“Yesterday my men were rebuffed on the flanks, the only logical place to attack an entrenched foe. What should I do? I have it! Meade would never expect an utterly idiotic attack on his center!”
No, because it was idiotic and doomed to failure. Been there and my immediate reaction was, “That’s a wide cornfield. Only an idiot would try it.”
So, why did he?
The European powers had observers there. Why were they still using the same tactic 50 years later? Are people really that dumb?
Wellington made a few headlong charges in his career…and won battles that way. Napoleon made headlong attacks, and was very often successful.
Pickett’s charge reached the enemy lines and did some harm there. It wasn’t really close…but it wasn’t as utterly hopeless or stupid as you might think.
Armies have won battles with less.
Um, war is not Capture the Flag. You need more than to have a few guys breach the breastworks. And yes, playing plastic soldiers with my brother I found that a headlong charge could defeat him, but that was over virtual yards, not 3/4 mile. All of which was a killing field.
The plan had been that it would be a dawn attack and there would be several batteries of artillery firing right before the charge was made. It was hoped the barrage would disrupt the American position, making them less able to fire at the Confederate advance and more prone to break in its face.
But when the schedule fell apart, Lee went ahead and continued the charge anyway even though there was no artillery support.
And, FTR, Wellington and Napoleon were attacking against nearly-useless smoothbore muskets. Point in the general direction and fire. A rifled Springfield could accurately kill over 200-300 yards.
The tactics that worked in 1815 no longer worker in 1863. The range of of infantry firepower had greatly increased. In Napoleon’s era, you could safely march almost up to the enemy line and then charge across the last hundred yards or so. By the time of the American Civil War, infantry weapons had an effective range of up to four or five hundred yards.
The Confederate artillery engaged the Federal artillery before the charge but were firing blind over a hill without observers and completely missed. The Federals slowed and ceased firing leading the Southerners to believe they had been disabled.The charge went off and the Union batteries set up in the open exposed to fire but able to enfilade the Confederate ranks with canister, in effect direct firing like giant shotguns. To make matters worse the
Union commanders had reinforced the center several hours earlier. Nothing went right for Lee at Gettysburg, but Pickett’s charge was not any more mystifying than the day long mass suicide the Federals committed at Fredricksburg.
That wasn’t as widely known among the generals as should be.
(It wasn’t until 1864 that they really started digging trenches. Before that, they relied on convenient terrain, like sunken roads, but the lessons of rifle fire weren’t being learned – by the leadership – although the guys in the front lines were sure figuring it out…)
Again, armies have won battles with less, against more. The attack probably couldn’t have worked…but weird things happen in war. Remember the “open door” of Chickamauga.
Why not do the Charge at night, with no artillery to give away the surprise? Sure, Confederate troops might just as well have killed each other as the Union troops in the mayhem that followed, but there was no night vision in this era, and maybe the Confederates could have advanced pretty close before being spotted? And even then, shooting them would be harder in the dark.
I don’t recall ever hearing the Union side described as the “American” side. I guess we know which side you’re on. :rolleyes:
As an interesting historical note, throughout the 1850’s, Southern politicians saw building & modernizing American power (representing what they saw as a slave country–to protect the other slave powers of Cuba & Brazil) worth violating their usual convictions concerning a weak executive & strict interpretation of the Constitution.
From Matthew Karp’s This Vast Southern Empire. Yes, the author noted the irony of Southerners helping build the machine that would eventually destroy slavery.
May I suggest that the OP consider reading ***The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War ***by Thomas B. Buell. It is a fascinating study of three Union and three Confederate generals and how they conducted their “portions” of the war. Most of the significant battles, including many in the Western Theater, are discussed in detail.
It is a well-researched book written in an enjoyable format. However, many people (unfortunately and, IMHO, incorrectly) feel it is revisionist claptrap. Even though Buell was living in North Carolina when he wrote the book, he was fairly critical of Robert E. Lee, which is comparable to being critical of God when you’re living in the Vatican. While the Battle of Gettysburg occupies only a single chapter, it casts a great deal of light on Lee’s actions (or lack thereof).
I was once a Virginian, like Lee, etc. Virginians considered North Carolinians, et al, cannon fodder, so I’m not surprised there was no love lost.
I can’t speak for all North Carolinians (and there’s certainly fewer and fewer of them around here, as the Yankees keep moving into Cary), but Lee continues to be pretty revered. Unsurprisingly, most Confederate military leadership did come out of Virginia and Georgia, though Longstreet was from South Carolina and Hood was born in Kentucky.
Of course, there was not much military action in North Carolina. It wasn’t a center of shipping like Atlanta or Charleston, so Sherman basically just used it to get to Virginia. Or maybe the Union troops were just worn out after punishing South Carolina.
Nitpick–that should be “day-long,” not “day long.” When two words are used together to modify another word, the two function as a single compound word, and take a hyphen.
That was quite thoughtless of me and I apologize. There’s a huge number of North Carolinians who don’t think much of ANY Confederate leader. I had my stupid cap on at the time. I should have said, “Among North Carolinians who respect Confederates…”
I do it routinely. The term American is generally used to describe people from the United States. The Americans fought the British in 1776; the Americans fought the Mexicans in 1848; the Americans fought the Germans in 1918; the Americans fought the Japanese in 1944. And the Americans fought the Confederates in 1863.
Wasn’t that the whole point of the war? The Confederates no longer considered themselves to be part of the United States. When you call yourself a Confederate, you stop being an American.
In the classic documentary from PBS “The Civil War” it was noted that at the sight of Pickett’s charge the union men began to chant “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!”
As if wanting to tell the southerners that ‘you taught us a lesson at Fredericksburg and you did not learn a thing from it!’.
Not completely.
*“…practically the Confederate fire was too high, and most of the damage was done behind the ridge on which the Army of the Potomac was posted, although the damage along the ridge was also great. The little house just over the crest where Meade had his headquarters, and to which he had gone from Gibbon’s luncheon, was torn with shot and shell. The army commander stood in the open doorway as a cannon shot, almost grazing his legs, buried itself in a box standing on the portico by the door.” *
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/gettysburg-history-articles/picketts-charge.html
Ironically (or stupidly, if you prefer) French forces in 1914 made some of the same errors Lee did - in assuming that relatively strong enemy flanks meant the center might be weak, and concluding that their troops possessed valor superior to the enemy and so mere bullets and artillery could not stop them. :dubious: