Posted on 07/02/2008 6:08:10 AM PDT by mware
July 2, 1863
The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000.
While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal forces with hand-to-hand combat in an area of rock-strewn confusion of large boulders known as "Devil's Den." The Confederates worked past Devil's Den and for a short time nearly overtook Little Round Top before being repulsed by the 20th Maine regiment. The Confederates withdrew to Devil's Den where sharpshooters kept up a deadly exchange with Federal troops on Little Round Top.
A little later in the afternoon, McLaw's division overpowered Sickles' Federals with hand- to-hand combat at the Peach Orchard and the adjacent wheat field. However, losses were great and the Confederate push lost momentum at the creek at the base of Little Round Top known as Plum Run.
Next, Anderson made a run on Hancock's center Federal position which had been weakened in an attempt to aid Sickles. The Confederates were successfully pushing towards the Federal's ridge position when Hancock ordered the First Minnesota regiment to counterattack. Although the First Minnesota suffered enormous casualties, they managed to give Hancock enough time to establish a new line of defense. Anderson's men had to withdraw to Confederate positions across the valley.
To the north, Ewell's divisions had some success with late afternoon attacks in and around Culp's Hill. Early's division temporarily broke through Federal lines as darkness fell, but with lack of support and Federal counterattacks, had to withdraw. Lee had come close to success causing Meade to consider a possible retreat. The 2nd of July 1863 became one of the bloodiest days in American military history with each side losing about 10,000 men.
Dixie ping?
Dixie Ping - thanks Stonewall Brigade!
Your Very welcome SB.
“Lee wins and then what?”...head straight down rt.97 into D.C....that was the whole point of Pickett’s charge...break on thru to the other side.
“He’s hundreds of miles behind Union lines”
...not as bad off as you would think....it’s only about 55 miles over to Harper’s Ferry....less to Point-of-Rocks....besides, across the Mason-Dixon line in Maryland there were many families whose sons were in his army...and many more who were Southern sympathizers....Lee’s problem would have been the longer he was outside of VA the greater the chance he would be trapped....he went North in 1862 and 1863 and was lucky to get out both times.
McClellan would never have agreed to separate the Union.
He would have agreed to a revocation of the Emancipation Proclamation, lavish reparations to slaveholders, a guarantee to permit slaveholding in federal territory and many other humiliating conditions, but not separation.
Jefferson Davis would not have accepted any outcome except separation.
Had McClellan been elected, the likely outcome would have been an uneasy truce for the duration of his administration. Knowing McClellan's personality as we do now, would he really have been likely to force through an unpopular but decisive outcome?
I visited there just about 10 weeks ago, and concur.
Lee could have invested DC on many occasions. He never did because he knew that his army was too small and too poorly equipped to take Washington under siege conditions - his army's forte was attacking infantry on the march, something they did supremely well.
Lee also knew that you cannot besiege a city with access to the sea effectively if you do not possess the ability to blockade it - without a blockade the attackers automatically double or triple the cost in men and materiel.
Lee also realized that even if he managed to take Washington, by the time he reached the city proper the US government would already be gone and administering the nation from New York or Boston.
Lee knew that the cost/benefit of taking Washington was a huge losing proposition for the Confederacy. His goal was to defeat the Army Of The Potomac in detail and remove it from the chessboard.
besides, across the Mason-Dixon line in Maryland there were many families whose sons were in his army...and many more who were Southern sympathizers....
Lee's Army had already been through Maryland in the Sharpsburg campaign six months before. He gained well less than a thousand new recruits and got a polite but not very passionate welcome.
Maryland only had a grand total of eight or nine regiments plus four or five random companies in the Confederate forces. In contrast, Maryland had more than 35 regiments in the US Army.
To provide some comparison, Texas had an 1860 population of 600,000 and fielded more than 100 regiments in the Confederate forces. Maryland had an 1860 population of 700,000 yet fielded less than 10% of the strength for the Confederacy that Texas did.
Lee’s problem would have been the longer he was outside of VA the greater the chance he would be trapped....he went North in 1862 and 1863 and was lucky to get out both times.
People have pointed out some aspects of Lee's Northern strategy on this thread. My opinion is that his strategy contained all of the following:
(1) Resupplying his forces from the well-stocked Federal larder.
(2) Keeping his troops far away from Richmond to prevent them from being redeployed to other theatres.
(3) Humiliating the US Army by forcing it as far back into its own territory as possible with an eye to (A) boosting anti-war sentiment among Democrat traitors, (B) sending a message to foreign powers that might spur intervention on the Confederacy's behalf, (C) keeping the US Army from foraging in VA.
(4) Destroying the rail and telegraph links between the East and the Midwest. During the Sharpsburg campaign this was paramount - if Bragg had made it to Cincinnati and Lee had decisively controlled Harper's Ferry, they would have effectively as good as split the Union in two again.
(5) Most important: destroy the Army of the Potomac.
OMG. Didn't know it had been open only 11 days when I went there.
While the Democratic platform in 1864 contained a peace plank, McClellan had already repudiated it before the election. And had he won election in November 1864, he wouldn't have been inaugurated until March 1865. By that time there was very little left of the confederacy for him to have surrendered to.
that last chance came in APR 65, when he failed to break the ANV & the other major CSA forces into guerrilla bands & fight on, until the north decided to QUIT.
fwiw, Lee did NOT have to WIN;he simply had to avoid final DEFEAT.
trust me, in about DEC 1975 or perhaps MUCH SOONER, the civilians in the north would have done ANYTHING to end the war against the north-anything, especially if the guerrillas had started burning NORTHERN cities (say one a month???).
free dixie,sw
Many thanks for the chronicle. I get chills reading it. Those were men.
You are a complete idiot, aren't you?
"Lee saw such manifest danger in this proposal to become guerillas that he began to question Alexander: "If I should take your advice, how many men do you suppose would get away?"
"Two-thirds of us. We would be like rabbits and partridges in the bushes and they could not scatter to follow us."
"I have not over 15,000 muskets left," Lee explained. "Two-thirds of them divided among the states, even if all could be collected, would be too small a force to accomplish anything. All could not be collected. Their homes have been overrun, and many would go to look after their families.
"Then, General," he reasoned further, "you and I as Christian men have no right to consider only how this would affect us. We must consider its effect on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by the four years of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy's cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from. And, as for myself, you young fellows might go bushwhacking, but the only dignified course for me would be to go to General Grant and surrender myself and take the consequences of my acts."
Lee paused, and then he added, outwardly hopeful, on the strength of Grant's letter of the previous night, whatever his inward misgivings, "But I can tell you one thing for your comfort. Grant will not demand an unconditional surrender. He will give us as good terms as this army has the right to demand, and I am going to meet him in the rear at 10 A.M. and surrender the army on the condition of not fighting again until exchanged."
Alexander went away a humbler man. "I had not a single word to say in reply," he wrote years afterwards. "He had answered my suggestion from a plane so far above it, that I was ashamed of having made it." - "R. E. Lee" by Douglas Southall Freeman
Lee saw the folly of guerilla warfare and the horrendous impact it would have had on the Southern population, even if someone like you can not.
110 years, huh? What a putz.
Knock off the name calling N-S.
He certainly knew of the horrors going on in Missouri, which was essentially a guerilla war, so did not need to imagine it.
How was the new museum ?
It was nice, if rather a bit PC. I had way too little time to spend in it though. Next time (I’m in the area every spring) I’ll try to leave a full day, and even then know it won’t won’t be enough.
Yes, mother.
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