Lee was desperate to puncture the Union position, and very nearly succeeded. It's like Operation Barbarosa; it failed, so we view it as stupid, but if it had worked, it would've been genius.
Why does that apply to Lee, but not Hood, who at least was defending a major Confederate City, instead of seizing the vital shoe depots of Gettysburg?
Because Hood didn't plan at all and just threw men at the much larger (2x the size) army 12 times. Lee knew the best spot for a charge to get through, and that he needed to win the battle badly enough to throw the dice.
Pickett's charge could work.. assuming II corps suddenly turns tail and run.. Frankly even if Pickett makes the breakthrough (impossible in my opinion) no troops are fresh enough to exploit it. Meade still has VI corps in reserve to smash any breakthrough.
Considering they actually almost did that, and that Meade would've still had to plug those reinforcements up a hill the was already taken, I'd say that Pickett nearly won the battle.
IF Pickett somehow broke through, he would be so bloodied that Meade can simply push him off with VI corps. VI corps was unbloodied and consisted of about 13000 men. I'm quite certain that Pickett could possible hold against that number and Bobby Lee had no reserves to exploit the breakthrough.
Uncle Lee always has reserves somewhere. He'd probably just pull away some men from other areas of the battlefield. If he could then repel the VI corps, which I doubt, but would certainly be possible, he could roll the entire Union flank and slaughter them.
Once again WHAT reserves? Hood, R.H Anderson and McLaw's divisions were worn out from the Second Day of Gettysburg. Pettigrew and Trimble's divisions were part of Pickett's charge but they failed badly. Ewell's 2nd Corps were below Culp's Hill and were of no assistance. There were no Confederate reserves ready to enter the fray.
But he would've just forced A.P. Hill to advance the Light Divison to the top of the hill with his gentlemanship and southern charm, then killed every single member of the AotP via genius, and then sacked DC 173 consecutive times before paving a road of bones and dead yankees all the way to New York, Boston, Chicago, California, and Washington state.
Gettysburg was both important and its importance is also overstated. Lee was essentially leading his army on a big raid, mainly to get the Army of the Potomac out of Virginia for a campaigning system. On these terms, the historical campaign actually worked for the Confederates, though its a legitimate question about whether this was their best strategic option at that time. Then they could have always gotten lucky and had the Army of the Potomac collapse, gaining a big propaganda/ morale victory, cutting the railway bridge at Harrisburg, and threatening on of the East Coast cities. Or they could have gotten the Army of Northern Virginia cut off and destroyed.
As it was, the battle was really not that close, once Meade turned out to be both competent and willing to fight a purely defensive battle.
As for Jackson, as a corps commander he is somewhat better than Ewell and Early, and Lee doesn't have to break in a new corps commander. But Jackson is somewhat overrated and its not like either Ewell or Early were really that bad. So you get a somewhat better performance by the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg and the later battles. I don't think its enough to make any real difference. Having Jackson instead of Early run the 1864 Shenandoah campaign would have been nice for them, though again Early was pretty much doing what Jackson would have done.
If you really want to change things with ACW corps commanders, the federal forces would have been helped if more of their useless 1862-3 corps commanders had gotten themselves killed. If you want to help the CSA, probably improving the relationship between the Army of Tennessee commander and his subordinates gets you the most mileage.
As it was, the battle was really not that close, once Meade turned out to be both competent and willing to fight a purely defensive battle.
As for Jackson, as a corps commander he is somewhat better than Ewell and Early, and Lee doesn't have to break in a new corps commander. But Jackson is somewhat overrated and its not like either Ewell or Early were really that bad. So you get a somewhat better performance by the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg and the later battles. I don't think its enough to make any real difference. Having Jackson instead of Early run the 1864 Shenandoah campaign would have been nice for them, though again Early was pretty much doing what Jackson would have done.
If you really want to change things with ACW corps commanders, the federal forces would have been helped if more of their useless 1862-3 corps commanders had gotten themselves killed. If you want to help the CSA, probably improving the relationship between the Army of Tennessee commander and his subordinates gets you the most mileage.
Lee had the highest casualty percentage of any Army Commander North or South. It isn't Grant having slightly smaller percentage casualties than Lee but a lot.
That's more due to having better camps, supplies, and food. Less people died in camp or on marches because of that.
If you post here realize "Lost Causers" tend to get pounded on. It started out basically as an apoligism for slavery.
Don't see how that's really relevant. I'm just saying what happened when Hood attacked Sherman.
It wasn't even close to succeeding, Meade had plenty of reserves and used them very well during the entire battle. Pickett's troops came back a shattered wreck while Union troops were pretty solid. It takes more than having the "spearpoint" come close to putting a small hole in the line to win a battle. It has to be big enough so it can be followed up. Even if he would have broke through, Pickett lost so many men getting there it would have been quickly closed up.
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Which effects the long term effects of Gettysburg how? Is Lee suddenly going to get better camps, supplies or food because of it? By what magic? He can't forage as liberally as Sherman did because there are a Hell of a lot more troops around.
Hood attacking Sherman was only slightly less foolish than Lee on the third day. After the second he should have gone home.
I guess Bobby Lee can just magically whistle up reserves and supplies from the ether!
I have to say I've walked the ground at Gettysburg, from one side of the battlefield to the other. Given the terrain, weapons technology of the time and forces involved... Pickett's Charge was doomed from the moment it threw itself forward into the face of the Union fire. There is simply no way that throwing the Pickett's Division across that field into the fire facing it was going to magically break the Union line. It ranks alongside Culloden and the Charge of the Light Brigade as an attack launched due to a serious strategic or tactical mistake that went forward due to the bravery and gallantry of the men making it. With similar results. The slaughter of those same brave and gallant men for little or no gain.