Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire JEB Stuart and the Gettysburg Campaign

I guess General Longstreet can take heat for day 2 of the Gettysburg battle, but I think he was correct to advise General Lee to punt on Gettysburg after the first day. Gettysburg was not a good place for the South once the Union occupied the high ground. Naturally it is a second guess, but the South should have got between Gettysburg and Washington and maybe hope for better terrain. General Longstreet May have had a better plan than General Lee.

I remember Johnstown before it went to pot. In the 70s and early 80s it wasn't a bad place. My paternal Grandmother lived in Hornerstown. We lived in a little farming community about 30 miles east. Every summer I spent a week or three painting. Landscaping and fixing stuff up for Gramma. You could walk anywhere you wanted without looking over your shoulder.
I'm a country boy, so I couldn't wait to get home to my guns and cars, but it was a nice town.
Nowadays you go armed and stay in condition yellow...
Terry, I'm sure you know the history as well as I do, but for the others.
Longstreet never had orders for a daylight attack at Gettysburg. On July 2nd his corps wasn't completely there yet, and on the 3rd the supporting artillery wasn't in place until after noon for "Pickett's Charge".
That was cooked up by Early and Pendelton after Lee had died and Longstreet became a (gasp) Republican! But if you do a little reading you'll find that both Early and Pendelton had good reason to look for a scapegoat.
Gettysburg's importance in the war is far overrated by most folks. The best Lee could ever have accomplished was a small tactical victory. Serious damage to the AOP just wasn't possible after he allowed himself to be drawn into battle there, and with Vicksburg fixing to fall, I don't think a big victory would have helped much. The Civil War was lost in the west. Lee was powerless to stop that, Gettysburg or not.
I love the place. As Shelby Foote said, "when you walk it, the ground talks to you".
But it wasn't the changing point. Look to Antietam and Shilo for that.
7mm

In Lee’s personal opinion, the thrashing at Gettysburg was so monumental that he voluntarily asked to resign.

Gettysburg should have been a done deal on the eve of July 1 if ewell had got off his ass and pressed the high ground it should have been a done deal July 2 if Longstreet had attacked where Pickett’s charge happened July 3 all that sat there was a few batteries no infantry several Florida and Alabama regiments over ran it July 2 and took the heights but had no support and returned back

Many of The Rangers at Gettysburg really love their job.
Was at Little Roundtop one day and a tour came thru.
One person was very interested in General Vincent.
The Ranger took them to a point and told them to look in a certain direction and handed them an old binoculars.....”This is what Vincent saw......these were his binoculars during the battle.”

When Martin Sheen was filming Gettysburg an extra whacked up during a scene and handed him a tobacco pouch to use in the scene. It was Lee’s and Sheen was moved.

[quote=7mmbuster]I remember Johnstown before it went to pot. In the 70s and early 80s it wasn't a bad place. My paternal Grandmother lived in Hornerstown. We lived in a little farming community about 30 miles east. Every summer I spent a week or three painting. Landscaping and fixing stuff up for Gramma. You could walk anywhere you wanted without looking over your shoulder.
I'm a country boy, so I couldn't wait to get home to my guns and cars, but it was a nice town.
Nowadays you go armed and stay in condition yellow...
Terry, I'm sure you know the history as well as I do, but for the others.
Longstreet never had orders for a daylight attack at Gettysburg. On July 2nd his corps wasn't completely there yet, and on the 3rd the supporting artillery wasn't in place until after noon for "Pickett's Charge".
That was cooked up by Early and Pendelton after Lee had died and Longstreet became a (gasp) Republican! But if you do a little reading you'll find that both Early and Pendelton had good reason to look for a scapegoat.
Gettysburg's importance in the war is far overrated by most folks. The best Lee could ever have accomplished was a small tactical victory. Serious damage to the AOP just wasn't possible after he allowed himself to be drawn into battle there, and with Vicksburg fixing to fall, I don't think a big victory would have helped much. The Civil War was lost in the west. Lee was powerless to stop that, Gettysburg or not.
I love the place. As Shelby Foote said, "when you walk it, the ground talks to you".
But it wasn't the changing point. Look to Antietam and Shilo for that.
7mm[/quote


Lee was living off the land and the North have railroads and tons of supplies. The South was doomed.

I'm sure in any battle back then that there were multiple instances of faulty communication, and no one would be talking this stuff it Lee had WON at Gettysburg but....


Right before the Gettysburg campaign Lee reorganized the ANV from two divisions into three divisions, perhaps a classic case of fixing something that weren't broke.

In this process AP Hill, probably the most high strung and contentious of Lee's Generals, was elevated to command this new Third Corps. Longstreet commanded another. Some time prior to this Hill had provoked the normally even-tempered Longstreet into agreeing to fight an actual duel, which is an indication of Hill's temperament, said duel being avoided only by the personal intervention of Lee himself.

At Gettysburg along Seminary Ridge, Longstreet's Corps is placed to the right adjacent to Anderson, who was under command of AP Hill, after the war Lee himself wrote that a failure of cooperation between Longstreet and Hill was a primary cause of his defeat at Gettysburg.

A bit long but a good read.....

http://npshistory.com/series/symposia/gettysburg_seminars/7/essay6.pdf

‘Nother thing; in that link I just posted note how Lee himself held back on Day 1 from a full-blown assault on Culp’s Hill
and the high ground because without Stuart he didn’t yet know where the Union Army was and feared an attack on his flank.

I hadn’t read that before.

More on Day 1 at Gettysburg, and again an account of Lee himself moving to stop an attempt to take the high ground... which failure has been popularly placed on AP Hill as in "if only Jackson had been there..." Lee's caution again based on his not knowing exactly where the bulk of the Union Army was at that moment in time, which ignorance can of course be placed on the shoulders of JEB Stuart.

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/meade-ewell-post-war-discussion-of-culp%E2%80%99s-hill.160425/



AP Hill himself was frequently troubled by a chronic case of gonorrhea, picked up from a dalliance with a NYC prostitute whilst a Cadet at West Point and was bedridden at the start of the battle.

Perhaps I have been confusing Dick Ewell with AP Hill, but I have heard the mantra my whole life that Lee's Generals failed him on Day 1 when they failed to take the high ground.

Here's a detailed look at General Richard Ewell's actions on Day 1, and once again we have Lee himself countermanding any intentions to assault the high ground....

https://www.historynet.com/did-lt-gen-richard-ewell-lose-the-battle-of-gettysburg.htm

I thought maybe you had your wires crossed, Mike!
Ewell had been a pretty good division commander under Stonewall, but I think as a corps commander he was a little out of his realm. A few of the things I've read lead me to think that Ewell was corps commander, but Jubal Early actually called the shots. Lee was usually pretty passive as a commander, giving his subordinates a lot of leeway in carrying out orders. Sometimes a little too much leeway.
I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard "if only Stonewall had been at Gettysburg! He'd have driven the Yankees off Cemetery Hill!"
Ok let's suppose Ewell had captured either Cemetery or Culp's Hill on July 1. Meade had already planned to rally his army at Pipe Creek, about 15 miles or so south of Gettysburg. Only after Hancock recommended holding Gettysburg, did he change his mind.
So the Rebels get the hills, Meade digs in on Pipe Creek. Now what happens?
If you're Lee, 60 miles inside enemy territory, no supply or communication lines, fairly scattered with no idea where your cavalry or most of the enemy army is. How does winning a one day skirmish at Gettysburg help you, and what do you do afterwards?
As I said, people attach way too much importance to Gettysburg.
7mm

Excellent post and certainly a good debate starting point.

All Gettysburg did was give the North an additional 4th of July present along with the real prize of the summer of 63, Vicksburg!

The Army of. Northern Virginia was reduced by 37% after Gettysburg.

“Nearly one-third of the total forces engaged at Gettysburg became casualties. George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac lost 28 percent of the men involved; Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia suffered over 37 percent.

Of these casualties, 7,058 were fatalities (3,155 Union, 3,903 Confederate). Another 33,264 had been wounded (14,529 Union, 18,735 Confederate) and 10,790 were missing (5,365 Union, 5,425 Confederate).”

Think about this 37%, essentially 2 day reduction in your already quickly eroding fighting force. Many without shoes according to a previous post. Combine it with the effect that battle had on the will-there is that Sherman philosophy again-on the rest of Lee’s men and get back to us on the insignificance you apply to Gettysburg.


On day three Lee himself became the reason for the loss. He himself thought Gettysburg was so important that he had his men try to take those hills a second time. Hills he really didn't want to mess with the first time because he wasn't sure of their defense. But on the second, when he knew they were reinforced he charged them with a further weakened army.

Lee lost Gettysburg. He also thought the war was a lost cause from the beginning. His loyalty to Virginia only being stronger than his loyalty to the Union

“If wishes were fishes, we’d all be swimming.”

Any lost battle could have been won if the losers had done something different, but they didn’t...

IMHO the question that needs to be asked is just what the Hell Lee was going to do if he either laid siege to Washington, or captured it??? I mean other than pizz off a whole bunch of Yankees a second time??? Really?? How the hell was he going to maintain any of this with a bag of cornmeal and 5 pounds of powder?

Was Davis so stupid to think just Lee’s being there was going to strike fear into an army with an over abundance of both men and material??? Yeah, they’ll finally set down and talk terms with us!!! Really???

Reminds me of December 7th, the second the first jap bomb went off the rails, they lost the war. Fort Sumter redux..

The day they came close....



https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...-conquered-by-the-confederacy-180951994/

Lincoln barely won the election of 1864 as it was. If in 1863 a southern army had been able to traverse Union territory at will, laying siege to Washington, disrupting commerce, and then going home or staying as it saw fit, Lincoln might not have even made it to the election.