Gettysburg

Gettysburg is full of ironies. The Union side was routed through the town on the first day of the battle July 1st, and driven to the hilltops into an extremely strong defensive position by pure chance — this position was an accident of their first day rout, not a conscious decision, and ultimately decided the course of the battle. The bayonet charge of the Mainers on Little Round Top was a desperate reaction to about to be routed by the Reb charge up the hill. Had the Union force been routed, most military historians think this defeat of the left flank of the Union army would have put it into a very difficult position, perhaps even collapse. But what must have happened was the Mainers, out of desperation, decided on the only strategy that might have worked — a fixed bayonet charge. It worked because the Rebs didn’t have repeater rifles but had to reload in a clumsy way so this meant that a bayonet charge was very viable. Image you are a Reb and the person next to you is skewed with a bayonet and your rifle has already been shot and needs to be reloaded in all that chaos, with the threat that you yourself with be stabbed as well — a terrible way to die, so you turn and run. As for the ultimate irony at Gettysburg, Lee was known for winning battles with flanking actions, but instead did a frontal attack on a very strongly defended Union center. This when both the Union right and left flanks were extremely weak and would have collapsed had Lee pursued his usual strategy by sending reinforcements to both flanks. The only explanation is that Lee felt he could take the center and thus pretty much end the war then and there — the Union forced to sue for peace. So he rolled the dice — and lost because of the accidental Union defensive position. The final irony is that if Lee had used his usual strategy of attacking at the flanks — with both Union flanks weak — he may well have had a victory to end the war successfully for the South. Lee was a West P:ointer and would have known about Hannibal’s strategy at Cannae, and how effective a flank attack can be. But despite this knowledge, he did a frontal attack against a heavily fortified and very defensible Union center on a hilltop — why? We will never know.

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