Gettysburg

Okay, we're blaming you for steering this thread off course. Wear that honor with pride, as no thread worth its salt should be immune from a good hijacking.

Y'all carry on and have fun.

You have offered a pretty good account of both the battle and what it meant to both sides at the time.

A couple of quibbles though. (were you expecting anything else )

The "shoes" myth reappears and like all myth's there is a germ of truth there. That R.E. Lee would send an entire Division of his troops to secure a hoard of footwear stretches it a bit. Heth's Division was marching towards Gettysburg largely because it was such a vital communications hub and logical route for a large body of men to take. As a market town and as I recall a county seat there was much more present to offer than shoes. Also if there were 'Army' shoes stored there it would have been a supply dump with all sorts of military supplies present. Further Heth knew that Jubal Early and parts of his command had already passed though the area before him, so little likelyhood of many such footwear still being available. The shoe story largely comes from Heth's memoir's as a justification of his actions.

This brings up a wider problem for Lee. Prior to the start of the march north he was forced to reorganize his army from two Infantry corps to one of three corps due to the death of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Until this time Lee had relied on Longstreet to act as his anvil, Jackson his hammer and Stuart as his eyes. R.E. Lee picked good commanders and relied upon them to use their best judgement rather than micro-manage them. This worked extremely well with his troika of Jackson, Longstreet and Stuart

Unfortunately for Lee, Richard Ewell and A.P. Hill together did not equal one Jackson. Nor could he give them general instructions and rely upon them to see the strategic situation as Lee did. This would hamper Lee thoughout the battle as Ewell and Hill would either not fully engage as he hoped or become fixated on certain points and not redirecting their troops upon more promising directions.

This was compounded by the rather 'prickly' nature Civil War commanders in general and Southern leaders in particular. Ewell and Hill both expected to get Jackson's corps intact and Longstreet resented giving up part of his corps to officers junior to him.

I have always felt that part of the reason Lee rejected Longstreet[SIZE=3]'s sugges[SIZE=3]tion to flank the Union position in favor 'attack en echelon' was that by the end of the second day Lee's frustration with Ewell and Hill affected his judgement of Longstreet. This is also reflected in his actions with Jeb Stuart. Lee was acustomed to giving him a fairly free hand and Stuart's tardy arrival was as much to due with the improved Union cavalry and the fact he had to avoid the gathering Union army as it did with his vanity. Again Lee's disappointment with [SIZE=3]his new corps commander's colored his opinion.

Add Lee's illness (the 'trot's) and he was facing a very uphill slog.

When the final day dawned, Lee would again be disappointed in his Corps commander's. Both Ewell and Hill failed to attack as expected, Stuart was stymied by Union Cavalry (G.A. Custer's finest moment, he wasn't brilliant but [SIZE=3]h[/SIZE]e was tenacious enough to throw off the Southern timing) and [SIZE=3]Longstreet, lacking faith in Lee's plan, largely sleepwalked though the [SIZE=3]3[/SIZE]rd day.

I agree that the actor's voiced the motivation's accurately, but for those who know the history it was [SIZE=3]unnecessary to the film. It was for those unfamiliar to the history to explain why things happened as they did. Great for a history lesson, but often fatal for a pie[SIZE=3]c[/SIZE]e of entertainment.

I don't blame the actor's for this as this is a screenwriting issue.[/SIZE][/SIZE]
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The performance of Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg is not to be sneered at.....despite diahorrea, Richard Ewell, and the absense of Stuart.

Shelby Foote called Picketts Charge "The mistake of all mistakes", but, Potomac Commander Meade was on record as fully anticipating what Lee would do on the third day, advising his center commander to "fully expect an attack to his front".

Lee was simply out-guessed. For a change, a Northern commander had pulled the same trick on him, being able to 'read' what his opposite was anticipating for the next day's operations.

Unfortunately, too, Lee telegraphed his intentions with the commencement of the overly lengthy bombardment. Some of the lowest privates would have guessed what was about to happen next, once those guns stopped firing....

You can blame Jeb Stuart for the "No show", you can blame Richard Ewell for "not finding it practicable" to attack Cemetary Ridge as Jackson would have, and you can blame Longstreet for taking until 4.00 pm to get his men into position to attack the Round Top.....

But R.E. Lee has no-one but himself to blame for sending those men out across that field, formed up in solid blocks, and marching to a band.
And Lee said so, too, straight away to the survivors that struggled back, directly to them, like a good commander should.
I'm going out on a limb here, and suggesting that the famous cry of Meade's troop's facing this display, ("Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg"!) was the excited outcry of incredulous Union troops who had seen what happened at Fredericksburg, and were reminding the Rebs too, in their own way.

In a wierd way, Pickett's Division were honor bound to carry out Lee's orders. Once the guns had stopped, they could hardly refuse. Morale would have collapsed on the spot.

Not for nothing did George Pickett say of Robert E. Lee, after the war, "That old man destroyed my division."

 

The Army of Northern Virginia had unlimited confidence in Lee. Until that time he had won every engagement with the Army of the Potomac, despite the fact that they had been outnumbered, outgunned, and generally under-supplied in every phase of the war.

There have been endless theories about why Lee failed at Gettysburg, from he "may" had a heart attack a few days before, to he was ill in some other fashion, or had lost confidence without Jackson's counsel. The film is drawn from "The Killer Angels" which may rely too heavily on Longstreet's post war writings. No doubt, Longstreet was correct in his views on the strategy, but I very much doubt he expressed them as strongly or as clearly as shown in the film.

 

I disagree with Foote, he wrote a good narative history of the Civil War, but he was not by training a military historian. There are many things that are often stated as fact by academic historians that do not stand up to scrutiny when analyzed from a military perspective. I do agree about Meade, he was the difference at Gettysburg. In Lee's previous victories he had beaten portions of the Union Army, but what gave him his victories was he had beaten the Union Generals. They lost confidence and retreated when just one more push, throwing in the last of their forces or a determined stand might have changed the defeat to a draw or a victory. Meade is also wrongly criticised for not pursuing Lee more forcefully after Gettysburg. His army was too beaten up and Lee was still dangerous, push too hard with worn down, disorganized troops and the Confederates might turn and destroy a portion of your army.


Lee felt that going into the third day that his army had come close, but a lack of coordination had prevented those assaults from succeeding, (with a great deal of justification). The reasons Pickett's Charge failed are many, but it too lacked coordination. Read the Southern Historical Society Papers, many officers involved in the charge thought it would succeed if it had gone off as planned.

The comment, "sending those men out across that field, formed up in solid blocks," shows a lack of understanding of Civil War tactical considerations. One thing that immediately let's me know the author of a Civil War related book does not know his subject is when they make the statement about fighting in battleline is a hold over of Napoleonic tactics by unimaginative leaders. The simple fact is that when fighting men with single shot, muzzle loaded small arms, you must fight in this formation for reasons of command and control. The rifled musket extended the range of small arms fire from 50-200 yards to 300-500 yards, but you were still limited to a max of three rounds per minute from a trained infantryman. On paper a Civil War infantry regiment was composed of ten, 101 man companies. Of this 101 men you had a maximum of 82 shooters, the other 19 positions were for control and supply. In reality due to men being detatched for fatigue duties, sick, injured, etc. they were usually from 1/3 to 1/2 this size. Orders had to be relayed by voice, bugles or drums. They were drilled relentlessly so they could carry out maneuvers such as changing from column into battleline rapidly and under fire without becoming disorganized. The officers could control the volume of fire to meet the tactical requirements of the situation. You could fire companies by file to create a continuous volume of fire though at a reduced weight of projectiles. You could fire companies by rank, volley fire where the front rank fired then loaded, then the back rank, then the reloaded front rank. A fairly continuous volume with heavier throw weight, with only short pauses between rounds being sent down range. And you could fire company by volley, maximum throw weight but everyones weapon would be empty at one time. You could fire at will, but surrendered your control of volume and target, this was usefull once the enemies assault had stalled and began to come apart. Ever wondered what the difference between a rifle and rifled musket was? A rifle is shorter, normally only has two barrel bands and is not designed to be used in battleline. The rifled musket (3-barrel bands) is specifically designed to be used in battleline, the extra length to facilitate it's use by two ranks of men without injury to the man in the front rank. The man in the rear rank moves his right foot slightly forward and to the right, placing it behind the rear foot of the man in the front rank, one file to the left. This unmasks his weapon, placing it between the two ranks and his weapon centers the man in the front ranks head between the forward most two bands. Well thought out, technically sound, tactically effective.
However, even with the range improvement of a rifled barrel and minie' bullet, it still took a lot of rounds to produce a casualty. For the Civil War as a whole it was often said that it took a man's weight in bullets for each casualty produced. A standard .577/.58 caliber minie' weighed approximately 510 grams or 1.1657 ounces. The average soldier weighed 143 1/2 lbs. or one man killed or wounded for every 1969.63 rounds expended. The two armies at Gettysburg were veteran organizations and did considerably better, most estimates are that it took 180-200 rounds of rifle fire for every casualty produced (and this neglects to account for artillery fire). It is known that the Union Army expended nearly 5 1/2 million rounds during the battle (5,400,000.), if the expenditure by Confederate troops per man was similar (we do not have reliable data for them) add another 4 1/2 million rounds or ten million rounds expended for 35,087 killed and wounded (again not accounting for artillery, pistols, bayonnets, swords, rifle butts, rocks, etc.) When you look at the actual effectiveness of Civil War rifle fire, the charge is not as foolish as when viewed through more modern weapons capability.

Most of the controversy over the charge took place after the war when it became apparent that Gettysburg was the Confederacy's high tide. Immediately after the charge there was not as much second guessing. The same lack of coordination that had plagued the ANV during the first two days was again present. The artillery barage went on longer than planned (defective fuses were a factor), reserve artillery ammunition had not ben brought up, General Pendleton pulled a number of guns that were supposed to move forward, the infantry assault was delayed and did not go forward when scheduled, the units that were supposed to move forward on the flanks failed to do so or only advanced part of the way allowing federal regiments to fire on the flanks of the main body. (A number of these Federal regiments in later years claimed credit for stopping the charge due to their flanking fire). The post war debate deginerated into blame placing, the Virginians blaming the North Carolinians and vice versa, Longstreet blaming Lee, Early and others blaming Longstreet, in the name calling many of the facts became obscured. There are quite a few southern participants and even a couple of Union Generals that think the assault would have been successful if it had been executed as planned.

 

Funnily enough Kodiak, I have seen wargamers do things very similar with cardboard soldiers.

Nearing the end of a long game, players sometimes make decisions like Pickett's charge, that cost a lot of pieces. With hindsight, it's always seen to be a 'bonehead' error, but, before the dice are rolled, it looks like they always have a chance of success.

But, as we always used to say, "Cardboard soldiers don't leave cardboard widows and children."

 

USMCprice, that's a very impressive analysis of Pickett's Charge! I've never read a better synopsis of the battle, or one that manages to get so much great info in so few words. "Pithy..."

What do you think of the bigger situation so often brought up by everyone from Longstreet to Foote to Shaara - that the ANV should have shifted around the union army and let them attack the ANV on better ground between Gettysburg and Washington?

 

I might add, too, that experienced units in the Civil War, when faced with lots of musket and shot to their front, would go to ground, looking for the minutest fold in the ground itself, or even using corpses....anything to shelter. The one thing they would not do, mid to late war, was get up and keep moving forward.

Many engagements petered out this way in 1864. But it was usually only veteran units that did this.

And Picketts division were not a veteran unit. They kept going, into the teeth of that firestorm, as people sometimes did during the Great War. French soldiers during "the Battle of the Frontiers" in 1914 had officers that certainly felt that it was "Very chic to die in white gloves."

At the Marne, or on the Somme, this type of repulse was the product of units who did not spontaniously go to ground, whose officers 'carried out their orders' to the letter, without using their own common sense, and contrary to their own nervous system's instinctive reactions. Picketts troops, once they appeared out of the trees, could not turn back. They would have been the laughing stock of the nation. The southern press would have blasted them unmercifully, as they were want to do. They certainly held nothing back when critical of Stuart, or at other times.

They knew damn well they had to keep marching. Shelby Foote mentions this, saying that it was far easier for them to mount the attack than it was for them to front Lee and tell him, "Mars Robert, I AIN'T going!"

As I've said before, that cry of Union troops of "Fredericksburg!" was a TAUNT, meant to remind any Rebs of what was about to occur. It could have had the effect of making members of Picketts division mindful as well....and if enough of them came to the same conclusion, and George Pickett stopped and turned his people around to go back into the trees, or worse, if enough of Picketts men had run away, causing the rest of the division to follow suit,....well...the engagement would have been OVER without any further blood shed. Can you IMAGINE the effect on the Southern war effort? The ANV would have been extremely lucky to get a single volunteer after something like that hit the papers. The war would have been essentially OVER in an afternoon!

The cry of "FREDERICKBURG" was uttered by Union soldiers long before they opened fire. And it wasn't just 'rifled muskets' that the Union opened fire with. They had CANNON as well, and EVERBODY knew what happened when you charge a body of men at a large artillery piece....

Even if Picketts men advanced in a solid block, with all regiments 'dressed' and reaching the fence at the same time, they still would have had huge gaps blown into their ranks.

The actual event featured these men closing up and continueing forward. They neither ran, nor went to ground.

And THAT, is an indicator that, even in mid 1863, there were STILL people in uniform who were UNAWARE of exactly what modern firepower could do.

The question I ask is....how many engagement had Picketts division fought prior to Gettysburg. My instincts tell me not many at all. The Union troops to their front obviously included people who WERE experienced, HAD been at Fredericksburg. And these guys had a healthy RESPECT for their opposite numbers. If, by a chant, they could convince those in front of them to run away, well, thats what a battle cry is supposed to do. But, Picketts men weren't veterans, were they?

 

Remember, too, the effect of this fire when the first rounds from the Union artillery opened up. It was said by witnesses to be "A great GROAN arose from the Southern ranks...."

People don't just "...groan" when wounded. They also utter this cry when they realise it's all a MISTAKE!

The Union artillery officers were canny enough to shut down their return fire. This, in turn, convinced Southern officers that the overly long bombardment was having the desired effect.

They only realised their error when they were in the middle of their march, at the very point when those guns opened up again, at the very point of no return...

Thats enough to make ANYBODY GROAN! And this is "A GREAT groan..", as described by witnesses, from the throats of ALL in the attack. Nothing else would sound like that, and nor did this phenomeneon occur at any other recorded engagement of the Civil War.

 

Mr Price has certainly nailed it from a strictly technical point of view.....but as an event, and according to the descriptions of many witnesses, the human element of Pickett's charge, in my own less than humble viwe, has always been discounted.

People make mistakes. And I am willing to guess that Southern officers of Pickett's and Pettigrew's divisions, their subordinate officers, and every man involved in that attack all made the same assumption that their Commander in Chief did.....that the artillery on the Union side had been shut down, and that they had a 'sporting chance' to cross that field, and sweep all before them in magnificent style.

And, when the artillery opened up again, THE GREAT GROAN was the sound of thousands of people coming to exactly the opposite conclusion, all realising at exactly the same time, what a terrible mistake in judgement they had ALL made, down to the last private.

The survivors of this charge, hobbling back and confronted by a commander taking FULL responsibility, in most other circumstances might have gathered around this man offering no excuses, except to say that it was "All his fault..."

Those poor buggers knew that THEY had made the same basic error that Lee did......So they didn't shout Robert E. Lee down. No officer approached Lee later on.

In the Western Theater, at the New Years bloodbath of Stones River, incredulous officers under the command of Gen. Braxton Bragg gathered around Bragg to issue PROTESTS at the behest of themselves and their men....

James M. Macpherson...."Battle Cry of Freedom", (Page 583)

"While Washington breathed a sigh of relief after Stones River, dissention came to a head in the Army of Tennessee. All of Bragg's corps and division expressed a lack of confidence in their chief. Senior Generals William J. Hardee and Leonidas Polk asked Davis to put Johnston in command of the army. Division commander B. Franklin Cheatham vowed never again to serve under Bragg. Breckinridge wanted to challenge him to a duel. Bragg struck back, court martialling one division commander for disobeying orders, accusing another, (Cheatham) of drunkeness during the battle, and blaming Breckinridge for inept leadership. This internecine donnybrook threatened to do more damage to the army than the Yankees had done. Disheartened, Bragg told a friend that it might "be better for the President to send someone to relieve me," and wrote Davis to the same effect."

Joe Johnston was sent to sort out the mess. He found "...many officers hostile to Bragg, but reported the enlisted men to be in good condidition with high morale. This dubious discovery prompted him to advise Bragg's retention in command.". According to johnston's letters to friends, what he actually wanted was for Davis to send him back to his old position as commander of the Eastern theater! Johnston 'passed the buck", and was "virtually ordered" to take command of the Army of Tennessee. Johnston "demurred on the grounds that to remove Bragg while his wife was critically ill would be inhumane. Johnston himself then fell ill. So Bragg stayed on and continued to feud with his leading subordinates."

Here we have a recognized disaster, with officers protesting left right and center. And this was not unusual in the ranks of the CSA....

Macpherson...(page 584)

"Lincoln handled similar disaffection in the Army of the Potomac with more deftness and firmness than Davis had displayed. Demoralization reached epic proportions in this army after Fredericksburg. Four generals in the 6th Corps headed by William B. Franklin went directly to Lincoln with complaints about burnside's leadership. Maclellan's friends were declaring that "we MUST have Maclellan back back with unlimited and unfettered powers". Joe Hooker was intriguing to obtain command for himself. Hooker also told a reporter that what the country needed was a dictator. Men in the ranks were deserting at the rate of a hundred and more every day during January. Thousands of others went on the sicklist because slack dicipline in regimental camps and corruption in the commissary had produced sanitary and dietary deficiencies. Recognizing that he had lost the army's confidence, Burnside offered to resign-suggesting to Lincoln at the same time that he fire Stanton, Halleck, and several disgruntled generals."

It was only after the abortive "Mud March" that "A mortified and furious commander (Burnside), hastened to Washington, and told the President that either Hooker, Franklin, and a half-dozen other generals must go, or he would. Lincoln decided to remove Burnside-probably to the latter's relief.

And here, on the Union side, we find the same thing occurring after their disaster. Incredulous subordinates, gathering around to protest about the performance of their commander, and their commander recommending that most of them be fired at once.

similar disasters, similar happenstance on both sides of the fence.


Did this occur after "Pickett's Charge"....NO!...And why not? This was a "bonehead" error, the "mistake of all mistakes", something observers would not have predicted a man as competent and practiced as Robert E. Lee would make. Pickett's Charge was a larger error by half, a bigger one than Fredericksburg and Breckinridge's attack at Stone's River put together.

So, why weren't the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, like Longstreet and Pickett, why didn't they come out with the same agonised protestations in the post battle soul searching that undoubtably went on after Gettysburg?

Why? It wasn't because of their respect for Robert E. Lee...oh no...

It was for the simple and human reason that almost every man on that field on the Third of July, 1863, had made the same assumption that Robert E. Lee had....namely, that those Union Artillery pieces were SILENCED, smashed into woodchips and fragments, by the most massive artillery bombardment (150 guns) that ANY of those men had ever seen. Like many Great War soldiers, particularly on the Somme, these men had 'formed an impression" of the results of that bombardment.

Napolean was FOREVER lecturing his Marshals of this very thing, "Never", he said, "form an impression of what is going on to your front."

That is the simple reason why hardly a word of recrimination was offered to Lee, until after the war. Lee realised his mistake IMMEDIATELY....and the Great Groan of Pickett and Pettigrew's men was the simultanious realization of exactly the same thing. Lee offered to resign, but how can you let go a man like that? He stayed on, and the Army of Northern Virginia realised that "The Marble Man", the "Perfect Soldier", who had gotten through his West Point career without a single demerit.....was HUMAN after all.

So, it's just as Shelby Foote tells it...."The mistake of all mistakes....", with George Pickett realising this as well....and Longstreet. So they saved their criticism for AFTER the war.

And because EVERY Southern boy present on that day made the same error of judgement.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't know, it sounded good years later on paper. I think it would have been much harder in fact. When the battle started Lee's (and Meade's) army was scattered. On day one it was a meeting engagement and kind of took on a life of it's own. Lee had previously sent orders for consolidation and that's what allowed Ewell's Corps to appear on the Union's right flank, shattering it. Ewell had been as far north as the Susquehanna River and had threatened Harrisburg, his last division arriving back in Gettysburg in the early evening of July 1st, and his trains were still further back. Around the time he was ordered to take Cemetary Hill if "practicable" (a word that didn't appear until the post battle report, but a word that does accurately describe Lee's orders) Union troops were appearing on his left flank (McDougall's and Ruger's Brigades of XII Corps), and more Federals were moving towards Gettysburg from that direction. (from the vicinity of York)
So movement around that flank of the Federal army would have been problematic.
Lee's Army was still in the process of consolidating, remember Pickett's troops didn't arrive until the early hours of the third day. His supply line, and his Army and trains stretched back, over the mountains, towards Chambersburg and then from there back south towards Hagerstown and Martinsburg. If he'd moved to flank the Federals to their left, towards Frederick, MD and Washington, and did so before he was consolidated he would have exposed his LOC running back towards Chambersburg and all the troops, artillery, wagons and supplies strung out along it. If he waited until day three, when the army had reassembled, he would have had to have made the move across Meade's front and hope that Meade didn't hit him while in the process. Meade wasn't likely to allow this, there were also Federal troops in that direction, back towards Emmitsburg. Meade would have had the interior lines and could have shifted his troops more quickly than Lee. Lee's last option would have been to retreat back towards Chambersburg, use the mountains to screen his movements and then turn south towards Hagerstown, then move back east, recrossing at South Mountain. The problem was, if Meade moved rapidly, he could cross the mountains near Waynesboro and beat Lee to Hagerstown, cutting his line of retreat. If Meade chose this option and Stuart was incapable of blocking Union movement through the passes, the Union army had a much shorter distance to travel. Lee might have chanced it against a more timid Federal commander, but not against Meade.
I don't know if you have ever visited the area, if not and you ever get a chance to visit that part of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, I highly recommend that you do so. It makes the reasons many of the campaigns were conducted the way they were, perfectly clear. The terrain clearly dictated strategic movement.
Hope this answers the question.

 

Just to put this in perspective, Ulysees Simpson Grant faced recriminations from jealous officers when floundering before Vicksburg. The protests of Grant's subordinates influenced Lincoln to send a special agent in March 1863 to "...investigate matters in the Army of Tennessee." This man, Charles A. Dana, had a mission that Grant was "well aware of."

Instead of giving Dana the cold shoulder, Grant welcomed him. Dana "sized up the general favourably and began sending a strem of commendatory despatches to Washington. Grant was, "the most modest, the most disinterested, and the most honest man I ever knew, with a temper nothing could disturb.......Not a great man except morally; not an original or brilliant man, but sincere, thoughtful, deep and gifted with courage that never faltered."

The men of the Army seemed to agree with Dana, appreciating Grant's utter lack of "superfluous flummery", and his "tendency to wear a plain uniform without scarf and sword, or trappings of any sort save the double starred shoulder straps."

Macpherson has indicated that Grant's alchoholism ..."May have made him a better general. His struggle for self dicipline enabled him to understand and dicipline others; the humiliation of pre-war failures gave him a quiet humility that was conspicuously absent from so many generals with a reputation to protect; Because Grant had nowhere to go but up, he could act with more boldness and decision than commanders who dared not risk failure."

I submit that, until July 3rd, 1863, Robert E. Lee was acting in just this manner described. He had "a reputation to protect", and it forced him to go further and further until stopping his run of victory with an ill judged, "mistake of all mistakes", something his entire career as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia had been leading up to.

In short, Lee had a rather similar operational career as an Army commander to German Generals in WW2. That is, they went from victory to victory, and every victory bringing them closer and closer to that day when everything depended on their judgement, and when lacking, found defeat, and a bigger defeat than all of their victories put together.

Grant, on the other hand, displayed the career path of British generals in WW2, going from one disaster to another, but gaining knowlege and confidence, so that when the day came for the DECISIVE move, they had the pre-requirments to not consider their actions "perfect", but to size up the situation, and based on their failures, make the right moves for success when it most counted.

 

We certainly have an excellent debate flowing here, and with none of the usual mud-slinging from anybody so far. Thanks to Mr. Price for this, and to kodiak and the others. You two have not 'rubbished' my views, and I have, most certainly, taken on board that which I have learnt from you guys as well.

Pity we are 'off topic', but it's a measure of the good manners we are displaying that is preventing our moderators from uttering the dreaded "OFF TOPIC"!

Thanks to both of you!

 

Not true. They did it on many an occasion. One tactic that did change was skirmishers. Skirmishers were normally some of your better troops, were put out in front of the main line to force your opponent to go into battleline, slow their advance, help develop their dispositions and prevent surprises. Skirmish drill was formalized and routinely practiced to insure proficiency. A skirmish line could easily be pushed aside by a battleline, but later in the war a heavier skirmish line was utilized, kind of a hybrid of the skirmish line/battle line. It was not so easily brushed aside, retained much of the command and control advantages of the battleline, but required veteran troops, was able to cause more damage to an opposing battleline, but was less susceptable to return fire.

You are correct they weren't, having only been lightly engaged at Fredericksburg and having missed Chancelorsville, but they were only about 40% of the troops involved. Pettigrew's division (Heth's) had more men, had been heavily engaged earlier in the battle and was made up of mostly veteran troops. They actually advanced further than Pickett's men (this was mainly due to the way the wall angled).

Foote's comment was allegorical and reflected Foote's interpretation. As I said earlier, Foote wrote compelling history, not necessarily properly interpreted history.

Actually, most of the documented accounts of the "Fredericksburg" chant were by troops that had just repelled Pettigrew's men, and was made after they were falling back (not before).

It is highly unlikely that the chant, if it had been made at Pickett's men could have been heard over the artillery and musket fire. The Federal's were fully occupied with attempting to repel the assault and didn't have time to chant until the attack was over and falling back. As stated earlier, most of the documented accounts, by federal soldiers, of the chant were by troops facing Pettigrew's, not Pickett's men. I can point you in the direction of some good regimental level recollections if you're interested.

By this point in the war most men were brought into the southern armies by conscription not voluntary enlistment.

Not true, see above.

Untrue. Most of the troops in the assault were veterans. An even larger assault took place in November 1864 at Franklin, TN. 20,000 confederates in 18 brigades took part in it. At Chickamauga, a little over two months after Gettysburg, Longstreet threw 11,000 men into a charge against a heavily fortified union line. This time luck was on the confederates side and the Union General had pulled a division out of line to cover an inaccurately reported gap in the lines and did so just as Longstreet was launching his attack. The bulk of Longstreet's troops hit the gap and shattered the union lines. If it were not for the fortuitous error, who know's how the attack would have fared? A good indication is that General Henry Benning's brigade, part of the overall assault, struck the federal line at a place where the troops were still emplaced and Longstreet found him not long thereafter, distraught, riding an artillery horse and claiming his command had been completely wiped out. In each of these cases, very experienced troops made a similar assault as Pickett's and did not display the actions you cite.

 

As the OP, I don't feel we've strayed too far off topic. I asked about WW2, but any war film is fine with me, and war films raise questions about the accuracy of the portrayal.

 

Way, Way too simple and generalized.

 

You may be right about the sense of shared responsibility, or shared sense of being fooled. Your description of the "great groan" is something I had never considered. Good stuff!

But... Robert E. Lee was so respected and loved that even if they had seen it as Lee's failure, they wouldn't have complained or lost faith at that point in the war. There has never been an army in the US like the Army of Northern Virginia. They were hungry, ill-armed and ill-clothed, but Lee had brought them nothing but victory and they could not (at that time) imagine losing while Lee led them. That would change later when Grant wore them down, but in the summer of 1863 they were all brothers and Lee was their father.

 

Isn't it amazing that, all these years later, we still look at something like Picketts Charge and wonder at it, the whys, the wherefors, and the reasons thereof.

No wonder the participants "remembered the sight of a mile wide spectacle of regimentation till their dying days..."

 

Volga, the groaning sound you keep mentioning was not unique to Pickett's Charge, it is mentioned in the accounts of other battles as well. Another one of the more common graphic descriptions, and one that appears in the accounts of a number of battles, is that the balls are flying so fast and thick that the men lean forward and duck their heads as if walking into a hailstorm. In some of these engagements the assaulting troops were victorious, in others not.

When Lee initially made the statement, and he repeated it numerous times in the direct aftermath of the Charge, in order to rally his men to an expected counter-attack by Meade. He was taking responsibility, but it took on a different tone than the one portrayed in the movie. It was more along the lines of don't blame yourselves, he needed to restore their morale and self-confidence. Here's Freemantle's eyewitness version:
Colonel Fremantle, of the British army, writing from the standpoint of an eye-witness, says: "General Lee was perfectly sublime. He was engaged in rallying and encouraging the broken troops and was riding about a little in front of the wood, quite alone, . . . his face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show any signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance, and he was addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encouragement; such as, 'All this will come right in the end; we will talk it over afterward; but in the meantime all good men must rally.' . . . He spoke to all the men that passed him, and the slightly wounded he exhorted to bind up their hurts and take a musket in this emergency. Very few failed to answer his appeal, and I saw badly wounded men take off their hats and cheer him." To General Wilcox, who, in tones of sadness, mingled with vexation, told him of the condition of his brigade, Fremantle says, "Lee replied: 'Never mind, General; all this has been my fault. It is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it the best way you can.'" These things moved this onlooking English colonel to conclude: "It was impossible to look at him or to listen to him without feeling the strongest admiration."

After he had rallied the men, once the emergency was over, this is the opinion he expressed to his General officers and staff:

"I never saw troops behave more magnificently than Pickett's division of Virginians did today in that grand charge upon the enemy. And if they had been supported as they were to have been -- but, for some reason not yet fully explained to me, were not, -- we would have held the position and the day would have been ours." After a moment's pause, he added in a loud voice, in a tone almost of agony, "Too bad! Too bad! OH! TOO BAD!"

Btw, I'm enjoying our discussion also

 

Crikey...

I've learnt such a lot in such a short space of time....

Robert E. Lee must have felt exactly the same way....

 

I thought I knew a lot about Gettysburg since I've read about it from the age of twelve, but I've learned much in this thread and I'm left with a dozen things I've never considered.

In another thread I mentioned how difficult it is to research the book I'm trying to put together on the 30th Division in WWII. Within those actions, even with far better reports and voluminous coverage from every unit on both sides I can rarely find a consensus of what actually happened. Every soldier sees what's directly in front of him, and the soldier 100 yards to the left sees an entirely different battle. The Company reports are "interpreted" to the Battalion, and the various Battalion reports become something else when the Regiment gets them. By the time they get to Division, they are reduced to a sentence or two which has very little relationship to what Sgt. Smith saw or thought when his 57mm gun bounced off a Panther.

How much more difficult is it to interpret what happened in 1863 when very little was put on paper?

And to keep the thread on track, how does a film which must reduce all this to 120 minutes and yet explain the general situation within a plot that holds interest to the viewer keep any accuracy at all?