Artillery Duel at Gettysburg

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

After a grueling day of travel (yesterday) I am now happily in Gettysburg.  The Civil War Institute conference is about to get under way....as a short precursor, I spent the morning with historians Peter Carmichael and Keith Bohannon going over some of the action on July 2nd. Here they are studiously engaging Confederate artillerist Edward Porter Alexander's account of Rebel gun emplacements facing the Peach Orchard.

Standing in the spot Alexander describes (as we did - near the modern day Mississippi monument) it becomes all too striking how close the Confederate and Union positions were. I'll let Alexander do the talking:

Hood, on McLaw's right, first moved out to cross the Emmitsburg Pike and attack Sickle's left flank in the rough ground in front of Round Top. Henry's battalion moved out with him, & they were both heavily opened on by the enemy's artillery, from the Peach Orchard & beyond. To help them out I immediately put in Cabell's whole 18 guns, as one battery, from teh edge of the woods about 700 yards from the Peach Orchard, & then, selecting 18 of my own 26, I put them in action at the nearest point, Warfield's House, where McLaws's line was within 500 yards of the Peach Orchard.

Rarely does one find an artillery duel of such close proximity - it is little wonder that each side sustained the casualties that they did. There will be more battlefield action and news from the conference coming up - be sure to follow Twiiter hashtag #cwi1862 to stay up to date.

Peace,
Keith

 

Edward Porter Alexander on Lee at Gettysburg

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Edward Porter Alexander - Confederate artillerist.  His reminiscences are among the best resources on the operations of the Army of Northern Virginia. Why? They were not intended for publication.

This is a great boon to historians simply for the fact that as far as we can tell, he was being candid concerning the war, the southern cause, and the soldiers he fought with and against.

Unlike many of his ex-Confederate contemporaries writing in the postwar South, Alexander was critical of Robert E. Lee. Here are a few words on Gettysburg, and what Alexander considers the failings on that battlefield - and the alternatives that Lee should have explored.

Now when it is remembered that we stayed for three days longer on that very ground, two of them days of desperate battle, ending in the discouragement of a bloody repulse, & then successfully withdrew all our trains & most of the wounded through the mountains; and, finding the Potomac too high to ford, protected them all & foraged successfully for over a week in a very restricted territory along the river, until we could build a bridge, it does not seem improbable that we could have faced Meade safely on the 2nd at Gettysburg with out assaulting him in his wonderfully strong position. We had the prestige of victory with us, having chased him off the field & through the town. We had a fine defensive position on Seminary Ridge at our hand to occupy. It was not such a really wonderful position as the enemy happened to fall into, but it was no bad one, & it could never have been successfully assaulted.

Well, I do not think that Alexander is giving Lee enough credit for trying to exploit the successes of the 1st, but still - this is a usefully honest critique of Lee written by a prominent soldier in Lee's army - free from the mythology and deity like status that others had built around their former chieftain.

Peace,
Keith