WI Pickett's Charge succeeds?

I'm still waiting for someone to bring up a record of a survivor of the charge who reached the wall and still claimed years later "We almost had them".
 
I'm still waiting for someone to bring up a record of a survivor of the charge who reached the wall and still claimed years later "We almost had them".
I Doubt you'll Find One ...

Partially, because VERY Few of The Men at The High-Water Mark Came Back Alive!

But Mostly, The Reason is, The Loss of Momentum was ENTIRELY their Fault ...

It'd be Human Nature to Refuse to Take The Blame in that Situation, No?
 
WE CAN DO ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME!

What an odd notion, luck as a finite quantity.

The blame for the failure should mainly be laid at the feet of Longstreet who planned for failure, and got it.

Luck is most certainly a finite quantity. It is the sum of the following principles: good planning(1), excellent training(2), good logistics with secured supplies(3), good leadership(4), effective weapons(5), good morale(6) and respect for the enemy(7).

These are the elements that produce luck as a definable concrete entity. But a constant refrain of victory will result inevitably with luck being exhausted. Eventually the enemy will knuckle down, swallow their pride, and do whatever is necessary to bring down their enemies. There reaches a point when fear of the enemy is transformed into frustration, and frustration into rage. Combine that rage with the enemy's complete embrace of stupid overconfidence? You get Varus in Germania A.D.9. You get the English Army in France against Joan of Arc. You get Tarleton against Morgan at Cowpens 1781. You get Napoleon against Wellinton at Waterloo 1815. You get Sir Edward Pakenham against Colonel Andrew Jackson in New Orleans 1815. You get George Armstrong Custer against Crazy Horse in the valley of the Little Big Horn 1877. You get Admiral Nagumo against Adm's Spruance and Fletcher at Midway 1942. You get Lee against Meade in Gettysburg, 1863.


Longstreet has been used by "Marble Man" historians since the ACW as the premier whipping boy for every defeat the AoNV ever suffered if he was within at least a hundred miles of the action. Fortunately, like the "Dunning Thesis", no serious modern historian pays any attention. It's interesting that the "Marble Man" advocates never seem to have much to say about what was going on in Virginia between Longstreet's wounding in the Wilderness and his return almost at the war's end. I suspect some people (Like, say, Jubal Early) don't know what to do without their favorite chew-toy.

YOUR LEVEL OF LUCK IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO YOUR LEVEL OF OVERCONFIDENCE.:p
 
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67th Tigers

Banned
You get Varus in Germania A.D.9. You get the English Army in France against Joan of Arc. You get Tarleton against Morgan at Cowpens 1781. You get Napoleon against Wellinton at Waterloo 1815. You get Sir Edward Pakenham against Colonel Andrew Jackson in New Orleans 1815. You get George Armstrong Custer against Crazy Horse in the valley of the Little Big Horn 1877. You get Admiral Nagumo against Adm's Spruance and Fletcher at Midway 1942. You get Lee against Meade in Gettysburg, 1863.

Grant at Fort Donelson?

Grant at Shiloh?

Grant in the Wilderness?

Grant at Spottsylvania?

Grant on the North Anna?

Grant at Petersburg?

(etc.)

Longstreet has been used by "Marble Man" historians since the ACW as the premier whipping boy for every defeat the AoNV ever suffered if he was within at least a hundred miles of the action. Fortunately, like the "Dunning Thesis", no serious modern historian pays any attention. It's interesting that the "Marble Man" advocates never seem to have much to say about what was going on in Virginia between Longstreet's wounding in the Wilderness and his return almost at the war's end. I suspect some people (Like, say, Jubal Early) don't know what to do without their favorite chew-toy.

YOUR LEVEL OF LUCK IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO YOUR LEVEL OF OVERCONFIDENCE.:p

As much as I like that you've got a homebrew philosophy, perhaps you might like to read the actual principles of war.
 
Total War still stands triumphant!

Grant at Fort Donelson?

Grant at Shiloh?

Grant in the Wilderness?

Grant at Spottsylvania?

Grant on the North Anna?

Grant at Petersburg?

(etc.)
The battles you listed were Grant victories:confused: I suppose if you only count the first day then Shiloh would make sense. The Wilderness was a tactical victory for the Rebels but an operational victory for Grant (He kept on going). Spotsylvania Court House was a tactical bloodbath for both sides, and again, an operational Union victory (Move by the flank). Grant on the North Anna? He slipped away again leaving Lee with nothing but empty air and Grant moving by the left flank again. Grant at Petersburg? It was "Baldy" Smith, a general who had never given reason before to doubt, who blew that operation and Grant STILL managed to steal a march on Lee and push Beauregard all the way back to the Petersburg city limits, shaving months off the siege time for taking the city.

I don't know, maybe you're holding it back as another future counterpoint, but of course Grant made mistakes. The first two attempts at Vicksburg, some of the battles at Chattanooga (Not personally led but his resonsibility), and of course, Cold Harbor. An attack so bloody that it convinced Lee that Grant would make one more attempt on Richmond north of the James. Ironically though, the very bloodiness of Cold Harbor convinced Grant to use Butler's landing at Bermuda Hundred to steal a march on Lee and move south of the James River. Lee dismissed Beauregard's reports, requests, SCREAMING for reinforcements because that had always been Beauregard's way of getting attention. By the time that Lee finally realized Beauregard wasn't seeing ghosts, the majority of Grant's army was south of the James. Lee had been outmaneuvered.

I still stand by my own formula. It's not quantum physics, but
history shows it tends to stand up.:D

Principles of war? The only maxim of Clausewitz that Lee was able to adhere to at all times at Gettysburg was that for once the men were well fed.:)

BUT MANY WERE FIGHTING DEHYDRATED!:p

Clausewitz is all very well, but it didn't stop the Germans from getting curbstomped twice in the last century. Seems the Germans just didn't seem to appreciate that quantity has a quality all its own. Neither did Lee. But Grant and Sherman did.:cool:
 
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enie meenie minie mo...

You know what I like about Lee AND Grant? They did what neither Jackson nor Sherman would ever do. Jackson and Sherman never admitted to a single mistake. But Grant and Lee BOTH admitted to their very greatest mistake. I'll give everyone a hundred choices but you'll only need one!(each);)
 

Cook

Banned
I remember reading that after the war a journalist asked George Pickett his opinion regarding the debate about who was responsible for the failure of Pickett’s Charge, Lee or Longstreet.

Pickett replied that actually he thought the Union Army had something to do with it.
 
I remember reading that after the war a journalist asked George Pickett his opinion regarding the debate about who was responsible for the failure of Pickett’s Charge, Lee or Longstreet.

Pickett replied that actually he thought the Union Army had something to do with it.
Cook! I wuz gonna say that! Grrr...
 
This raises the question that has been asked repeatedly before:

What if Lee had broken contact after the first or second day’s fighting and tried to flank the Union army and get between them and Washington?

Stuart and half of the Confederate Cavalry were out of contact with Lee until late on the second. The other half of the CSA cavalry were inexperienced and/or out of position to scout for the army. If Lee had broken contact on the first or second day he would have been maneuvering almost blind.
 

cw1865

Slip to the right

Well, by Day 2, Lee knows the Army of the Potomac is in front of him. Slipping around the Union right, Lee's not going to do that, that puts the Army of the Potomac between him and the Potomac River Slipping to the right is at least theoretically feasible, but unfortunately the roads converge on Gettysburg, so if he takes the roads, say Emmitsburg to hook around, Meade can beat him to wherever Lee is headed. He'd have to straddle the Army of Northern Virginia on Taneytown and Baltimore Pike so as to get between Meade and Washington. This is really easier said than done. Furthermore, once Lee pulls this maneuver, the option of retreating becomes more difficult. Lee's actual retreat is a westward movement through Cashtown over the mountains and down to the Potomac River @ Williamsport where rains swelled the river and Lee in point of fact was pinned on the north side of the river. If Lee hooks around and has to retreat, the Potomac flows southeast and now the distance between the AoNV and the Potomac grows, PLUS as the river flows it gets wider.
 
the confederate artillery mostly missed their mark, they overshot the Union lines and even had a few close calls to Meade's command post, forcing him to relocate. the smaller number of Union guns at the battle gave the Confederate artillerymen the impression that their barrages were having effect when in fact they were not.

Also, your comparison to the Battle of Franklin is of little issue, that battle was also a confederate defeat, the Union army did not retreat. If you really want to make that comparison, it merely shows that even if nearly all the officers hadn't been killed so quickly and the charge had in fact managed to get into the Union lines they most likely would have lost any remaining officers there and then been forced to retreat. The main difference between the two charges was that Pickets charge was defeated earlier than Brown and Cleburn's charge and as such suffered less severe casualties. Also another key difference is that at gettysburg concealed artillery positions on little round top raked Pickett's charge from its right flank the whole way, at Franklin there was no flanking artillery fire to deal with.

It also showed (no suprise here) that Lee was a MUCH better general than Hood. When he saw it was futile he backed off rather than wreck his army in more suicidal charges. Hood would have sent more men to bolster Pickett when the attack was faltering and they would have been shot to pieces as well. The AONV was still a viable army after Gettysburg but the same could not be said of the AOT as it was wrecked at Franklin.
 
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