You didn't read Meade's day 2 orders did you?
I did. I also know that the local corps commanders chose to alter those orders to changing circumstances on the ground. Sometimes for the bad (Sickles), sometimes for the good (everywhere else). And rather than scream or pout, Meade decided to back his subordinates' decisions, as they were the commanders on the scene. He tried to countermand Sickles' actions, but it was already too late.
Also Longstreet's maneuvers would have been out of sight for his last 3/4 of his march if it wasn't for the III corps since Meade withdrew the cavalry screening from that very area.
Time-time-time. Longstreet didn't have enough of it, and the Union holding Little Round Top (from there seeing Longstreet's approach-its a high hill) and the Devils Den meant he wasn't going to accomplish much beyond killing a lot of his own men anyway.
Granted, going to Maryland in the first place and expecting the enemy to be dumb as a doorknob is a questionable tactic
But understandable from a psychological perspective. Certainly after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and Stuart spending the last two years running rings around the AotP and continually humiliating the ineffective Union Cavalry Corps.
As Shelby Foote put it quite accurately: "
Lee had become convinced that he could do anything, and that his boys could do anything."
From reading The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War by Stoker it appears Bragg and Beauregard offered Davis advice on Grand Strategy. Beauregard's ideas were generally impractical, beyond the Confederacy's ability, but Bragg's seemed more practical. Of course, Jefferson Davis listened to no one but himself, and he doesn't seem to have developed a strategy.
A listener Davis was not.
And Lee didn't seem to realize that.
It appears as though Lee saw Meade as being too cautious, based on his fresh promotion, and having come up from the McClellan school of generalship. Unfortunately for Lee, that caused him to see an opportunity, an advantage, for an aggressive campaign. An opportunity that did not in fact exist.
I'd say the Confederates did achieve the best they could have on Day 1 of Gettysburg, thanks to Ewell arriving at the right place and time, then ignoring Lee's orders to not bring on a general engagement. Taking the hill was not practicable - Union troops had been digging in there before Ewell reached the field of battle and Lee refused to support the attack with AP Hill's forces. The Confederate's best chance would have been to go on the defensive on Day 2 and hope the Union attacked, but Lee was too aggressive to do that and Meade was too careful to make that mistake.
Culp's Hill is not only high and steep, but it has a very deep depression and steeper approach to the hill itself. It was actually worse than Little Round Top's sheer face, if that's possible. While the Union defenses were initially weak in terms of manpower, due to the circumstances of "nature's defense" they didn't NEED all that many forces to start with. Ewell himself didn't know about the "mini-canyon" in his front, with the fading light and his scout under enemy fire. His troops had been forced to do more marching and then go into direct combat than any other units on Day One. They were exhausted. Ewell decided to wait for Johnson's Division (the smallest in the AoNV) before assaulting Culps Hill. But they arrived only after dark.
A.P. Hill wasn't in a position for giving support. They were too bloodied after making their own attacks and Hill was too sick (1) to concentrate his forces. Plus he had Gettysburg Town itself blocking a smooth shift to support Ewell.
Even Lee was convinced that the enemy wasn't going to be turned on their right flank.
1) Thanks to a case of venereal disease that flared up every time his blood pressure went up. Like when battle loomed.
The Confederacy only did as well as they managed on Day 2 due to a bad case of the Stupids on Sickles part.
Yet he has his defenders. Mainly those who concentrate on tactics and ignore operations. It wasn't worth an entire corps just to slow down the enemy. III Corps would have been well used on Day 3.
Had more Union leaders firefighting been cut down by Confederate, there's a chance they could have reached the ridge, though Union counter-attacks almost certainly would have driven them off.
The Union LOCs included two macadamized pikes running parallel to each other and to the Union lines. They were also out of sight of the enemy. They enjoyed a road leading road up to the crests of the two Round Tops while the more exhausted Confederates had to both march to, climb, and fight their way through Little Round Top and the Devils Den. Many may point to the idea of the Confederates taking Big Round Top. But Longstreet was right about Big Round Top being militarily useless. There were no roads on the Confederate side, it was blind in terms of use of artillery, and any flanking force trying to attack Little Round Top is as likely to get lost or arrive piecemeal. They certainly won't be able to exploit their actions.
Less known is that on the opposite flank, Slocum left only a brigade on Culp's Hill, but it was led by General George Greene, who believed in field entrenchments and thus his brigade was able to stop the attack of a Confederate force that outnumbered them 3-to-1.
As mentioned, Little Round Top would have fallen before Culp's Hill. And Little Round Top wasn't going to fall.
Agreed on the proposed movement to the right, but I'm actually not referring to that.
From the Civil War wiki:
Had Captain Johnston accurately reported the lay of the land, Longstreet would've hit Sickles before he could come forward and probably would've shattered him as well as opened up the Taneytown road to being cut. Such would've forced Meade to withdraw, or risk the Confederates enveloping a large part of his force.
TBH, I believe that history has spent far too much effort making a goat out of Captain Johnston. The approach he had to make, virtually alone, was across open ground with the enemy on Cemetery Ridge able to see him if he got close enough. For much of the time, even the signals unit wouldn't have been easy to see. And it was a very near thing in terms of when the Union troops arrived versus Longstreet's.
To get a better scouting report, Johnston would have to get so close to the Union lines that he will either a) Get captured, or b) Stop a bullet
Quite simply, we come back to the Criminal Stupids. Meade was slowly filling in his lines north to south as they arrived. And as each position was threatened.
In
Dandan's scenario:
* For no explained reason, Stuart doesn't act like Stuart, to the advantage of the Confederacy.(I)
* Lee gives Ewell the self-contradictory orders of concentrating on Gettysburg and seizing Harrisburg, (II) even though they require marching in opposite directions at the same time.
* For no explained reason, Harrisburg falls to the Confederates, just like it didn't in OTL. (III)
* For no explained reason, Longstreet reached Gettysburg a day faster than in OTL, to the advantage of the Confederates. (IV)
* For no explained reason, Lee doesn't act like Lee and takes the defensive at Gettysburg, to the advantage of the Confederates. (V)
* For no explained reason, Lincoln micromanages (VI) at a level beyond anything he did in OTL and vetoes a plan by Meade that Lincoln probably wouldn't know about, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Reynolds attacks a larger, better prepared force than he faced in OTL instead of taking the defensive till reinforcements arrive, (VII) to the the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Meade does not act like Meade, (VIII) attacking entrenched Confederate forces instead of holding on the defensive until his full force has come up and until knows whether Ewell is about to strike his flank during the Union advance. This also works to the advantage of the Confederates.
* Ewell hits Meade flank on Day 2, (IX) yet is still a "fresh corps" on day 3. (X) Nor do any other Confederate units seem at all worn down from previous fighting. (XI)
* For no explained reason, Lee used a different plan to assault the Union position than he did in OTL. (XII)
* Even though Lee's plan is vastly more complex than any assault he made in OTL, there are none of the unexpected delays, command conflicts, misunderstood orders, failures of leadership, combat losses of key personnel, or poor coordination between units that happened with OTL's Confederate army at Gettysburg. (XIII)
* For no explained reason, AP Hill does not act like OTL's largely passive and uninvolved AP Hill, (XIV) to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Lee's army is able to mount a faster, better coordinated, and more effective pursuit than in OTL. (XV)
* Flooded rivers are major obstacles to Union, but not Confederate movement. (XVI)
I) I take it that the cavalry battle the previous month in which he held his ground but was humiliated didn't happen ITTL?
II) The Susquehanna River CANNOT be forded at Harrisburg, and in 1863 the entire city was on the NE side of the river. That is, on the wrong side of the river if the AoNV were to try to seize it. There was only one way across that river: A major railroad bridge. And though the PA Militia didn't cover itself in glory, THIS critical strategic action they didn't screw up. If for no other reason than that their own people, their own leaders, were watching them.
III) OP's preference!? On to Boston!
IV) I feel sorry for the troops of Hill's Corps, who were obviously trampled to death by Longstreet's veterans. Or for Longstreet's men, who must have dropped dead from exhaustion.
V) ASB. It's making a Not-Stuart Stuart and a Not-Lee Lee. Why not toss in a Not-Jackson Jackson and have the bullet miss him at Chancellorsville?
VI) Ahem. Lincoln could be a problem, except that at Gettysburg Meade was cut off from any telegraph communications. The nearest signals station was IIRC south of the Pipe Creek Line. And after firing Hooker so relatively quickly, he's not going to interfere with Meade's action in his very first battle. Not when Lincoln has no idea of what's going on.
VII) To be fair, he WAS killed while attacking Seminary Ridge.
VIII) So, in addition to Not-Stuart, Not-Lee, and Not-Lincoln, we now have Not-Meade.
IX) No way. Early, Ewell's alter ego was against it. So Ewell was against it. Even Lee was against it. Except in case of a Union withdrawal. Not-Ewell & Not-Early?
X) So now its a Confed-wank.
XI) Officially.
XII) Aerial recon?

Otherwise, how does he know the Union's strengths, positions, and the ground before them and behind the enemy?
XIII) Radio and satellite communications. Maybe Lee also had Facebook.
XIV) BS alert. The Confederacy did NOT invent penicillin. Though if they did, it might explain the way they seem to be able to maintain their battery (standing forces).
XV) Lee had panzers? IDK how they'd do in the heavy mud that started on the late evening of "Day 4".
XVI) That's a real trick. Considering that the rivers ran behind and on the southern flank of the AoNV, not the AotP. And if the AotP is in full retreat, they've got excellent roads and working rails clean to Washington DC and Baltimore. The Confederates...do not.
Not to mention that with the Potomac at an extreme flood stage level, that allows even the deepest draft Union Navy ironclads to close up and support the AotP. I wouldn't want to be a Confederate gunner trying to match up with 30 pounder Parrott guns.
There is another option: sending Longstreet to Bragg's army in order to concentrate a large enough force for an offensive towards Nashville. Many people suggested this, hoping that it would force Grant to detach forces away from Vicksburg. Personally, I don't think it would have been any better than the proposal to send Longstreet to Mississippi.
It has the advantage of having Longstreet slightly closer to Virginia (though Nashville would be no pushover, as the LOCs favor the Union), allowing him to make a desperate run back if he can (in time).
Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania seems, in my opinion, to have been the best option at the time. To remain where he was would achieve nothing, as the Battle of Chancellorsville had been a Pyrrhic victory and the Army of the Potomac would have attacked again in a month or so. Hooker, for all his faults, was no McClellan. The logistical reasons for moving into Pennsylvania have already been mentioned and the political and diplomatic benefits of a victory on Northern soil can scarcely be underrated.
And I will honestly state now that if Hooker were still in command of the AotP during the Gettysburg Campaign, you may well be right. But "destroying" the AotP at the hands of the AoNV is still a Pipe Dream. Hooker was IMVHO still a poor general. But it would have required Burnside (who at least DID best Longstreet at Knoxsville) to get a general with sufficient Criminal Stupids to at the very most "break" the AotP to the point where it would have to rebuild itself as was done post-First Bull Run. And if nothing else, they could always fall back to the impenetrable DC defenses. Consider: Lee could get so much buck fever that he tries to assault THOSE defenses, and he'll wind up doing more damage to his own army than would have been seen ITTL's Gettysburg on the AotP.