Question of the Week: What would you have done differently at Gettysburg?
This week marks the 162nd anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. If you could go back in time, what would you tell Robert E. Lee to do differently? How about George Meade?
This week marks the 162nd anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. If you could go back in time, what would you tell Robert E. Lee to do differently? How about George Meade?
To General Lee- don’t cross the Potomac, please, you don’t have Stonewall to rely on anymore!
Sit back. Enjoy the food including cattle that you have gathered, preserve your ammunition and wait for Meade to attack.
Don’t let JEB Stuart ride around the Union army.
Agree completely with Kevin Donovan. Seminary Ridge is a strong defensive position and Meade will have to attack, the pressure from Washington will be too great.
You couldn’t tell Lee anything. As for Meade, on Day 1 I’d tell him to put Hancock in charge, despite seniority, because he can trust him. Oh wait, he did that. Otherwise Meade didn’t have time for listening. He was way too busy, and effective, routing troops to a black hole. But Lee and Meade not listening to me is no different than most people I try to tell things to, so I talk to myself, who unfortunately always disagrees with me 😉
Have Lee personally visit Ewell on July 1 a evening approaches and issue a direct order that Ewell immediately make a futile assault on East Cemetery Hill. That would free us from 160 years of the absurd Stonewall hypothetical.
Lee: tighter control of subordinates (eg, Stuart & Ewell) & focus on enemy FLANKS…Meade: tighter control of subordinates (eg, Sickles) & press the pursuit)
Lee: Listen to Longstreet!
Meade: Don’t change a thing!
Well, seeing how I know what happens, I would tell Gen. Lee to “stay home”, meaning stay in VA. You’re ‘undefeated’ for all intents and purposes in the campaigns waged there. You’ve forced a revolving door of commanding officers on the main Union army in the East. Your supply and logistics and manpower ‘pipelines’ cannot really sustain a major endeavor so far from home, regardless of how successful the plundering goes. You have just implemented major changes to your army’s structure, while coping with the loss of your most trusted subordinate. Your reasons for invading are suspect. Foreign support and/or intervention became a fantasy once Lincoln seized the moral high ground with his Emancipation Proclamation. The North’s population is not going to suddenly rise up and demand the war be ended. What exactly will constitute “victory”? Is there a final destination, an ‘end game’ if you will? You have the Union forces reeling in Virginia. Wait them out. Make them have to continue to come to you! Conserving your own forces might make it possible to move some of your troops elsewhere if and when the need(s) arise, and hopefully those movements will prove decisive.
As for YOU Gen. Meade, I wouldn’t do anything significantly different. If Lee is so heckbent on invading northward, let him play the hand he is dealt. You have the forces and the advantages, even if you don’t know all that yet. But they will be on YOUR ‘turf’! As I said, I know how this turns out. LOL.
Better use of his cavalry for reconaissance. There really is no way of knowing if he would have fought at Gettysburg had he known the Union Army was so close, but he certainly wouldn’t have dawdled so long at Chambersburg, and he wouldn’t have led with infantry over the Cashtown Gap.