Wilcox, dadgummit.
Thanks!
I was drawing a blank last night. I knew it was boys from The Sunshine State, but I didn’t wanna stop in the middle of a post to look it up!
I think that this was the motivation for Lee’s decision for Pickets Charge the next day.
He knew that Hancock had weakened the Union Center to reenforce the left.
IIRC, the Union strength was around 120 thousand troops, compared to Lee’s 90 thousand. (I believe this is what most historians accept.)
30 thousand troops is a pretty good advantage when your fighting a defensive battle with a shorter line, against an enemy who is somewhat blind to what’s in front of him.
Lee’s blood was up for a fight though. “The enemy is there, and that’s where I will strike him!”
Longstreet retorted, “He is there, that is were he wants you to strike!”
Actually the famous “Fish Hook” line offered the South a slight advantage.
They had less men and guns on a longer line, but for the “Cannonade”, they had converging fire, concentrating on Cemetery Ridge.
But their guns were sighted high, and their shot fuses were long.
(I believe there had been a fire in their Tennessee Arsenal in the spring, forcing them to rely on the Richmond Arsenal for the summer campaign. Fuses were contemptible in the Civil. Damn near impossible to make them uniform, especially from one Arsenal to another.)
The Yankees had trouble with arty fuses too. They were using infused shot as solid shot, due to the unreliability of fuses!
To be continued...
7mm
