This is not bad news … quite the opposite.
You don’t know who the President was before … :)
We will see what the new ones will do … doing worse than the previous one will be difficult.
Civil War (American)
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I have a theory that General Lee, tired of warfare and realizing that the cause was lost, decided after two days of bitter fighting, without the Union Army so much as giving up a single hill, to order a charge he knew would destroy his army in an effort to force his government to capitulate and end the war in hopes of a quick end.
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There are at least two problems with your theory: (1) up until Pickett’s charge, Lee was WINNING the battle; and (2) the war lasted another two years after Gettysburg (or almost two years) – not exactly a “quick end.” That, and you would have to be pretty cynical about the general who was held in the highest esteem by both the Union and Confederate armies (and by historians since). Now Grant – he might be fairly called a butcher (I don’t happen to agree, but some might). But no serious historian speaks of Lee in those terms.
Gettysburg was indeed a turning point, but it takes some serious revisionist history to make a case that Lee “threw” the battle. He made an error of judgment, pure and simple.
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I didn’t say his tactic worked. Just the impression I got.
Anyway, from what I have learned about the battle from American Military History class, Lee was getting his buttocks handed too him at Gettysburg. However, he was winning the war.
General Stuart started by stopping him from getting the prime real estate around Gettysburg with the help of 1st Corps. Later the battle of Little Round Top stopped him from flanking the Union Army and rolling them up like a carpet. Finally he had Pickett’s charge, though, maybe the fence in the way was either not seen by General Lee (wooden fences in grassy lands can be rather difficult to see from a mile away after all) or discounted?
But I don’t think that’s true. I really, honestly, think he wanted to end it. The fact that his President refused to surrender and Lee’s own honor caused the war to continue longer then he had hoped. But that was basically the end of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. (I also realize there were more Confederate Armies, Lee’s was not the only one just like General Meade and General Grant’s Army of the Potomac were not the only Union Armies.)
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If ANY aspect of your theory holds water it would be that JEB Stuart wanted to end the war, not Lee. Stuart was the one out-of-position early on that set up the circumstances of Picket’s Charge.
However, according to every Battle Sim I have ever seen and tried, had Lee retreated from Gettysburg the evening of Day 2, the Confederacy was poised to win the war.
Of course, the Confederacy being supplied with AK-47’s prior to Wilderness would also have won them the war, that but is a different Novel…
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Funny you should mention that book, Switch. I tried to read “Guns of the South”, but whoever wrote it is one serious gun nut, because he went on and on and on and on about how they took apart the damned AK-47s, cleaned them, put them back together, etc. Bored me to tears!!! I just couldn’t get through it after that.
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I only read the first one… There are about a score more (each one advancing forward from the premise of the Confederacy being independent), but I cannot bring myself to read anymore of them.
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General Lee was losing the battle from the outset though. He was winning the war, I already stipulated to that. And yes, I realize the General Stuart of the Union Cavalry was to blame for holding the high ground on Day 1 until the 1st Corps arrived. I believe my second post in this thread said as much.
However, once Lee was denied the high ground and the defensive position, shouldn’t he have moved out and looked for a different battlefield?
Once he failed to route the Union on Day 1 because of General Stuart with the assistance of the 1st Corps and later failed to push the Union off Little Round Top, the ONLY conclusion I can come too about General Pickett’s charge is that Lee had decided to end the invasion of the north, destroy his army and attempt to be defeated honorably so that the Confederacy could attempt to sue for peace from an even standing at the table.
We all know what happened was that Lee resigned in Virginia with his President running like a cowardly school girl until he was hunted down like a dog by the Union and then President Lincoln was assassinated resulting in the Reformation of the south being much more brutal and vicious then had he been alive.
That’s all recorded history. What I want to know is if there is a POTENTIAL that maybe General Lee, seeing the writing on the wall (no real support from France or England; his army being stopped in the North and forced to withdraw; the rest of the war being fought in his homeland instead of the North where they had hoped to turn public opinion against the war and win; etc.) decided to attempt to end the war in a quick manner in an honorable way.
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@ncscswitch:
I only read the first one… There are about a score more (each one advancing forward from the premise of the Confederacy being independent), but I cannot bring myself to read anymore of them.
Yeah, I remember that. I even think I saw it carried the story forward as far as WWII, with the South siding with Nazi Germany. Interesting premise – not very good execution, at least based on the first book.
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Oh, and did you notice I’m a fellow “Heavy Bomber” now? :-D
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Oh, and did you notice I’m a fellow “Heavy Bomber” now? :-D
Yep, check the Website/Forum Discussion. I posted about your advancement the other day…
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Lee lost Jackson at Chancellorsville and perhaps he felt he didn’t have the strength to win knowing his main subordinate general was slain in the battle before. His invasion of Maryland/Pennsylvania was out of desperation anyway because the Union army was hitting hard against Vicksburg and he had to make a diversion to give his army a chance to win ONE decisive battle and gain foreign aid.
I personally view Chancellorsville and perhaps Antietam as the southerns best chances to win. Gettysburg was post climatic campaign, because the South could have totally crushed the Union army in those other battles, but let them off the hook.
You can view it like Stalingrad. For Germany her real chance to win was no later than around August 41. the Stalingrad campaign was fought when the Soviets had fully restored military balance and was just a crushing German defeat. But the seeds were already displayed long before that point. The opportunity for German victory had already passed a year earlier.
Perhaps Lee felt his time had passed as well. Pickett’s charge was sort of like Napoleon sending the Imperial Guard to push the British back to the woods before the Prussians arrived. Pickett had an equally difficult task ahead and the fortune of battle was placed irresponsibly into his lap. It may have been a sign that Lee knew his time was up and he had to make an aggressive choice to have a chance to recover any measurable victory.
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I’m not a military scholar but I think you’re pretty far out on a limb with this one Jen.
I MIGHT concede this on some unconscious level he did but you’re going to need a lot more material to get even that– like significant citations from Lee’s own writings. My understading of Lee’s character is that he had it and ‘finding a way to lose’ is what people without character do. You will need to establish that Lee had a pattern of ‘finding a way to lose’ and that is not the same as getting beat or making a bad tactical decision. Sometimes you just don’t win.
This reminds me of the Deep Space Nine episode where O’Brian and Bashir are arguing whether or not Davy Crocket fought to the deat at the Alamo. Worf tells them that they are both wrong. “Do you believe in the legend of Davy Crockett? If you do you should have no doubt he died a hero’s death. If you do not believe in the legend of Davy Crockett then he was just a man and it does not matter how he died.”
Frankly Jen this comes across as an attempt to smear someone who isn’t around to stand up for themself.
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Not an attempt to smear anyone at all, actually. I’m just looking at the battlefield from pictures at the time, looking at how badly he was beaten in the two days prior and wondering why he would make such a bone-headed order despite the council of his lieutenants not too. (General Longstreet in particular said there were no 15,000 soldiers ever made that could make that charge and win.)
Considering General Lee is considered one of the smartest Generals America ever had, that means he had to have another reason to make the charge. So was it the honorable reason to give the Union a sound victory to use in the hopes of ending the war sooner, or the dishonorable reason of cutting off his nose to spite his face?
I want to believe it was the honorable reason.
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@Cmdr:
Not an attempt to smear anyone at all, actually. I’m just looking at the battlefield from pictures at the time, looking at how badly he was beaten in the two days prior and wondering why he would make such a bone-headed order despite the council of his lieutenants not too. (General Longstreet in particular said there were no 15,000 soldiers ever made that could make that charge and win.)
Considering General Lee is considered one of the smartest Generals America ever had, that means he had to have another reason to make the charge. So was it the honorable reason to give the Union a sound victory to use in the hopes of ending the war sooner, or the dishonorable reason of cutting off his nose to spite his face?
I want to believe it was the honorable reason.
What if it was just stubborn pride? Where would that fall? Honorable or dishonorable?
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Pride is a vice, thus, it would be dishonorable in my opinion.
However, I don’t believe Lee suffered from that vice. That’s why his decision to do what all his Generals told him not to do, despite his vast wealth of knowledge and experience, makes no sense to me except in the case where he was attempting to cripple his army in an effort to convince his government to surrender now that they couldn’t prosecute the war effectively anymore.
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There’s nothing in Lee’s charcater to suggest he would knowingly send out one of his own divisions to be slaughtered. The only general to oppose the attack was Longstreeet, who had been behind the stone wall at Frederiskberg and knew how cut up attackers could get, trying to take a fortified position. Pickett was thrilled to finally get his divsion in the fight.
And Lee had done quite well on the first two days. The first day, the Union was driven out of the town and to the hills. The 2nd day, Sickle’s division was sluaghtered because he was an idiot and marched out 1/4 mile ahead of the battle line (lost a leg for it) . Lee came within an ace of rolling up the Union line at Little Round Top. If it had been anyone other than Chamberlain (who was one of the best soldiers in the entire war), Lee would have taken the hills and been able to flank Meade’s lines.
So the notion that Lee had failed miserable on both days is false. The first day went very well and he came so close on the 2nd day. The casualty figures bear this out: 23,000 union casualties after the fight, and 20,000-25,000 confederate. And that figure is AFTER Pickett’s charge. Before the assault, Lee had been doing very well.
Lee’s own explanation says it all: “I asked more of men than should have been asked of them.” He had come to believe his army could do the impossible (which it had throughout the war). Against Burnside, Hooker or McClellan the charge might have worked. But Meade was a capable general, and Hancock (whose division Pickett ran into) was an excellent soldier.
And as someone else pointed out: the war dragged on another two years. Had Lee seceretely wanted to surrender, he had ample oppurtunity after Gettysberg.
Just as a historical fact, the confederates best chance for victory came AFTER Gettysberg, when McClellan (anti-war), was set to trounce Lincoln in the election. Joe Johnston, the confederate commander at Atlanta, wouldn’t give Sherman a fight becasue he knew Lincoln would lose the election. Davis replaced Johnson with Hood, who promptly wrecked his army attacking Sherman, Sherman captured Atlanta, and Lincoln won reelection.
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I think you are completely misreading the war.
Lee got stopped by General Stuart’s dismounted cavalry on day one.
Lee got stopped again by Colonel Chamberlain’s beat up 20th Maine regiment on day two.
On day three, General Longstreet, and I have to imagine everyone else in the general staff, was telling Lee to give it up, pull out, and find a new spot. Lee’s response was that he’d paid too high a price to leave now.
General Pickett, mind you, only took his orders. I don’t think he was happy to charge his infantry over a mile in open sight with the entire Union Army, and all of it’s artillery batteries, pounding on him with Concussive Rounds followed by Grape Shot meanwhile getting chewed up by entrenched Union Infantry behind a stone wall in the center, where all the Union’s communications were strongest.
So the question stands: Do Lee lose his bloody mind and make the most bone headed move in history, or did he have an ulterior motive?
Considering Lee controlled the battle field in every engagement he’d been in up until that point, I have to believe he had an ulterior motive. The only one I can think of that would be rational, is sabotaging his army to end the war faster (failed, if that was the intent, but it’s at least a reasonable thought to have.)
And, btw, there are TWO flanks to the Union Army. Since he failed at Little Round Top he could have either hit it with Pickett’s division while his own artillery batteries attempted to convince the union of a desperate charge up the middle, or hit the other while his artillery did the same thing. Both options may have given him the victory and were blatantly obvious. Although, the best decision would have been to withdraw, find his own high ground and wait for the Union to show up.
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I’ve already asked you politely, if you want to shorten my name, Smack will do.
But we can avoid all that, if you do what I already asked you nicely to do. :-)
Lee got stopped by General Stuart’s dismounted cavalry on day one.
ROFL. General Stuart? Lee’s own cavalry commander? Who wasn’t even there the first day? And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. Lee was counterattacked by his own cavalry. Is it any wonder he sent his own division to the slaughter?
Do I even need to go on? Well done, Jen. Well done indeed!
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Warning for both of you…
I removed the name BS and the associated flames.
As a COURTESY I did not lock the thread.
But this is your ONLY warning (in this thread or any other).
Jen, you have been asked nicely, twice, to not use that specific abbreviation of Smacktard’s name.
Smacktard, do not rise to the flame bait if Jen’s usage repeats.
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@Cmdr:
So the question stands: Do Lee lose his bloody mind and make the most bone headed move in history, or did he have an ulterior motive?
He did not lose his mind and did not have an ulterior motive. The decision he thought was best to win the battle was not.
Gotta also agree with Smacktard about Chamberlain (wasn’t he also in the center on day 3?) being up there in the best soldier lists. Frankly, I think he saved the United States on Little Round Top.
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