Having re-read (a cursory attempt) Coddington, what struck me most was that Pickett's Charge was seemingly a lesser alternative to what Lee actually wanted which was a continuation of Longstreet's assault on the Federal left flank. Longstreet had failed to get Pickett up in time to begin what he (Longstreet) had planned which was an enveloping thrust round both Round Tops against the federal left rear. When Lee arrived to find this intent and the absence of Pickett, he re-worked his plans and came up with Pickett's charge.
Meanwhile, as your message says, Ewell's attack on Culp Hill was precipitated by Federal attempts to retake positions that they had relinquished (by mistake it seemed) on the previous day. According to Coddington, the battle for Culp Hill fizzled out by late morning, before the Confederate artillery bombardment preceding Pickett's Chrage had begun. As such, what the fatal charge needed for any success - an inability for Meade to reinforce his threatened centre - wasn't there. Coddington also says that Meade had gathered together a reserve force of some 13,000 behind his threatened centre with which to counter any successful assault.
Meanwhile, Stuart could be found some two to three miles behind the Federal lines with four thousand poorly-armed troopers, perhaps four or more miles away from Lee and on the oposite side of the battle lines, waiting for an opportune moment to spring his own attack.
Not having read Harman's book, I'm certainly no authority (I would be any sort of authority if I had read it) but it seems that he would have to come up with some pretty strong evidence to substantiate his case. If Pickett's Chrage was to be reliant on one or more subsiary actions - Ewell and Stuart - and if one of those subsisiary actions hadn't come off - Ewell - then surely Lee would have held Longstreet back.
Simon----- Original Message ----- From: "David Ritchie" <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <RitchieRo@xxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 12:02 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Custer at Gettysburg
On Feb 3, 2007, at 2:18 PM, Simon Ward wrote:I wasn't contesting Custer's appearance at Gettysburg (Meade promoted him on the eve of battle), but rather that Lee's real intention was for Picket et al to 'hold' Meade's centre whilst Stuart went round the back and broke it up. For one, Lee wouldn't have used his best and freshest troops for a holding operation (even one that might have got out of control) and for another, Stuart, even with his entire force, couldn't hope to penetrate Meade's line and sustain an attack. The most expected of Stuart was that he would be in a position to spread 'confusion in the union rear and round up fleeing soldiers'. That from Coddington citing Official Records.I've now finished the book. It's an odd work, thin on evidence, conjectural, but good on how West Point and military history influenced the thinking of Civil War commanders. It's particularly good on military culture and how to read after-battle reports and official records--the author graduated from West Point and fought in Vietnam.I find that I didn't describe the thesis accurately. Pickett's Charge is not described as a holding action. It was Longstreet who was supposed to do the holding, distracting the southern part of the Union line after it had been cut in half by Pickett. Here's an excerpt from James McPherson's preface:Contrary to common understanding, however, Lee's plan for July 3 was not merely to send 13,000 men spearheaded by Pickett's fresh division against the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. Some visitors to Gettysburg learn that a renewed attack against Culp's Hill by [Ewell's] corps was also part of Lee's plan for July 3. Now we also learn that there was a crucial third component to Lee's July 3 tactics. Thanks to Tom Carhart's painstaking and absorbing reconstruction of events, we now have a clear comprehension of what Lee planned for July 3--and why it went wrong.[Comment: that McPherson endorsed Carhart's findings was the reason I read the book. Carhart is a lawyer and the book cover says he has been employed as an adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington, but I can't find him in current listings http://www.umw.edu]McPherson continues: While Pickett attacked the Union center and Ewell rolled up the right, Lee intended the 6,000 troopers of [Stuart's] cavalry to circle around north of the Union right flank and come in on the rear of Union positions to give the coup de grace to the Yankees desperately engaged by Pickett and Ewell in their front. [Note: "in their front" is an accurate but misleading term, as the map on p. 218 shows. Part of Ewell's attack was actually west-facing. Culp and Cemetary hills were to be surrounded.] It might have worked, even though Union infantry had forced Ewell into a premature firefight on the morning of July 3 and repulsed the Pickett-Pettigrew assault in the afternoon. If Stuart's horsemen had charged the Union rear as scheduled, Ewell could have renewed his attack and Pickett might have broken through. But Stuart never got closer than three miles to the Union rear. His previously undefeated cavalry was intercepted and fought to a standstill by 2,500 Union troopers--principally a Michigan brigade commanded by George Armstrong Custer, newly promoted to brigadier general.[I've snipped a paragraph about re-evaluating Custer].McP: Why haven't we known all this before? Careful students of the battle *have* known some of it. But until now we have not understood how the fight at the East Cavalry Field fit into the larger picture of Gettysburg. Most important, we have not previously comprehended Lee's full tactical plan for July 3 in which Stuart's cavalry was to have an essential part. No historian before Tom Carhart has pieced together the whole story from the scattered bits of evidence. Lee's and Stuart's after-action reports on the battle provide only vague and incomplete references to the plan--understandably so, since success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. From his own experience as a combat officer and military historian, Carhart has combined evidence and plausible inference to reconstruct Lee's plan and the reasons for its failure. Given the vast number of writings on Gettysburg, it seems impossible to come up with new information and insights about the battle. But Tom Carhart has done it."DR: So what actually has Carhart done? He has demonstrated that the standard line about Lee being impatient with Stuart when they met on July 2 is based on accounts that repeat one another and that the source is not likely to have been accurate. He makes a good case based on topographical evidence that Stuart's actual start position on July 3 and his after-battle report are hard to reconcile. He convinced me that Lee left his right flank unprotected in hope of causing some sort of confusion in the Union rear. And Custer's charge, four hundred mounted men charging four thousand makes a lot more sense the way Carhart tells it than does the standard account at the battlefield.Finally what you think of the book will turn on how you assess paragraphs that begin, "I believe." There's an unusually large number here.I do encourage you to read the book--"Lost Triumph" is the title-- awkward and repetitive and speculative though it is. The final impression it leaves is that--and Carhart makes this comparison himself--Gettysburg was every bit as "close run" a thing as Waterloo.David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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