came (Posey and Mahone). My understanding is the way was relatively open for the Florida Brigade and Wilcox, but the troops were badly disorganized at the base of Cemetery Ridge (they had been fighting for probably an hour and covered almost a mile while fighting), and were trying to reorganize for the last push. Instead, the 1st Minnesota charged in, and in the time spent fighting them off, Cemetery Ridge was properly reinforced and they withdrew.

Wright was extremely upset and blamed the Floridians and the lack of reserves...someone involved (not sure if it was Wright) said something like, "We won the battle, but the battle was lost."

It just goes to show that your claims that had Pickets charge somehow worked, those making the attack would have been disorganized, exhausted, and unlikely to be able to hold their positions against the inevitable Union response.

And no, that Union response would not have been impossible to make because somehow it would be 3:30 and Meade and his commanders would have thought "Damn, only 4 hours of daylight left! I guess we will just have to pack it in, no way we could ever possible do anything in just FOUR HOURS!"

It's kind of a funny counter-factual. The actual outcome was so devastating that there wasn't anything like a typical back and forth that one side eventually just breaks from, and the winner holds the field, that you typically see in these piched civil war battles (and indeed you saw this on days 1 and 2 several times, with both sides variously coming out on top in particular cases). There is no reason to think that had PC been a bit more successful than it was, the result would not have been exactly that - a hotly contested fight over some particular piece of terrain, with both sides shoving in reinforcements as they can, reforming their troops to go back into the fight when they are pushed back, and a back and forth battle.

Instead, because it never got to that because it was such a stupidly lopsided affair, we are asked to imagine that had things been a little different, the outcome would have been *radically* different in favor of the side that actually got so badly crushed there was never anything like an actual contested close combat! That the South, had there been a few fewer Union troops would have not just suceeded, but suceeded so thoroughly that the Union would be completely driven from the field and unable to even respond to the attack at all, for hours and hours and hours.

This is silly, of course. If there were a few fewer Union troops, the likely outcome is that instead of a devastating defeat, the South would just experience a bad defeat. And if we imagine it being even more in favor of the south, then maybe they just experience a solid repulse of their attack. And if we imagine it swinging even MORE, then maybe we see that pitched, back and forth battle that takes a couple hours to resolve, but where both sides are responding with local troops being moved to fill gaps and counter-attack back and forth, and where the particular scenario of the initial attack isn't so much the deciding factor as what happens after the initial attack succeeds in actually "sticking" such that the defenders then respond and the point of conflict shifts to this new location.

The scenario where the south attacks, and we shift the outcome from a crushinf defeat to a crushing Union defeat such that the South after the attack is sitting on Cemetery Ridge with 9000 basically fresh troops with plenty of ammo and leisure time to dig in, have a smoke, maybe make some tea, all the while the Union is so disrupted that they cannot even respond for the rest of the afternoon.....well, that is just into straight out fantasy land at that point. Civil War battles did not work that way.

Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2020, 12:26:11 PM

And no, that Union response would not have been impossible to make because somehow it would be 3:30 and Meade and his commanders would have thought "Damn, only 4 hours of daylight left! I guess we will just have to pack it in, no way we could ever possible do anything in just FOUR HOURS!"

Berkut, I didn't say it would be impossible. Thanks for arguing against a point I didn't make.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 09, 2020, 10:20:52 AM

Quote from: PDH on June 09, 2020, 09:48:03 AM
1st Minnesota (a regiment with a couple of companies detached) with about 250 men was ordered by Hancock to charge a brigade (Wilcox?) that was marching toward an open spot on Cemetery Ridge on July 2nd (Too many other units had been ordered to help out III Corps and none had filled in yet.  Hancock ordered 1st Minn to charge the enemy colors and they did so, buying time for reinforcements to come up.  They were savaged with something like 80% casualty rate.

This showed that small units could react quickly to attacking threats, and could stymie forces seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough.  The Civil War was far more about the defensive (even if a local counter-attack) than the charge.

Wright's Brigade actually reached Cemetery Ridge, but was forced to retire because the brigades to their right (the small Florida Brigade, Wilcox, and Barksdale) were unable to, while the brigades that were supposed to be to his left never really came (Posey and Mahone). My understanding is the way was relatively open for the Florida Brigade and Wilcox, but the troops were badly disorganized at the base of Cemetery Ridge (they had been fighting for probably an hour and covered almost a mile while fighting), and were trying to reorganize for the last push. Instead, the 1st Minnesota charged in, and in the time spent fighting them off, Cemetery Ridge was properly reinforced and they withdrew.

Wright was extremely upset and blamed the Floridians and the lack of reserves...someone involved (not sure if it was Wright) said something like, "We won the battle, but the battle was lost."

Without taking anything away from 1st Minnesota, lets not kid ourselves here - these kinds of things tend to take on a mythology of their own, and a good story becomes hard to resist. This same fight, as told from the side of the Confederate commander:

QuoteThis cannonading continued until 6.20 p.m., when McLaws' troops advanced to the attack.
        My instructions were to advance when the troops on my right should advance, and to report this to the division commander, in order that the other brigades should advance in proper time. In order that I should advance with those on my right, it became necessary for me to move off by the left flank so as to uncover the ground over which they had to advance. This was done as rapidly as the nature of the ground with its opposing obstacles (stone and plank fences) would admit. Having gained 400 or 500 yards to the left by this flank movement, my command faced by the right flank, and advanced. This forward movement was made in an open field, the ground rising slightly to the Emmitsburg turnpike, 250 yards distant. Before reaching this road, a line of the enemy's skirmishers along a fence parallel to the road were encountered and dispersed. The fence being crossed, my men advanced to the road, in which infantry in line of battle were formed. A brisk musketry fight for a few minutes followed, when the enemy gave way; not, however, till all save two pieces of a battery that was in the road had been removed. These fell into our hands, the horses having been killed.
        On the far side of the pike the ground was descending for some 600 or 700 yards. At the bottom of this descent was a narrow valley, through which ran a rocky ravine or stream, fringed with small trees and undergrowth of bushes. Beyond this, the ground rose rapidly for some 200 yards, and upon this ridge were numerous batteries of the enemy· This ridge to my right rose into a succession of higher ridges or spurs of mountains, increasing in height to the right, but to the left gradually descending. When my command crossed the pike and began to descend the slope, they were exposed to an artillery fire from numerous pieces, both from the front and from either flank.
        Before reaching the ravine at the foot of the slope, two lines of infantry were met and broken, and driven pell-mell across the ravine. A second battery of six pieces here fell into our hands. From the batteries on the ridge above referred to, grape and canister were poured into our ranks. This stronghold of the enemy, together with his batteries, were almost won, when still another line of infantry descended the slope in our front at a double-quick, to the support of their fleeing comrades and for the defense of the batteries.
        Seeing this contest so unequal, I dispatched my adjutant-general to the division commander, to ask that support be sent to my men, but no support came. Three several times did this last of the enemy's lines attempt to drive my men back, and were as often repulsed. This struggle at the foot of the hill on which were the enemy's batteries, though so unequal, was continued for some thirty minutes. With a second supporting line, the heights could have been carried. Without support on either my right or left, my men were withdrawn, to prevent their entire destruction or capture. The enemy did not pursue, but my men retired under a heavy artillery fire, and returned to their original position in line, and bivouacked for the night, pickets being left on the pike.

https://civilwarhome.com/wilcoxgettysburgor.htm

It is a regiment against a brigade, to be sure. But it was a *fresh* regiment against a brigade that by that time had just attacked across several hunderd yards of ground under constant cannon fire and had already engaged and driven off defenders. If anything this goes to show how hard it is to sustain an attack over time in the ACW. The charge of the 1st Minnesota worked, at least in part, because the brigade they were attacking was tired, disorganized, lacked support, and was at that time under fire from its own flanks, and from their perspective THEY were outnumbered and being attacked by superior forces, which they managed to drive off several times before being forced to retire.

Note that there isnt anything here that disputes your above account at all. It is just interesting to see how both sides see the same fight. I suspect that if 1st Minnesota had not gone in, the battle still would not have been lost. The southern attack at that point was petering out the way these attacks always did as the attacking troops became tired, disorganized, and run out of ammunition. Without more troops coming in, these kind of attacks had a pretty short half life if they don't just break the front immediately and turn things into a rout.

I feel the same way about the defense of Little Round Top. It was critical, no doubt, but the entire "OMG if we don't hold the flank will collapse and the line will be rolled up and the battle lost and the Confederacy will win the war!" narrative of these things is a bit over-stated, to say the least.

The VI Corps was arriving at the battle when the fight for Little Round Top was happening, 16,000 spare (though not fresh) troops coming in behind the Round Tops was a pretty good reserve had things gone differently there.

I am learning a lot about the battle  :)

Quote from: PDH on June 09, 2020, 01:19:13 PM
The VI Corps was arriving at the battle when the fight for Little Round Top was happening, 16,000 spare (though not fresh) troops coming in behind the Round Tops was a pretty good reserve had things gone differently there.

Indeed.

The power of the Union position, with decent high ground and interior lines meant that absent the Union commander making bad mistakes, or simply losing his nerve, the battle was really going to be very hard for Lee to win by pushing the Union from their positions.

There was some absolutely desperate fighting to be sure, but that I think speaks more to how kind of hopeless the thing was.

Sickles deciding to move his entire freaking Corps out of the line is the only reason the 2nd day was actually as close as it was - it took a really fucking stupid mistake to make the fight even sort of even, and even then....that mistake just meant that a bunch of union troops got beat up that probably did not need to - those same interior lines allowed Meade to respond to that mistake as well, albeit not fast enough to save Sickles corp (or his leg, the dumbass).

Meade was not the kind of guy who Lee needed in charge of the Union those days. He was by no means brilliant, but he was steady and not prone to hysterics or drama.

It is such a weird thing too - Lee lost Gettysburg because he chose to fight at Gettysburg. He did not need to - that campaign could have seen another few days of maneuvering, to try to force the fight on better ground.

Sickles made that move because he was still angry about Hooker making him leave the Hazelgrove at Chancellorsville, this left excellent high ground to the rebel artillery and allowed Lee and JEB Stuart to re-unite the Confederate Army. It also allowed the Confederates to hit Hooker's headquarters and gave him a concussion at the worst possible time.

So Sickles went up on Cemetary Ridge and saw the higher Houck's ridge in front of him and was like "well fuck that I am not getting burned a second time by my incompetent superiors" and re-deployed. Sickles had little respect for Meade and would certainly have been replaced if Meade had had more than 48 hours before the battle being in command.

Of course it extended Sickle's line from 1500 yards to 3500 yards and put III Corps in a position much harder to reinforce...which is kind of a bigger deal than having ground with a slightly higher elevation. But it is a nice example about how sometimes generals are still fighting the last battle.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 08, 2020, 05:27:04 PM

Quote from: Berkut on June 08, 2020, 04:59:25 PM
Jeb Stuart's cavalry WAS engaged on the third day, and the Union cavalry fought it to a standstill south of the battlefield. No reason to imagine any different outcome there, so no, they don't actually cut off the Union. Nor would being reduced to one road "for supply" matter for the Union all that much anyway, at least not compared to the South's problem of being basically out of ammunition regardless of how many roads they could move ammunition they didn't have on.

There is extensive debate on exactly what Jeb Stuart was trying to accomplish, but when the fighting stopped, he still threatened the Baltimore Pike.

The fighting stopped because his attacks to drive away the federal cavalry had failed. Saying he "threatened" the Baltimore Pike doesn't mean anything - his job was to attempt to force the Union to react to his attack on their rear, and that failed. His command was not wiped out, so I guess that means he still existed and hence "threatened" the pike, but that doesn't mean anything since his actual attempt to make that threat into anything more than a threat was defeated, and there was no reason to suppose an additional attack would have succeeded where the first one failed. Given the situation, where both sides had roughly equal numbers, but the Union troops were better armed and actually well led (Gregg was an effective cavalry commander), and were NOT exhausted from having ridden all over Pennsylvania for the last week and a half, Stuart defeat at the Cavalary Field was conclusive. Meade was not concerned about his flank because 3000 rebel cavalry were riding around, followed around by an equal number of union cavalry.

Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2020, 04:52:54 PM

The fighting stopped because his attacks to drive away the federal cavalry had failed. Saying he "threatened" the Baltimore Pike doesn't mean anything - his job was to attempt to force the Union to react to his attack on their rear, and that failed. His command was not wiped out, so I guess that means he still existed and hence "threatened" the pike, but that doesn't mean anything since his actual attempt to make that threat into anything more than a threat was defeated, and there was no reason to suppose an additional attack would have succeeded where the first one failed. Given the situation, where both sides had roughly equal numbers, but the Union troops were better armed and actually well led (Gregg was an effective cavalry commander), and were NOT exhausted from having ridden all over Pennsylvania for the last week and a half, Stuart defeat at the Cavalary Field was conclusive. Meade was not concerned about his flank because 3000 rebel cavalry were riding around, followed around by an equal number of union cavalry.

The situation on July 3 was not the same as a hypothetical July 4 opening with the Confederates with a position on Cemetery Ridge.

On July 3, the Union had 2 roads leading into their Gettysburg positions, and cutting the Baltimore Pike would obviously still leave the Union with 1. If his job was to force the Union to react in their rear, his attack was unsuccessful. The cavalry did not fully commit to that attack - 3 of the 7 brigades were not involved in the attack, and a significant portion of the 4 that were did not engage. I don't know how many calvarlymen Stuart had (I think it was significantly more than the 3k you mention), but their losses were under 200 which shows the level of commitment to the attack.

On a hypothetical July 4, the Union is reduced to one road--the Baltimore Pike. The enemy cavalry would not be limited to only attacking the road in the immediate vicinity of the Union rear, but could raid further behind union lines.

As you know, the Union entered Gettysburg with 90k men and almost that many mules and horses. Supplying the army with one road that had enemy cavalry roaming around in the vicinity would not be an attractive proposition to Meade on the night of July 3 if he was unsure he could use the Taneytown Road.

If Meade wasn't too worried by Stuart riding around his Army in June he was hardly going to sweat it now. Especially with his entire cavalry arm at his disposal.

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 09, 2020, 01:22:41 PM
I am learning a lot about the battle  :)

And Civil War fighting in general. :)

Quote from: alfred russel on June 09, 2020, 05:23:51 PM

Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2020, 04:52:54 PM

The fighting stopped because his attacks to drive away the federal cavalry had failed. Saying he "threatened" the Baltimore Pike doesn't mean anything - his job was to attempt to force the Union to react to his attack on their rear, and that failed. His command was not wiped out, so I guess that means he still existed and hence "threatened" the pike, but that doesn't mean anything since his actual attempt to make that threat into anything more than a threat was defeated, and there was no reason to suppose an additional attack would have succeeded where the first one failed. Given the situation, where both sides had roughly equal numbers, but the Union troops were better armed and actually well led (Gregg was an effective cavalry commander), and were NOT exhausted from having ridden all over Pennsylvania for the last week and a half, Stuart defeat at the Cavalary Field was conclusive. Meade was not concerned about his flank because 3000 rebel cavalry were riding around, followed around by an equal number of union cavalry.

The situation on July 3 was not the same as a hypothetical July 4 opening with the Confederates with a position on Cemetery Ridge.

On July 3, the Union had 2 roads leading into their Gettysburg positions, and cutting the Baltimore Pike would obviously still leave the Union with 1. If his job was to force the Union to react in their rear, his attack was unsuccessful. The cavalry did not fully commit to that attack - 3 of the 7 brigades were not involved in the attack, and a significant portion of the 4 that were did not engage. I don't know how many calvarlymen Stuart had (I think it was significantly more than the 3k you mention), but their losses were under 200 which shows the level of commitment to the attack.

On a hypothetical July 4, the Union is reduced to one road--the Baltimore Pike. The enemy cavalry would not be limited to only attacking the road in the immediate vicinity of the Union rear, but could raid further behind union lines.

As you know, the Union entered Gettysburg with 90k men and almost that many mules and horses. Supplying the army with one road that had enemy cavalry roaming around in the vicinity would not be an attractive proposition to Meade on the night of July 3 if he was unsure he could use the Taneytown Road.

You say things like "cutting the Baltimore Pike". Meade had more cavalry, and more troops. How exactly is 3000 guys on horses going to "cut" any road?

Cavalry, at no point in the Civil War, were able to "cut" a body of infantrymen off from anything. It isn't what they did - they lacked the density of combat power, especially southern cavalry which was not trained or inclined to fight dismounted (and were not armed to do so in any case).

Cavalry was used operationally to cut up rail lines and raid areas without troops. Stuart was pretty good at that, although not nearly as accomplished as the Western cavalry.

Tactically it was used to harass the flanks, not "cut off" formations from...what exactly? More importantly, their job was to scout and ascertain the position of the enemy, something that wasn't really necessary on the third day (but could have been critical on the first day, of course).

Meade didn't care that Stuart was running around to his east. At least, didn't care from the standpoint of it being relevant to his actual position. It could be annoying of course, if he found some supply depots or wagon trains, which is why Gregg was sent after him, and in fact checked his attack.

Your very, very, very hypothetical July 4th where the South uses magic to make Pickets charge succeed because the Union cannot respond to anything in 4 hours, would see the Union in a difficult position I guess because their interior lines had been broken, but Stuart being out there would be utterly irrelevant to that problem. Look at a map of Gettysburg. The reason there was a fight there was because there are so many roads in the area. You say "Oh noes, the Union would be down to one road!".

1. How many roads do they need?
2. You assume that they are somehow incapable of simply moving to another road. There are a lot of roads, and there are more Union troops than there are southern. You are imagining that the smaller force has somehow "surrounded" the larger, but of course that is simply not possible. The union could simply go take another road, if it was so critical that they get a road. You hypothetical has the South somehow taking the center of the Union positions with ten thousands troops they did not have, and apparently, this would not result in there being any less troops anywhere else.

You are, again, imagining that only one side has agency, and your hypothetical is that one side does whatever it likes, the other side is completely passive, and the only things that change in your hypothetical are the things that somehow make things better for one side. You imagine "What if there were more troops HERE" but don't subtract those troops from somewhere else. You imagine that the South wins their cavalry battle, which they lost, and claim that because they didn't lose enough men, they could have actually won. The Union hardly lost many men either - that is because cavalry engagements tend to not be particularly bloody - both sides can easily simply move away when things dont go well, and they mostly did. Cavalry fighting cavalry was always a relatively bloodless affair compared to infantry clashes. That doesn't mean the defeat was any less conclusive. How is that evidence of...anything?

Quote
Cavalry, at no point in the Civil War, were able to "cut" a body of infantrymen off from anything. It isn't what they did - they lacked the density of combat power, especially southern cavalry which was not trained or inclined to fight dismounted (and were not armed to do so in any case).

Cavalry was used operationally to cut up rail lines and raid areas without troops. Stuart was pretty good at that, although not nearly as accomplished as the Western cavalry.

Thank you for that.

A Good book I enjoyed was "Failure in the Saddle". It's about a different battle in the civil war, but fascinating nonetheless on civil war cav tactics.

The stark difference IMO of how the U.S. and Europeans used calvary (Crimea and Franco-Prussian) war is a fascinating contrast to me too.

Was either side in the civil war able to destroy a field army in the field like at Saratoga or Austerlitz?

Quote from: Razgovory on June 09, 2020, 11:45:41 PM
Was either side in the civil war able to destroy a field army in the field like at Saratoga or Austerlitz?

Several armies were captured or destroyed but all in sieges I think :hmm:

I know that calvary played a very minor part in the Crimean war, but what did anyone care in the other wars?

Quote from: Threviel on June 10, 2020, 07:45:40 AM
I know that calvary played a very minor part in the Crimean war, but what did anyone care in the other wars?

It's how they were used IMO. The second part of your question I don't understand.

The success of calvary transcends the battlefield IMHO.

During the Civil War anyway the Cavalry were by far the most important arm until actual fighting started, at that point they were almost useless.

Quote from: The Brain on June 10, 2020, 08:29:37 AM
The success of calvary transcends the battlefield IMHO.

Truly, we are blessed.

People here need to learn the difference between "cavalry" and "Calvary" and that Pickett has two Ts.

Have you ever crossed a pickett line?

Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2020, 08:41:58 AM
People here need to learn the difference between "cavalry" and "Calvary" and that Pickett has two Ts.

There was a church near by old house called the Calvary Church. If it had been the Cavalry Church I would have converted.

I was in the cavalry. :)

Quote from: Valmy on June 10, 2020, 08:33:46 AM
During the Civil War anyway the Cavalry were by far the most important arm until actual fighting started, at that point they were almost useless.

Didn't they act as mobile infantry a lot of the time?

Quote from: Syt on June 10, 2020, 08:54:39 AM

Quote from: Valmy on June 10, 2020, 08:33:46 AM
During the Civil War anyway the Cavalry were by far the most important arm until actual fighting started, at that point they were almost useless.

Didn't they act as mobile infantry a lot of the time?

They could do that in a pinch, but they were too valuable to be used that way much.

Early in the war they did have lots of dragoon type mounted infantry units but they all got converted to regular infantry units pretty quick.

Cavalry should always be used in the offensive, their cuirass armor gleaming in the summer sun, their lances pointed proudly toward the clouds, ready to be lowered in a deadly charge that in one decisive stroke sweeps the enemy armies from the field and gloriously wins the day.

Anything less is uncivilized.

Quote from: FunkMonk on June 10, 2020, 08:55:40 AM
Cavalry should always be used in the offensive, their cuirass armor gleaming in the summer sun, their lances pointed proudly toward the clouds, ready to be lowered in a deadly charge that in one decisive stroke sweeps the enemy armies from the field and gloriously wins the day. Anything less is uncivilized.

This.

Quote from: Syt on June 10, 2020, 08:54:39 AM

Quote from: Valmy on June 10, 2020, 08:33:46 AM
During the Civil War anyway the Cavalry were by far the most important arm until actual fighting started, at that point they were almost useless.

Didn't they act as mobile infantry a lot of the time?

Little Round Bug? Klendietam?

Quote from: Berkut on June 09, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
You say things like "cutting the Baltimore Pike". Meade had more cavalry, and more troops. How exactly is 3000 guys on horses going to "cut" any road?

Cavalry, at no point in the Civil War, were able to "cut" a body of infantrymen off from anything. It isn't what they did - they lacked the density of combat power, especially southern cavalry which was not trained or inclined to fight dismounted (and were not armed to do so in any case).

Cavalry was used operationally to cut up rail lines and raid areas without troops. Stuart was pretty good at that, although not nearly as accomplished as the Western cavalry.

Tactically it was used to harass the flanks, not "cut off" formations from...what exactly? More importantly, their job was to scout and ascertain the position of the enemy, something that wasn't really necessary on the third day (but could have been critical on the first day, of course).

Meade didn't care that Stuart was running around to his east. At least, didn't care from the standpoint of it being relevant to his actual position. It could be annoying of course, if he found some supply depots or wagon trains, which is why Gregg was sent after him, and in fact checked his attack.

Your very, very, very hypothetical July 4th where the South uses magic to make Pickets charge succeed because the Union cannot respond to anything in 4 hours, would see the Union in a difficult position I guess because their interior lines had been broken, but Stuart being out there would be utterly irrelevant to that problem. Look at a map of Gettysburg. The reason there was a fight there was because there are so many roads in the area. You say "Oh noes, the Union would be down to one road!".

1. How many roads do they need?
2. You assume that they are somehow incapable of simply moving to another road. There are a lot of roads, and there are more Union troops than there are southern. You are imagining that the smaller force has somehow "surrounded" the larger, but of course that is simply not possible. The union could simply go take another road, if it was so critical that they get a road. You hypothetical has the South somehow taking the center of the Union positions with ten thousands troops they did not have, and apparently, this would not result in there being any less troops anywhere else.

You are, again, imagining that only one side has agency, and your hypothetical is that one side does whatever it likes, the other side is completely passive, and the only things that change in your hypothetical are the things that somehow make things better for one side. You imagine "What if there were more troops HERE" but don't subtract those troops from somewhere else. You imagine that the South wins their cavalry battle, which they lost, and claim that because they didn't lose enough men, they could have actually won. The Union hardly lost many men either - that is because cavalry engagements tend to not be particularly bloody - both sides can easily simply move away when things dont go well, and they mostly did. Cavalry fighting cavalry was always a relatively bloodless affair compared to infantry clashes. That doesn't mean the defeat was any less conclusive. How is that evidence of...anything?

Berkut, first of all Stuart had significantly more than 3k men. A quick google search doesn't turn this up, but I'm sure it is more than that.

Second--look again at the map.

(https://i.postimg.cc/PJ4JfV4h/map-gettysburg.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/WqdTXnCf)

The Union position has a zillion well documented advantages. But one weakness is that it only had 2 roads (Taneytown Road and Baltimore Pike) to supply a very large army. The Battle of Gettysburg basically happened because both armies were trying to unite and both were trying to do so at Gettysburg precisely because of all the roads leading into the city. But because they controlled the town, most of those roads were controlled by the Confederates.

I again don't have the information immediately at hand, but I recall the Union dealt with only having two roads by converting both to one way operations: I think wagons came in Taneytown Road and out the Baltimore Pike. I could have this backwards. A major reason a position on Cemetery Hill was so attractive to Lee (and why that seems to be his goal on day 2 and 3) is that would cut access to Taneytown Road. The Union would be moving everything on the Baltimore Pike.

That is unattractive for a few reasons: 1) even that was tenuous, with the hypothetical Confederate position on Cemetery Ridge less than a mile from the Pike, 2) that is a tremendous amount of supplies to be running on a single road.

The logistics of the army shouldn't be overlooked--during the retreat, the Confederate medical train transporting the wounded from the battle stretched 17 miles. For the Union to manage with one road--and an army starting out with 90k men and almost that number of animals, and then probably 20k wounded--it is a traffic jam in the best circumstances. Complicating this miles long traffic jam which the army is dependent on, you have Confederate cavalry massed in the area. "Cutting" the road doesn't require taking a position along it and holding it against infantry attacks. It only requires short term actions to disrupt a logistic system with severe strain.

This is not in any way comparable to Jeb Stuart riding around the Union Army in late June 1863...in that case the Union Army was dispersed and were not dependent on a single road for supplies.

My guess is not that if night set on July 3 with Confederates on Cemetery Ridge, Jeb Stuart would gallantly charge down and cut off the Baltimore Pike and the Union army would in despair surrender and Lincoln declare Jefferson Davis his lord and master. My guess is that Meade, seeing the forces on Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill were in danger, and believing his army to be outnumbered, would withdraw.

Quote from: Habbaku on June 10, 2020, 08:41:09 AM

Quote from: The Brain on June 10, 2020, 08:29:37 AM
The success of calvary transcends the battlefield IMHO.

Truly, we are blessed.

Some of us Blessed by Valmy.

Quote from: 11B4V on June 10, 2020, 07:50:14 AM

Quote from: Threviel on June 10, 2020, 07:45:40 AM
I know that calvary played a very minor part in the Crimean war, but what did anyone care in the other wars?

It's how they were used IMO. The second part of your question I don't understand.

I'm just besserwissring.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry