As soon as Gettysburg was done, the losers wanted to blame someone and the winners wanted to heap praise upon the victors.  After watching portions of the film, Gettysburg, and reading about it in our text (Ch. 19, pgs. 352-359 is highly recommended reading), we can point to several instances or issues that are pivotal in victory or failure:

1. The absence of Confederate cavalry general Jeb Stuart for almost a week.  His absence allowed Meade’s Army of the Potomac to get within miles of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in southern Pennsylvania in late June.  Stuart was supposed to harass Meade and keep in touch w/ Lee while

  -In the article, “Jeb Stuart: Battle of Gettysburg Scapegoat,” the author takes a different angle on the scapegoat theory.   The authors of the article contend that Stuart had carried out his orders exactly as Lee had written them, and Lee still had cavalry with him (just not the best cavalry generals like Stuart that he needed at a very crucial time).  According to the article, two cavalry brigades guarded the Blue Ridge Mts. to protect the rear of Lee’s army and also keep their route to Pennsylvania secret, while Stuart took three brigades towards the Potomac to find where Meade’s army was located – following Lee’s oddly worded orders. 

“If General Hooker’s army remains inactive, you can leave two brigades to watch him, and withdraw with the three others, but should he not appear to be moving northward, I think you had better withdraw this side of the mountain tomorrow night, cross at Shepherdstown next day and move to Fredericktown [Frederick]. You will, however, be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the river east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell’s troops, collecting information, provisions, etc. Give instructions to the commander of the brigades left behind to watch the flank and rear of the army and (in event of the enemy leaving their front) retire from the mountains west of the Shenandoah, leaving sufficient pickets to guard the passes, and bringing everything clean along the valley, closing upon the rear of the army.”

Don’t the phrases “remains inactive” and “should he not appear to be moving northward” mean the same thing?   How can this be an EITHER / OR statement?   Then, Lee tells him to go “collect information, provisions, etc.”   So, what the heck is Stuart supposed to do? 

2. The 20th Maine’s charge down the hill on Little Round Top.   As we saw, the regiment was out of ammo and had been ordered to hold the hill.  Not much from a tactical standpoint could be done but stay and engage in hand-to-hand combat.   There was little hope of being relieved, and the rebels kept moving on their left flank.  So Chamberlain possibly makes the call of the war and swings the regiment – all 250+ men down the hill, surprises the Alabama regiment as it’s coming back up the hill. 

- Something to put in your noggin’ - what if the bayonet charge didn’t work?  What if, beyond the Alabama regiment and out of Chamberlain’s sightline, was a reserve Confederate regiment just coming into formation?  An exhausted and out-of-ammo 20th Maine would have had to reverse course and skedaddle back up that same hill, or (worse choice) fly headlong into that new regiment and hope that they could take most of them with them to the Great Beyond.

3. Pickett’s charge on the 3rd Day, July 3rd.   Lee threw everything he had left at Meade that day and the Union withstood the brutal assault.  15,000 Confederates raced across a mile-long field and fought to the point traditionally called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy (as if the CSA were some type of disastrous flood like Hurricane Katrina or the Mississippi River?) and only about 7,500 came back unscathed.  Almost 3,700 of the Confederate casualties were captured.  Though the attack lasted only fifty minutes, it still remains one of the most remembered assaults in American military history.   

Part of the reason why Pickett’s charge holds so much romance for many Southerners years ago (and maybe even some today) is because that’s where they feel that the war was lost.  If only they had tried a little harder.  If only they had done something different, maybe the Confederacy would have carried the field and eventually the day.  Read this quote by William Faulkner, true Southern writer from Mississippi in his novel, Intruder in the Dust:

“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago”  (emphasis mine).

So, which of these three do you think was the most decisive factor in determining the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg?  Please tell me which one and why in 150 words or more by Monday, June 1.  Thanks.

Go Wings!

Sources:

Pickett’s Charge: http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/

Intruder in the Dust quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett’s_Charge