Like you, I too am amazed with the fascination of the “perceived” Pickett’s Charge. However, the “High Water Mark of the Rebellion” that historians have handed down to us barely resembles what actually happened on July 3, 1863. Pickett’s Virginians storming the Angle is merely a gallant image that justified the Lost Cause.

Unlike you, I don’t find “Longstreet’s famous assault” “tactically boring,” “gallactically stupid,” or a forlorn hope. Tactically, Lee’s intended plan of attack was brilliant and even worked later at the Wilderness. As learned, “Pickett’s Charge” is a direct frontal assault on the Army of the Potomac’s Second Corps with thousands of Confederates mindlessly marching to their doom. In reality, Lee had designed an obliquely moving attack along a much broader front that would have hammered the Second Corps, taken the Eleventh Corps in flank, and negated Meade’s out of place reinforcements. As intended, Lee’s assault would have stretched from Standard’s brigade far south of the copse of trees to Smith’s brigade at the intersection of the Emmitsburg and Taneytown Roads.

Lee thoroughly knew his opponents and hoped to exploit their weaknesses. Battle after battle he had witnessed the Army of the Potomac gloriously march forward. Similarly, he knew the location of each enemy corps on the battlefield and the assault would unravel his enemy’s weakest.

Lee envisioned:

The front line of Pickett’s division erratically maneuvering first north then east then north then east, etc. with Anderson’s brigades closely covering its right flank

Pettigrew’s division closing on and catching Pickett’s left to give Hancock the impression that the assault was concentrating on his center

Then Pettigrew’s line attacking obliquely to the northeast, creating an ever-widening breach, north from the Angle

The entire second line (Trimble’s two brigades and Pickett’s second line) marching obliquely to the left from the onset to add punch to Pettigrew’s push and extending the attack’s front to Cemetery Hill

Finally, Rodes’ division charging directly forward and smashing Smith’s brigade before landing on the flank and rear of the twice shy Eleventh Corps

With Lee’s assault continuously shifting farther north and the initial belief that the copse of trees was the point of attack, Meade’s reinforcements would be distracted and delayed. Without the terrain, the disjointed flanking maneuvers, and subsequent countering tactics, Lee’s ill-conceived attack quite possibly might have unhinged Meade’s defenses from atop Cemetery Hill.

For 144 years our collective interest in “Pickett’s (portion of the) Charge” has obscured the true grandeur of “Longstreet’s famous assault.” Lee’s deceptive tactics continue to befuddle and our historians haven’t told us the whole story. It’s all there; yet, most of us aren’t probing our popular memory, just blindly accepting its history. We are well studied on less than a third of Lee’s battle plan; we need to shift our focus farther north. There is where our fascination should lie.

Private John H. Jack, 8th Ohio, was a member of the brigade band and served with the regiment’s ambulances. During “Pickett’s Charge,” he stood on the Taneytown Road near the current Visitors Center. On July 6, he wrote:

“This artillery duel was immediately followed by an advance of the enemy’s infantry, which swarmed out of the woods in such hosts as to make one wonder where they all came from. They advanced at a rapid pace and in true American style, their lines being almost perfect and three in number, but changing as they came, making a masterly display of military manoeuvre [sic]. Finally they close their columns by division and directed their march upon the batteries, directly to the left of the 8th Regiment.”

Woodruff and Arnold’s Batteries were “directly” to the Buckeyes’ left – not Cushing and Brown’s.

View it from the perspective of those who were there. What makes it so compelling, that is – keenly interesting – was the sheer spectacle of the event.

I can only imagine.

Mannie

Eric has an interesting point with Deep Cut. Why is Marye’s Heights famous while Deep Cut isn’t? Why isn’t Second Manassas a “popular” battle with historians (popular in this case equaling historical argument and discussion about the battle)?

I often wonder how many of the vignettes are historical and not Shaara-isms. I can’t help but believe that he would be appalled at how much of his fictional work has been accepted as historical fact by the public. But it does bring more people to the battlefield.

Don

Jim Morgan

Gallactically stupid. LOL!

Never heard that one before!
Did they use tazers, or are we talking bows and arrows?

Upton was a perfectionist. Was Mott (Not Wayne, but the other Mott) a blunderer? Perhaps Upton was too perfect. Too perfect for his own good?

Deep Cut or not, Malvern Hill aside, there’s always Solferino of ’59 to compare to that Galactic nightmare.

It’s all there, the hubris, the gallantry, the high water mark at the clump of trees, the touching vignettes(“General Lee, I have no division.”) That’s the fascination. It’s like asking why all the fuss about the Titanic? The big canoe wasn’t a feat of navigation or engineering either, but we’ve got a bunch of movies about it.

Really, Eric, what a question.