Dan Sickles, Union Savior?

[nbforrest]

Let me condense the pro-Sickles argument:

Sickles' original line would have collapsed. Thus, his move forward bought time for reinforcements.

Pure hypothesis, fluff, and nonsense. A complete disregard of the facts. Alternate opinions are excellent, but should be based on a survey of the facts. Whenever I have brought up salient points, like actually looking at the terrain, those points that do not reflect well upon Sickles are ignored. Don, I appreciate your willingness to propose an unpopular theory, Lord knows some of my ideas are unpopular, but I truly think you have let your preconceived notion and/or personal affection for Sickles overrule a fair and balanced look. Reading Sauers would probably be a great next step for all of us.

Respectfully

[Donald Schneider]

Dear NB:

On the contrary, it was you who apparently either missed my post #104 (page 11) answering your terrain argument, or else you chose to ignore it.

Again, do as I did. Go to a good map of the Union position on July 2nd, measure Hancock's line, then extend it the same length to his left, and see how far towards LRT the Union flank would have extended had Sickles placed his corprs where Meade asserted he had wanted it in the Benedict letter! And again, Hanconck's corps was slightly larger than Sickles's and it had a much better defensive position. Sickle's portion of Cemetery Ridge was hardly a "ridge" at all.

Rulers don't lie either!

Don

[ole]

Don:

Respectfully, I'm afraid you've taken the wrong dog on the hunt: Longstreet's From Manassas to Appomattox. There is a very good reason that no historian quotes this book as a source. Bless the dear soul that gave you the book, but whoever it was did you no favors.

That Sickles saved the AoP on July 2 is speculation, supposition and belief in the supernatural. It is based, in near entirety, on the ideas that (1) Sickles' assigned position would have been easily overrun, (2) Meade was neglecting the left, (3) LRT was in no way an anchor for Sickles' left, (4) that Sickles was stretched too thinly in his assigned position, (5) that there were no good artillery positions in Sickle's assigned part of the defensive line, (6) that LRT was capable of supporting Confederate artillery, and I forget the rest.

Just skimming the surface, let's look at each of the above interpretations.

(1) There simply is no way to conclude that Sickles' assigned position would be overrun. It might have been weaker than Sickles would have preferred, but it does not follow that it would have been easily overrun.

(2)There is evidence that Meade concerned himself more with his right than his left. Could that be, in part, because Sickles and his Corps was experienced and in capable hands? One might also consider the most imminent threat -- the right, where Ewell's troops were quite visible and gathering.

(3) That Hannibal crossed the Alps and did marvelous things does not apply to LRT. With effort, artillery could be brought up on LRT to bear wherever. But think of the rocks. It was possible to bring up a few. There likely was, between rocky outcrops, room to position a gun or two, or three. But it was not possible to group a battery with any hope of communication between guns, let alone between sections and batteries. Concerted artillery action on the north face of LRT was not something any commander relied upon.

(4) Sickles' assigned position would have stretched his resources too thinly. The function of a corps or divisional commander is to bring such objections to the attention of the overall commander. This supposes that Meade was not aware that Sickles' was thin. He did, after all, have troops arriving for such support as he might deem proper.

(5) That positioning artillery within Sickles' assigned line is a concern, his front was fairly well covered by artillery emplacements to his right, and not a significant argument for moving.

(6) LRT was a good anchor. Not a great anchor. If the CSA had taken it, it would have been hell-on-wheels to emplace any effective artillery force on it. A bad place for CSA artillery, but an unlikely place for it.

I will echo others in that I am so very grateful that you've brought up this subject. But I very much fear that the dog you've brought is of the lap variety.

Respectfully.
Ole

[ole]

A final note:

Sickles' move disrupted whatever plans Meade had for consolidating his army into a cohesive position. Had Meade considered a concentration to destroy Ewell, it became impossible. The defense of Culp's hill was compromised by Sickle's action. Fortunately, it was not ruined.

It is one thing for a unit commander to move at odds with orders when he sees a change from the intention of his superior's expectations. It is quite another to make a judgement independent of the overall commander to a percieved situation.

Sickles had no acceptable justification for his advance. That he called in his chips to support his boner after the fact --- ??

Ole

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by Donald Schneider

General Daniel Sickles saved the United States of America on July 2, 1863!

Don Schneider

To use your own words, your conclusion is pure nonsense, absurd, Poppycock!

It seems to me that the actions of Slocum's 12th Corps at Culp's Hill on the morning of the 3rd was more determinant of the outcome of the battle.

Even if one were to accept the highly dubious theory that Gburg was the battle that determined the outcome of the war, no one person saved the United States of America at Gettysburg, the Union Army* did it.

*(The Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, and all the supporting Departments.)

[ole]

It seems to me that the actions of Slocum's 12th Corps at Culp's Hill on the morning of the 3rd was more determinant of the outcome of the battle.

Sam:
Although it was Slocum's Corps, the meat of it really comes down to Greene's Brigade, Williams' Division. Slocum's involvement was that Greene ran a brigade in one of his divisions.

And there is good reason to claim that Caldwell's Division of the II Corps pulled Sickles' bacon out of the fire in his heroically advanced position that saved the entire Union army from disastrous defeat on the 2nd.

Just a thought.
Ole

[ole]

A favorite of mine is Pickett's response when asked why "his" famous charge failed: "Well I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it." (Or words to that effect.)

Ole

[milhistbuff1]

Don

I emailed Shotgun (Dick Weeks).

He said he wasnt sure if the map and casualty count are available but offered this site http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/b...aphs/waro.html

as a possibility. General Geary's report is not on civilwarhome either for Gburg, so hopefully any gaps in civilwarhome will be on cornell.edu Will post again once i've had a chance to acclimate myself to the way the OR's are indexed and find what i'm looking for.

Matt

[nbforrest]

Don,
your post #104 does exactly as I said it did...dismiss the terrain out of hand with vague references to what a couple officers supposedly said. Third hand rumors are not a great thing to base an argument on. You need to really look at the terrain. It would be best if you can go to Gettysburg, but obviously that is not feasible for everyone. It's a very big step to say that Hunt observed that the Peach Orchard area offered some advantageous ground and then conclude that Sickles had to seize this "formidable" position. (Yes, I keep repeating that word because it is utterly absurd.)
My tone in a couple posts may have been a bit too sharp, I apologize if I came off that way.

Respectfully

[Donald Schneider]

Dear Ole:

Thank you for that superb post summarizing most of my points in regard to my contention here regarding the wisdom of General Sickles's movement, while attempting to refute them. We shall allow my arguments regarding these points and your responses to them stand as a good summary for any who might read here, either participating in the discussion or lurking.

The one major point that I have made that you do not explicitly mention, though you do allude to, is my most salient point that if Sickles's move had been a tactical "blunder," then the presumed beneficiary of this blunder, i.e., the enemy, seemed strangely unaware that they had been so blessed that day, either at the time or looking back upon it later. To that effect, I quoted several high-ranking Confederate infantry commanders in the thick of the action on the Union left, July 2, 1863.

Your response seems to have been to cast aspersions upon the account of General Longstreet whom I quoted from his memoirs. For the benefit of any who might not be aware of the background regarding such aspersions thrown upon Longstreet after the war by erstwhile compatriots from the South, it had it origins while Longstreet was living in New Orleans after the war and engaged in the real estate business.

A New Orleans editor solicited the general's opinions concerning the state of matters in the vanquished South under Federal reconstruction. Longstreet wrote a letter saying that while the Confederacy made an honorable and heroic effort to establish its independence, that effort unfortunately failed. In light of the reality of that, it now was incumbent upon the South to cooperate with the reconstruction efforts so that she might once again take her place on an equal footing with here sister states of the North.

For having the audacity to state such, the hapless general became the designated whipping boy for the failures of the ANV and blamed for the loss of the war, even though he had never even commanded an army. "Traitor!" was the response to Longstreet's honest assessment of the reality of the situation at that time. Even Lee, with whom he had heretofore maintained cordial relations, turned against him; and thus set the stage for the Confederate historians, dominated by Virginians, to blame every failure of the ANV on Longstreet, and attribute every success to Lee and other Virginians.

In regard to Gettysburg, here is my personal take. I think the Confederate defeat can be blamed on both Lee and Longstreet. Longstreet had been absolutely right in regard to his proposed move to the right around the Union army to maintain a defensive, but threatening posture towards Washington. In light of the Lincoln Administration's well-known paranoia concerning the loss of the capital, Longstreet was absolutely correct that Meade would have found himself bombarded with demands for an ill-advised attack upon the ANV entrenched in a strong position.

By the time of the Civil War, with the advent of rifled muskets and greatly improved ranges for artillery, the advantage in combat had shifted decisively to the defensive, which is why the South was able to last as long as it did, despite gross errors and inferior numbers and resources. The Napoleonic era was over--finished; and Lee, of all people, should have realized this. He had, after all, been a pioneer in the use of defensive breastworks, and had once even been derided as "The King of Spades," after taking over from Johnston. There was simply no reason whatsoever to risk an offensive engagement under the circumstances, which was exactly Longstreet's point.

Nevertheless, after Lee made his apparently inflexible decision to give battle at Gettysburg, I do believe that there was still a chance for him to prevail due to the haphazard way the battle developed. However, this depended upon Longstreet acting as rapidly and as decisively as possible, as time was most decidedly of the essence. In my view, Longstreet did not do so. He was simply not the right man at the right place for what Lee had in mind.

I believe one major flaw in Lee's character as a commander was that he seemed to have this implicit belief that everyone else was another Robert E. Lee, and that any lieutenant of his would naturally act exactly as he would under any given set of circumstances. (We can witness this in a salient way in regard to Lee's now famous order to Ewell to take Cemetery Hill "if practicable." Ewell interpreted "if practicable" in exactly the opposite way Lee had intended it. Lee meant: "if at all possible," while Ewell read: "Unless there is the slightest chance of a repulse.") Thus, Lee's sometimes fatal flaw of giving too much discretion to subordinates in his belief that it was not necessary to "micro-manage."

Having said all this, one cannot simply dismiss anything Longstreet had to write, especially as at least some of it was supported by independent accounts. Once again, Longstreet, Hood, Law and Kershaw were in no way writing to vindicate Sickles; nor were Long and Allan. The latter two colonels were writing to attack Longstreet for his delay, thus implying that had he hit Sickles before he made his advance, then the South would have ipso facto prevailed that day. Longstreet does not retort that he would have been worse off by attacking Sickles in his original placement. On the contrary, he retorts that Sickles's move had been inevitable regardless when Longstreet would have attacked, so the timing issue was a red herring of sorts.

Also, Ole, you simply cannot get around the fact that both Law and Hood protested attacking Sickle's advance position, while neither of Sickles's division commanders did likewise in being ordered to move into it; nor did either express any such feeling at the time--as indicated by their official reports.

Someone, I believe Sam, quoted Hancock saying or writing that he had "never understood" the reason for Sickles's move. But at the time, while the Second Corps "watched in awe" (from Soul of the Lion) as the Third Corps advanced with "their colors flying," did Hancock personally, or through a courier, rush to Meade and express concern, or inquire if the commander had authorized this movement or was even aware of it?

This was one of the aspects of this entire controversy that intrigued me from the start of my investigating it on a personal basis. Why had there been so little evidence that this feeling that Sickles had "blundered" existed at the time? Upon analyzing the situation, I believe such criticism that exists today primarily all emanates from the publication of Meade's Letter to Colonel Benedict, written privately in 1870 and not made public until 1886. From that point, some historian or other; some writer or other, simply leaped to the the conclusion that Meade--the West Point professional--must be correct, while Sickles--the political hack of an amateur general--must have been a "buffoon." Then, other writers playing follow-the-leader simply continued to reiterate this view until it became accepted as gospel. Additionally, as I have already noted, General Sickles often did himself no favors with his loose cannon, defensive remarks that cast aspersions upon Meade and other officers; remarks that had been ill-advised and unnecessary to prove his case. The facts of the matter had been on his side all along, and he should have contented himself with recounting them.

On a final note, I remain incredulous that so many here keep charging me with making a case that rests entirely on the hypothetical question as to whether or not Sickles's original line would have held or not. As I pointed out, it is beyond historical dispute that Sickles's advanced line did hold long enough for the Union to prevail at Gettysburg. Those of you opposed to my views here would seem to build your case on the hypothetical assumption that "the Union would have won anyway and perhaps even would have won more decisively" had Sickles held his original position. You presume to label my argument as "strictly hypothetical," when you would seem willing to sacrifice a sure thing--a decisive Union victory at Gettysburg--in favor of a hypothetical argument that would jeopardize a known favorable outcome for the Union--if you had the power to effect it???

Don Schneider