Many more Confederates at Pickett's Charge

Longstreet was commanding the attack. Ewell had his own attack on the right with two divisions (Early and Jonhston) and had attached Rodes to Longstreet's attack.

AP Hill had attached the right wing of Anderson's division, a wing of Penders and all of Heths divisions to Longstreet for the attack, leaving him 4 brigades (Mahone was reporting directly to Lee) to hold in reserve.

In the lexicon of battle management this is "taskorg-ing" the forces envolved.

So in other words when AP Hill "tasked" by leaving to Longstreet all the work involved in orchestrating those forces and thus abdicated responsibility, Longstreet and not AP Hill, is to blame for that. :rolleyes:
 
Never heard of "unity of command"?

Yes, I know. It's entirely beneath officers to exercise responsibility for ensuring their own forces are in order when loaning them to their fellow officers. Far be it to people in responsibility to ever wield it. On the other hand given I'm speaking to a McClellan fanboy, refusing to accept that people have responsibility in situations they should act on is par for the course.
 
This is a rather useless debate. If Lee managed to get brigades from all these others place to join his army as it marched into Pennsylvania, it would create so many butterflies that the Battle of Gettysburg, if occurred at all, would be completely different than it was IOTL. The possibility of Pickett's Charge taking place in such circumstances is effectively nil.

I agree. The most he could get without reshaping the entire course of the campaign or at least the battle would be Pickett's missing two brigades, or perhaps Ransom's two instead of (but not "in addition to") Pettigrew and Davis.

And short of that, there aren't 30,000 more Confederates to bring to bear - an attack all along the Union line would be an entirely different attack than the OTL effort to pierce Meade's center.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
This is a rather useless debate. If Lee managed to get brigades from all these others place to join his army as it marched into Pennsylvania, it would create so many butterflies that the Battle of Gettysburg, if occurred at all, would be completely different than it was IOTL. The possibility of Pickett's Charge taking place in such circumstances is effectively nil.

Not necessarily.

Assuming the new formations are behind the existing ones in the column of march they'd be arriving on the field late on the 2nd. The 1st and 2nd days would be "as is", with the extras deploying for the attacks on the 3rd.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Why not have Lee attack all along the front at the same time but have the heaviest attack in the center?

As Longstreet puts it "the general plan was unchanged" for the 3rd.

On the 2nd Lee had attempted an attack en echelon, and despite cock ups it almost worked. His line attacked right to left, Hood first, then McLaws then Anderson. Pender should have then attacked, followed by Heth then Rodes, put Pender was wounded and Lane stepped up. Lane had not been briefed on the battle plan, and AP Hill was nowhere to be found to give him the order to attack.

On the 3rd the plan was to do the same again, but it was half hearted and doomed to failure by Longstreets defeatism and Pickett going off course and hitting the wrong place.
 
As Longstreet puts it "the general plan was unchanged" for the 3rd.

On the 2nd Lee had attempted an attack en echelon, and despite cock ups it almost worked. His line attacked right to left, Hood first, then McLaws then Anderson. Pender should have then attacked, followed by Heth then Rodes, put Pender was wounded and Lane stepped up. Lane had not been briefed on the battle plan, and AP Hill was nowhere to be found to give him the order to attack.

On the 3rd the plan was to do the same again, but it was half hearted and doomed to failure by Longstreets defeatism and Pickett going off course and hitting the wrong place.

Ah, I see. So Mr. "Dolchstosslegende" believes in a CS version as well as a US version. Far be it from you to examine more modern histories of Gettysburg, instead you'd rather believe in Jubal Early's Big Lie about it, involving some masterful CS plan that never existed instead of the Meeting Engagement that did in reality exist.
 

67th Tigers

Banned

Harman's thesis is one of those things so old it's new again, and directly contradicts almost everything state on the battle in contemporary as well as modern sources. Gettysburg was a meeting engagement due to a surprise that should not have been a surprise, and Longstreet being the only CS general who acted remotely like a general was a big part of the Confederacy's flawed handling of the battle. Another was the badly mistaken assumption, and it was only an assumption, that a Union Army would fight less fanatically on Northern soil than the ANV did in Virginia. Lee having objectives based on terrain would be more convincing if his idea of leadership hadn't been the Mountain CS Muhammads had to go to.
 
How? If he did no-one knew about it. The "overs" from the bombardment shattered Army HQ and Meade took shelter on Cemetery Hill proper, but the movement of HQ didn't get passed down. There was no directing force on the afternoon of the 3rd to order any movements.

I'm not denying the Confederate overshots accidently prevented reinforcements, I'm refuting your claim that the Union had no reserves.

Twelve. Two six gun batteries, one of which arrived too late to repel the attack but "put the boot in" at the retreating Confederates.

Reinforced by numerous other Union guns.
 
Apparently, only the guns at the Angle count.

Nevermind that he himself has referenced Osborn(e?)'s brigade.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Apparently, only the guns at the Angle count.

Nevermind that he himself has referenced Osborn(e?)'s brigade.

Excepting Kemper's and Brockenborough's brigades they didn't particularly matter (although the smashing of these brigades by guns did matter). The other 7 brigades of the main attack were only engaged by the 5 remaining guns of Hazard's brigade which had expended all their long range ordnance and were down to using unfused shell as ersatz ball and saving their canister allotment (on the order of 8 rds each). Another battery of six 12 pdrs dropped trail as the attack was setting off and was in action for the repulse.
 
Excepting Kemper's and Brockenborough's brigades they didn't particularly matter (although the smashing of these brigades by guns did matter). The other 7 brigades of the main attack were only engaged by the 5 remaining guns of Hazard's brigade which had expended all their long range ordnance and were down to using unfused shell as ersatz ball and saving their canister allotment (on the order of 8 rds each). Another battery of six 12 pdrs dropped trail as the attack was setting off and was in action for the repulse.

Didn't particularly matter according to who?

And even if they didn't smash any units on their own, their fire did contribute.

Also: 8 rounds? Source?
 
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