An interactive Gettysburg map 150 years later

[Chandler#81]

 

I'll side with the tall bearded guy on this one.

 

Tom's knowledge is spot on but, yes, Mead drew the ire of Lincoln for not pursuing Lee. At least harassing the hell out of them with artillery enroute to the river.

[DC Tom]

I'll side with the tall bearded guy on this one.

 

Which would largely be a mistake - Lincoln was hopeless as any sort of military leader (great statesman, lousy C-in-C). Hell, the pursuit would have been closer if Lincoln hadn't require the Army of the Potomac to shield DC at the same time. Arguing Lincoln's opinion is correct is no more than an argument to authority without knowledge.

[Beerball]

Which would largely be a mistake - Lincoln was hopeless as any sort of military leader (great statesman, lousy C-in-C). Hell, the pursuit would have been closer if Lincoln hadn't require the Army of the Potomac to shield DC at the same time. Arguing Lincoln's opinion is correct is no more than an argument to authority without knowledge.

I'm fine with that.

[DC Tom]

Tom's knowledge is spot on but, yes, Mead drew the ire of Lincoln for not pursuing Lee. At least harassing the hell out of them with artillery enroute to the river.

 

Most of the Union artillery (75% or thereabouts) was destroyed in the battle, and what was left was out of ammo and horses.

 

Lincoln was a complete amateur who had no concept of logistics (which is pretty much the definition of "amateur"), and completely ignored his contributions to the situation (changing commanders just before the battle - if he wanted aggressive pursuit, he should have kept Hooker on), and his ire was unreasonable.

[Jauronimo]

Meade had just taken over the Army of the Potomac from Hooker (so recently that Meade's campaign plan was more Hooker's doing than Meade's at the time Gettysburg was fought). He didn't even know where most of his army was at the start of the battle, fed reinforcements in piecemeal so that corps were hopelessly intermingled (except for Sickle's III corps, which simply ceased to exist. The man was a damn fool), and had a good number of new subordinate commanders besides (between the command reshuffling after Hooker's release, and the surprising number of generals lost at Gettysburg.) And Meade's supply train was a day's march from Gettysburg - well-placed for fighting in-place, but poorly located to support an advance. AND...it rained relentlessly the week after the battle.

 

Bottom line: the Army of the Potomac was in absolutely no position to pursue effectively after Gettysburg. Meade had almost no command and control, the only unit with enough strength to pursue (VI Corps) was scattered across the battlefield, and the only unit cohesive enough to pursue (V Corps) was nonetheless in bad need of rest and refit after taking the brunt of the fighting in the center, and neither could move or be resupplied effectively in the weather (Lee, while having to march through the same weather, was at least falling back on his supply base.)

Clearly, you learned nothing from Rorke's Drift. Read this, disabuse yourself of all your silly ideas, and then form an opinion which holds water.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift

[DC Tom]

Clearly, you learned nothing from Rorke's Drift. Read this, disabuse yourself of all your silly ideas, and then form an opinion which holds water.

 

http://en.wikipedia....f_Rorke's_Drift

 

Now you're just !@#$ing with me. You could have at least picked an obscure battle, like Gingindlovu.

[dib]

Ah, the Zulu 'wars" Read: The washing of Spears, and Like Lions they fought.

[DC Tom]

Ah, the Zulu 'wars" Read: The washing of Spears, and Like Lions they fought.

 

According to Wikipedia, those aren't "real" sources.

[Beerball]

Info on Alonzo H. Cushing.