Did Lee deliberately lose at Gettysburg?

[KoihimeNakamura]

@theprestige: I tend to disagree. Meade wasn't that bad. He was probably a shade or two above mediocre

 

[catsmate]

Slightly off topic but this is an interesting article on the concept of 'military genius' from the perspective of an author.

 

[Crossbow]

No, Lee was simply a butcher. From his first day in command till his last when left to his own devices he went straight up the middle.

Longstreet wanted to place the army between Washington and the union army forcing Mead to attack and , given the superiority of the defense, to waste his army.

Seconded!

I am reading a good book right now on what it takes to win a war when one is outnumbered, and one the excellent points that the author makes is that Lee often drove right towards the center of the enemy. Which is brave but can be reckless.

Whereas, a better plan is to attack the enemy forces when they are exposed, but shortly before they have a chance to get properly organized; which is what Longstreet wanted to do and Napoleon often did.

 

[NightStar76]

...and again, (and I cannot believe I am defending LEE, whose record should need no defense by anyone) without his cavalry available, doing anything but a frontal assault would be a mistake. Lee would have separated his armies with no way of keeping them in contact with one another, and Meade would have destroyed him in detail. And don't say he wouldn't. Even if Meade hadn't been willing to, the union commanders on the frontline would have started the fight and he would have followed up.

Lee did the best anyone could have done in his position.

Also, if you're looking for a butcher: Unconditional Surrender Grant, anyone? The man threw thousands of men at fixed positions during the siege of Vicksburg, and did his best to not allow for a truce to collect his wounded at any point in any campaign.

The only commanding generals on either side who weren't butchers were Thomas and Johnston, and that's only because neither fought a pitched battle if they could avoid it. Thomas tried to to ensure his grasp on the terrain and the territory was perfect before doing anything, and Johnston folded like a deck of cards before superior numbers.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Is there evidence for this "theory"?


I ask because as presented this is little more than a rather typical "if I ran the railroad" type of "theory".

I pulled it out of my nether nexus, if you will.



What, is there something wrong with that?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Lee was fighting blind in a battle he didn't want, but couldn't afford to surrender.

And therein lies his primary failure.

A glance at a map shows that Gettysburg was the key to the entire region. It should have been his objective from the start.

 

[NightStar76]

I'm pretty sure he only was in that region by accident. His ultimate goal was DC or Philadelphia. If anyone is to blame for the day's failures, it's Jeb Stuart.

 

[Hutch]

Also, if you're looking for a butcher: Unconditional Surrender Grant, anyone? The man threw thousands of men at fixed positions during the siege of Vicksburg, and did his best to not allow for a truce to collect his wounded at any point in any campaign.

OK, objection. Grant launched exactly two attacks on Vicksburg, both coming shortly after defeating the Confederate forces in the open field twice and driving them back into their lines in some confusion. The attacks (against what he believed were demoralized troops that would not be in shape to fight) failed, and Grant then moved to a formal siege and did not try to make further mass attacks.

As for Lee at Gettysburg, I concur with those who noted that at least for the first two days, without significant cavalry to screen his movement, attack or dis-engagement were his options, and as the historian Bruce Catton once noted, Lee (for all his grandfatherly manner) was one of the most pugnacious commanders in U.S. History. As he was reported to have said on July 1st "The enemy is there and I intend to fight him."

And remember, Lee knew that his men had never lost a battle to the Union Army of the Potomac (yes they were repelled at Malvern Hill (but the Union Army then retreated) and fought to a standstill at Antietam) and had to believe that one more attack would force the Union forces, badly mauled on the first two days of the battle, to do what they had always done--retreat.

But Meade (who has been downgraded since Grant stayed with the Army of the Potomac in 1864-65 and got the lions' share of the credit-and blame), while never a brilliant commander, was competent, unruffled and not one to lose his composure on the field. He may not have 'won' Gettysburg, but he made the moves so as not to lose it.

Lee's problem from the first was his training (as it was for most military officers of the time) in Napoleonic tactics, which emphasized the "decisive battle" that would crush the enemy and win the war. This meant taking an aggressive posture, even if it meant high losses.

Trouble with that was (1) Lee had the weaker force and couldn't absorb the losses his enemies could and (2) The Federals always seem to have another Army ready to go faster than he could defeat them.

Add to that the implacable will of Abraham Lincoln to restore the Union, and Lee was playing a losing hand, unless he could convince the majority of Northern civilians that the war could not be won.

And defeating a Union army in Pennsylvania was one thing that might do that.

So Lee, true to his nature, his faith in his army, and his military training, took the gamble--and lost.

IMHO as always...YMMV.

 

[rjh01]

There is a big difference between what could be done in Napoleon's time and what could be done in the civil war time. In Napoleon's time you could charge the enemy and expect most of your troops to get to the enemy's front line so that hand to hand combat could take place. But since then guns had improved so that that assumption was no longer valid.

 

[Border Reiver]

The problem was that weapons tech had just reached the stage where a rifle was a common weapon in an army and tactics had not caught up to technology.

 

[dudalb]

A lot of folks try to blame Longstreet because they cannot accept that their deity, Lee, made a mistake.

Longstreet certainly became the main scapegoat for the defeat at Gettysburg,with Ewell taking some of the heat for his failure to push forward to Cemetary Hill on July 1st.
Longstreet made a few mistakes;he does seem to have messed up the bringing up of his troops to the attack positions on the Second day and delayed the action by a few hourse;but to blame him for the Second days outcome is silly.

 

[dudalb]

I'm pretty sure he only was in that region by accident. His ultimate goal was DC or Philadelphia. If anyone is to blame for the day's failures, it's Jeb Stuart.

You have a lot to learn.
Actaully Lee's main goals were
A.To inflict a defeat on the Army of the Potomac on Northren soil. He felt his would have a decisive impact on the North's will to fight on.
B.To move the war out of Virginia,and to seize as many supplies from Pennsyyvania as possible. Fact is, Northren Virginia was nearly exhausted as far a supplies go from two armies having campaigned there for more then a year.
C.To force a diversion of troops from the siege of Vicksburg in the west.

Lee did not have any serious notion of taking DC or Philly. The would have invovled a major siege action which he knew he probably did have the strength to maintain.

 

[dudalb]

@theprestige: I tend to disagree. Meade wasn't that bad. He was probably a shade or two above mediocre

It was the old Any Given Sunday syndrome. WHen you look at their overall records Lee was a much better general then Meade;but at Gettysburg Meade was a better general.

 

[kookbreaker]

Longstreet certainly became the main scapegoat for the defeat at Gettysburg,with Ewell taking some of the heat for his failure to push forward to Cemetary Hill on July 1st.

Scapegoating Longstreet is a favorite pastime of the ancestor worshipers

Longstreet made a few mistakes;he does seem to have messed up the bringing up of his troops to the attack positions on the Second day and delayed the action by a few hourse;but to blame him for the Second days outcome is silly.

There's enough blame to go around, but at the end it mostly points at Lee, who was in charge.

Longstreet gets flack & unfair blame because post-war he joined the Republican Party and helped Reconstruction. Unacceptable behavior for the 'boo-hoo we lost' crowd.

 

[Craig4]

snip

No, the South did not get out fought by a more capable enemy at Gettysburg.

A more capable enemy wouldn't have fought at a time and place of the enemy's choosing.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Did Lee intentionally lose? It's a provocative question, but in a good way. Rather than yes or no, perhaps the answer lies somewhere between.

Armies - their soldiers and commanders - are not machines. It goes without saying that an overall battle plan, its components, and the countless decisions throughout the duration of any encounter, is all organic, in constant mutation. Plus, behavior under stress is not as predictable as when the circumstances are calm, not to mention less complex.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but if I make a modest attempt to put myself in Lee's head prior to Pickett's Charge, filtering out what I know now, I can easily imagine cacophony. Competing advice from his officers, conflicting reports from the field, months-long fatigue, a headache, acid reflux, superstition, a tormented or even blissful dream the night before, heightened self-regard, a sudden strong whiff of lavender reminding him of his happy courtship and now ailing wife, a particularly anguished shriek from a boy dying nearby...any number of possible factors, pummeling his mind like hammers, could have led to a chosen course that might have been discarded at any other time.

All action is reaction. To what has come before, and what is unfolding before us. And I think a case could be made (though admittedly difficult to precisely support) that Lee, at that time and under unique circumstances both without and within, just wanted it all to end. One way or the other.

 

[tsig]

A more capable enemy wouldn't have fought at a time and place of the enemy's choosing.

Longstreet told Lee:

The enemy is there because he wants us to attack him there and that is a very good reason not to attack him there. (not a direct quote)

 

[Checkmite]

Of course the South was outfought by a superior opponent at Gettysburg. Having high ground may have started out as simple luck; but the decision to harry the Army of Virginia until it could be secured was not. Both the Union's left and right were tested mightily and were left standing and solid on the third day because of honest hard fighting by Union troops and excellent tactical decisions by Union commanders, not by "luck". Even Dan Sickle's well-intentioned-but-disastrous bungling, which effectively lost the Union an entire corps, didn't ultimately give the Rebs any exploitable advantage.

And certainly trying to make a case for "the better side" by comparing Meade's hesitation to pursue Lee after the former's victory on the field with Lee's inexcusably daft Day 3 plan (which wouldn't have worked even if it had started on time and all troop movements had been coordinated perfectly - I'm sorry to throw water on anyone's personal favorite speculation, but the Charge was 100% doomed from conception) is an apples/oranges thing; Lee's Folly immediately and appreciably compromised his army's capability as an effective combat unit, while Meade's hesitation resulted in no net gain or loss for his own army.

 

[BazBear]

Of course the South was outfought by a superior opponent at Gettysburg. Having high ground may have started out as simple luck; but the decision to harry the Army of Virginia until it could be secured was not. Both the Union's left and right were tested mightily and were left standing and solid on the third day because of honest hard fighting by Union troops and excellent tactical decisions by Union commanders, not by "luck". Even Dan Sickle's well-intentioned-but-disastrous bungling, which effectively lost the Union an entire corps, didn't ultimately give the Rebs any exploitable advantage.

And certainly trying to make a case for "the better side" by comparing Meade's hesitation to pursue Lee after the former's victory on the field with Lee's inexcusably daft Day 3 plan (which wouldn't have worked even if it had started on time and all troop movements had been coordinated perfectly - I'm sorry to throw water on anyone's personal favorite speculation, but the Charge was 100% doomed from conception) is an apples/oranges thing; Lee's Folly immediately and appreciably compromised his army's capability as an effective combat unit, while Meade's hesitation resulted in no net gain or loss for his own army.

The Union army was also pretty battered and tired after three days of combat, so Meade's decision not to pursue the ANV seems reasonable to me, especially without the benefit of historical hindsight.

 

[tsig]

The Union army was also pretty battered and tired after three days of combat, so Meade's decision not to pursue the ANV seems reasonable to me, especially without the benefit of historical hindsight.

Meade had just seen what an army standing on the defensive behind entrenchments could do so not wanting to bleed his army dry makes sense.

It just wasn't in the cards during that war for any army to achieve a Napoleonic type annihilation of another army.