The High Water Mark at Gettysburg

[struggle4progress]

By Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com and the Times-Picayune
on June 28, 2016 at 7:00 AM, updated June 28, 2016 at 3:40 PM

In July of 1863, the Confederate forces of General Robert E. Lee clashed with the General George Meade's Union Army of the Potomac in the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. On Friday, July 3 just after 2:00 p.m., following an intense but poorly aimed barrage by a battery of around 150 Confederate cannons, Lee ordered over 12,000 soldiers to attack an approximate 6,500 Union Soldiers positioned atop Cemetery Ridge in order to secure the hill and the roads around it. Under the command of Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew and Major General Isaac Trimble on the left and Major General George Pickett on the right, the massed forces of Confederate soldiers had to cross between ¾ of a mile and a mile of open ground where they were exposed to murderous fire from Union cannons and rifles.

During the charge, a group of Virginian soldiers led by General Lewis Armistead broke through the Union line near the bend in a low stonewall called The Angle. They were cut down by gunfire and Armistead is said to have reached out and touched a Union cannon before being mortally wounded. Today, a stone marker shows where Armistead, hat on his sword, was shot down and represents the farthest push into Union lines by Confederates troops. The spot is called the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" because it represents both the farthest advance of Confederate troops at the battle of Gettysburg but also the Confederacy's farthest push into Union territory and their failed, best chance at routing the Union army.

At the end of the ill-advised attack on Cemetery Ridge, dubbed Pickett's Charge, over half of the Confederate soldiers involved were captured, killed or wounded, including all fifteen regimental commanders. Union soldiers suffered around 1,500 casualties during the fighting. The failure of the charge effectively ended the battle and, some say, the war. When Pickett was later questioned about why the attack failed, he replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it" ...

http://www.nola.com/travel/index.ssf/2016/06/on_this_spot_the_high_water_ma.html

[malthaussen]

1. IMO, an over-romanticized event.

Had the charge broken the USA center, Meade would have withdrawn and offered battle somewhere else. Most of VI Corps and a good bit of V were substantively intact, and given the appalling casualties the CSA had already suffered, and the fact that their ammunition was almost exhausted, Lee would have been obliged to withdraw into Virginia anyway.

And meanwhile, Vicksburg was surrendering to the USA and sealing the fate of the Confederacy far from what was, ultimately, a useless bloodbath. Gettysburg, IMO, ranks high on the list of "decisive battles of history" that decided exactly nothing. (Except how long the unfortunates involved would continue to live)

-- Mal

[Nitram]

2. Lee's mistake was to stop and fight at Gettysburg when he coould have marched to...

...Philadelphia unopposed. Philadelphia had no significant defenses, and the North would have sued for peace had Lee taken the city.

[modrepub]

5. Not Possible

Confederate troops had already been through Gettysburg earlier, passing through York and stopping at the Susquehanna River, an unfordable river several miles wide. Pennsylvania militia troops out of desperation burned the bridge at Columbia preventing an easy pass for Confederate Troops.

Lee's best chance of capturing Harrisburg, the state capital, passed pretty quickly. He made it as close as Mechanicsburg, three miles from Harrisburg before turning around and heading south towards Gettysburg, where Ewell's Corps ran into regular Army of the Potomac Calvary under Buford. The confederates were expecting only local militia mainly because their Calvary under Stuart was MIA thus they had no 'eyes'. I'll fault Lee for not communicating or having a general course of action planned for his invasion of PA; the purpose of which was to draw resources away from Grant to relieve Vicksburg. Interestingly, Longstreet favored detaching troops from the Army of Northern Virginia and sending them to relieve Vicksburg after Lee's stunning victory at Chancellorsville. Lee and Pres Davis over ruled Longstreet and Lee headed into PA.

Lee's immediate objective should have been attacking Harrisburg. Lee had a real opening since Hooker's AofP had been stripped of nearly half its numbers and was now close to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, Lincoln had no intention letting of Hooker fighting another battle, and Meade was forced to take command of the AofP on June 28th, TWO DAYS before the Battle of Gettysburg began. The first day went spectacularly well for the Confederates with one of the Union's best field commanders John Reynolds killed on the first day, the AofP baddy mauled and control of the town firmly in confederate hands. But quick decisions by Meade got the full Army of the Potomac in place in the elevated terrain south of town. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia wasn't fully in place until the following day and wasn't fully engaged until late in the afternoon of July 2nd. Lee tried flanking maneuvers on Meade's right and left but the ranks held under incredible fire and in spite of Sickles Corp abandoning key positions on the Union left. Lee's plan on the third day was to attack Meade's center with simultaneous morning attacks on Culps Hill and flanking maneuvers from Stuart's Calvary who finally showed up late on the July 2nd. This did not happen due to command mix ups and Pickett's charge was delayed until later in the afternoon. Union Calvary checked Stuarts attack, one of the first times that had happened in the war, while the attack on the Culp's Hill fizzled out earlier in the morning. At this point the battle was already probably decided in the Union's favor but Picket's Charge just put the exclamation point on the battle and this coupled with the loss of Vicksburg demonstrated to just about everyone in Europe that the Confederacy was doomed.

[Nitram]

8. Wasn't George Armstrong Custer involved in the cavalry action agaisnt Stuart?

[modrepub]

10. Yes he was

He was also present when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. In a slight, there were no representatives of the Army of the Potomac present at the formal surrender.

[Jim Lane]

9. I thought the Union was aware of this danger and was keeping its army where it could block Lee.

The obvious issue was a possible attack on Washington but other targets could include Baltimore and Philadelphia.

I hadn't previously heard that Lee missed an opportunity to take Philadelphia. Is that written up somewhere, where I can read more about it?

[Nitram]

12. I read that theory in "Robert E. Lee's Civil War" by Bevin Alexander.

I found the book very readable and very convincing, but I understand that many consider his take on Lee to be revisionist or weakly documented. I believe there is a hero-worship cult that has formed around the discussion of Lee, and that Alexander is very even-handed in considering Lee's strengths and weaknesses. For many, to even suggest Lee made mistakes is blasphemy.

[Number9Dream]

3. Pulitzer Prize winner about Gettysburg - "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara

For those who are interested but haven't read it, it's a fictional, but relatively accurate, account of the Battle of Gettysburg. Shaara makes Lee and Longstreet and Chamberlain and Buford, etc. come alive. Not at all dry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Angels

[packman]

4. I read Shelby Foote's three novels

Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox and they captivated me - I swear at times I felt the Confederates were going to win the war. Of course Foote had a bent towards the Southern viewpoint and sympathy towards the Confederacy - nevertheless, a fascinating read.

[Jim Lane]

6. Foote was a novelist but his three-volume history of the war was nonfiction. (n/t)

[packman]

7. Never said it was fiction

just that he had a certain leaning towards amplifying a Southern viewpoint. Enjoyable reading, not dry and pendantic.

[Scruffy1]

11. A little foot note.

Dwight Eisenhauer was visited at his Gettysburg home by General Montgomery. Of course Ike took him on a tour of the battle field. When they got to where "Pickett's Charge" happened Montgomery looked over the field and remarked "I would have cashiered the officer who ordered that charge." Ike's reply was " I would have shot the SOB." Yet the revisionist historians managed to clean up Lee, who besides being a traitor was in many ways a lousy general. Two thirds of his army had had enough of and deserted by the end of the war.