Posted on 07/12/2013 1:19:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
If they had gotten through it is quite likely they wouldn’t have held it. The sixth corp was on the way..and eventually extended the left flank beyond little round top. Because of killer angels and the movie Gettysburg a lot more importance is given to little Round top than any other place on the battle field
You are basically correct about the value of Culp’s hill.
However Pap Greene commanded the 3rd Brigade, Second Division of the XII Corp. Greene’s brigade was 5 NY regts. with a total strength of 1350 men. Greene held Culp’s Hill against Johnson, division, Ewell’s Corp. He did so, not by refusing the line, but by having his entire brigade dig a full set of trenches and breast works along their front. When Johnson’s 4700 man division attacked, Greene’s brigade easily held them off, inflicting heavy casualties. Steurts Maryland troops did work around the right flank of Greene’s position late in the battle, but Greene received some reinforcements from Wadsworth and that secured the right flank of Greene’s line. Pap Greene was an engineer before the war and recognized the value of entrenchments. Had he not entrenched his brigade, chances are Johnson would have taken that side of Culp’s Hill.
Cheap shot.
General Meade is one of our truest men and ablest officers. He has been constantly with that army, confronting the strongest, best-appointed and most confident army in the South. He therefore has not had the same opportunity of winning laurels so distinctively marked as have fallen the lot of other generals. But I defy any one to name a commander who could do more than he has done with the same chances. -- U.S. Grant
I do not believe so either.
It's roughly analogous, but not quite the same. The Joint Chiefs and their chair are staff, and technically and legally speaking, command nothing. Grant remained vested with all the authority of command.
isn’t it fun we are still debating strategy 150 years after the event.
My recollection is that a youtube video of the veterans of Gettysburg has sound, and one points out an odd noise made by the southern veterans as the Rebel Yell.
the strategy was pretty clear: US forces, Army of the Potomac were positioned between the pretended Army of Northern Virginia and Washington.
Lee could have avoided the AoP, but didn’t, rather sought to break the AoP by forcing it to fight by threatening Washington. If Lee had won, he would have exploited his victory by taking Washington and committing whatever destruction and murder they could have managed.
I don’t think it was Washington he was after but a decisive victory on Northern soil to force Lincoln to the negotiating table because there was a growing anti war sentiment growing in the north at the time of the battle. If Lee had won Lincoln would have a difficult time ignoring that sentiment.
You bet. The what ifs of Gettysburg will be replayed for generations to come.
Seriously doubt that Lee could have taken DC. Washington DC was probably the most heavily defended city in the world by 1863. Over fifty major forts, hundreds of gun emplacements, close to 800 artillery pieces and a garrison force of over 40,000 men. If Lee had won Gettysburg, he still had lost nearly a third of his army to casualties.
He had a train of wounded nearly 15 miles long and most of his artillery ammunition had been expended. If he was so inclined, the best that Lee could have done, in my opinion, was approach the city, lob a few artillery rounds into the works then head for Virginia. His political objectives would have been met at that point, without further damage to his army.
I figure Lee could have turned west, away from washington, but he just wasn’t as bright as Sherman when Sherman turned away from Hood to cross Georgia.
I agree that if Lee couldn’t take Culp’s Hill, or Little Round Top, he sure couldn’t take Washington. It was the threat to Washington that positioned Meade where he was, and it was the threat to Washington presented by Lee that forced the battle.
But Lee was fighting for Virginia and that kept him from going West.
I live in Lancaster and get to visit Gettysburg often. In fact I will be there again this Saturday for an all day seminar on the action that took place in the Wheatfield
Lee fighting for Virginia didn’t keep him from going North to Pennsylvania or Maryland, or from going south to review port defenses after losing West Virginia.
He went north to get the fighting out of VA which had been ravaged and to supply his army from the fields and farms of Pennyslvania which were ready for harvest. and hopefully gain a military and political victory on Northern soil. He tried the same thing the year before but the lost orders stymied him. I think part of the reason he wanted to try again he learned of those lost orders and then understood why McClellan moved so quickly ( for McClellan anyway). West Virginia was still Virginia until July 1863.
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