"Generals can do anything. There's nothing so much
like a god on earth as a General on a battlefield." -Col. Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain, as played by Jeff Daniels in Gettysburg.
This quote, while from a movie, is very apt for the battle of Gettysburg. The tactics – such as they were –
are viewed in hindsight as sheer insanity, for the most part. Granted, they
were rather hasty preparations, but still tactically unsound.
The battle at Gettysburg
was entirely accidental. Rebel General Robert E. Lee had launched an offensive
into Union-controlled territory after a series of successful campaigns.
However, part of this planned offensive was to win over the populace and be
resupplied by them. Unfortunately for Lee, the opposite occurred, where most
towns were hostile to the Confederates. This left the rebels scavenging for
supplies in the various towns, one of which was named Gettysburg. As some of the Confederates went
into the town for supplies, especially shoes, they spied Union troops. Despite
General Lee's order to avoid a general engagement until his entire army was
concentrated, the rebels decided to mount a significant reconnaissance in force
the following morning to determine the size and strength of the enemy force in
his front.
Assuming the town to be undefended, Confederate Brigadier
Generals James Archer and Joseph Davis marched to occupy the city under the
command of General Henry Heth. Unbeknownst to Heth, the town was in fact
defended, by Union Brigadier General John Buford's cavalry. (Williams, 2007)
The Union troops were better equipped, and supported by horse-artillery, but
the dismounted cavalry was outnumbered by the Confederate infantry, and after
an hour of defense, were obliged to fall back to the hills outside the town.
However, this gave two additional Union brigades, including the famed
"Iron Brigade", to march and reinforce Buford's position on McPherson
ridge. General John F. Reynolds, commander of I Corps, had an infinite amount
of foresight at this point, immediately sending dispatches for nearest Union
corps, the XI and III Corps, to begin moving to Gettysburg. However, Gen. Reynolds was shot
and killed while positioning his troops, which thrust Gen. Abner Doubleday into
the commander's position, in spite of his arrival only a short time earlier.
The battle waged on, with both sides gaining reinforcements throughout the day,
until about 2:30 PM, when General Lee arrived on the scene. His counterpart,
General George Meade, was commanding the Union forces from approximately 9
miles away, in Taneytown, MD, but he too was making his way to the battlefield.
Thus, the stage was set for one of the bloodiest battles in American history,
and what many claim to be the turning point in the civil war.
One of the biggest problems with Lee's tactics for the
rebels was overconfidence. After the victories they had accomplished, in spite
of not winning the populace, they believed that they simply couldn't lose, due
to their military prowess and the supposed righteousness of their cause.
However, a bigger issue for them was a lack of intelligence. This was by no
fault of Gen. Lee, but rather J.E.B. Stuart. His cavalry was supposed to gather
intel on the Union army, but didn't return in a timely manner, forcing Lee to
rely on a network of spies, whom he thought highly unreliable. (Anderson) Lee, after
analyzing the forces he could see on the field, at first told Gen. Heth to call
off the attack, but as what remained of his scout cavalry returned, advising
Lee of more Confederate forces, Lee relented. Snap decisions of Lee's often won
him the day, however, due to the lack of proper intel, Lee's decisions were
vague at best, and this proved disastrous on the field. First, they forced the
Federal army into a retreat – although the first of Meade's main army had
arrived and began fortifying the hills – and Lee wanted to turn it from retreat
to rout. After checking down the line, and allowing Heth's men to rest per the
Heths' request, Lee planned to send another batch of men, telling his generals
to take the hills "if practical". (Anderson) However, General James Longstreet
arrived that evening, and advised to hold off the attack until the morning, and
that proved a fatal mistake. Meade's men arrived in force over the night,
fortified their hills, and were waiting for the rebels the next day. Lee
continued his aggressive strategy, gambling that the only way to win was to forcefully
attack. Gen. Longstreet vehemently opposed this, but led his men down the
center, with the other Confederate units flanking on either side, and Lee
sending his last fresh division as well: George Pickett's.
Meade, however, knew of Lee's aggressiveness, and didn't
merely wait to be attacked. He ordered the troops who had retreated off Culp's
Hill to go back up an retake the trenches they'd spent all night building,
surprising the rebels. Needless to say, the Union troops were angry about being
expelled from their foxholes, and were quite willing to get them back. In
contrast to Lee, General Meade planned his tactics around his equipment and
unit commanders: Sharps and Burnside single-shot carbines, Sharps rifles, and
even a few Spencer repeating rifles among the cavalry. He planned for defense
of the hills, and the occasional counter attack based on his unit commander's
discretion, even though very few decided to counter, like Colonel Chamberlain.
Unfortunately, Meade – like Lee – believed in a so-called 'gentleman's war',
where the two sides would march in column files, firing at each other without
cover and unleashing untold amounts of carnage. These tactics remained relative
unchanged for years, until Generals Sherman and Grant thought to break away
from the Old World's way of waging war. The
cavalry at Gettysburg
engaged in a classically stereotypical charge, but both sides had their
cavalrymen fight dismounted for the better part of the war. ("Celebrate Gettysburg
Magazine," 2011)
In short, this was Lee's greatest mistake of the Civil
War. It led to his own undoing, and ultimately, the Confederacy's downfall. (Andrade,
2003) From his choice to attack without adequate intelligence or support from
Stuart's cavalry, to his foolhardy advance known as Pickett's Charge, Lee's
military brilliance was undermined by his aggressiveness. Meade, while not the
military genius Lee was, was methodical and cautious, and in this rare
situation, it paid off. His lack of aggressiveness, tempered with a willingness
to counter, is what won him the day, and the battle, and eventually, the war.
It also showed commanders on both sides that the traditional, age-old style of
battles – the so-called 'gentleman's war' – was a thing of the past, and
tactics needed to change with the weaponry and times, and lead us into the
battlefields of today.
References
Andrade, Phil. (2003).
Mistake of All Mistakes. Retrieved from
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/articles/mistakeofallmistakes.aspx
Anderson, Jack. (n.d.). Lee
At Gettysburg: A
Critical Analysis of Aggressive Tactics. Retrieved from
http://wcoventry0.tripod.com/id23.htm
Celebrate Gettysburg Magazine.
(2011, October 11). Retrieved from
http://www.celebrategettysburg.com/civil-war-journal-5.html
Williams, Bryan. (2007, November
02). The Battle of Gettysburg. Retrieved from
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/getty11.aspx
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