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Many will condemn Stuart for his actions preceding his arrival at Gettysburg. But the wonder of wonder is their account of Lee's actions per Stuart in the "disobedience of orders" and he "should have been shot" situation.
Lee "possessed a noble and lovable nature." If that's the excuse why Lee did not replace Stuart, isn't Lee militarily incompetent. One often sees comments that this or that confederate general failed at Gettysburg. Of course Lee is considered the greatest generals of all time. But.... Lee was totally unable to see the failure in his generals, so the story goes.
But how could a great general not see the failure in Stuart, if it were so. Lee can't be great on one hand and not have the competence to see miserable failure.
That's the problem, if it were so. I think so many have never read the OR report that Stuart wrote. It was a long report. If Stuart had disobeyed orders, a long report would have hung him.
Why did Stuart ride around the Yankees? Because the Yankees had something to do with it! They crossed the Potomac River before Stuart, Lee and every other Confederate general thought the AoP would.
But if some "historians" had read the actual Stuart Gettysburg report, what the Yankees did to delay Stuart is very clear.
Some hold to the old mantra that Robert E. Lee never made a mistake; the Army of the Potomac never did anything to win. Such is misplaced logic!
Gettysburg certainly raises more questions than answers about Lee's generalship. It was not one of his better days.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
[quote=whitworth]"disobedience of orders" and he "should have been shot" situation.
Why did Stuart ride around the Yankees? Because the Yankees had something to do with it! They crossed the Potomac River before Stuart, Lee and every other Confederate general thought the AoP would.
quote]
I must be missing something about the "disobedience of orders" and he "should have been shot" stuff. Where does that come from?
From my perspective, General Lee, as great a soldier as he was, was notorious for issuing somewhat vague orders.
"If practible" seemingly his mantra. (This phrase again came into question at Gettysburg with Ewell, as we recall.) it amounts to a discretionary order.
(As an aside, these types of orders are much in contrast to those of which Gen. Grant issued, which were for the most part direct, succinct, and to the point. But that's another discussion.)
Stuart was given a free hand in his operations, so how can he be blamed?
The whole of the ANV cavalry was not with Stuart, Lee had other cavalry units with which to scout out the enemy. Why did they not find out the movements of the Yanks?
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I'm sure I'll get shot down by some expert on this venture, but I do believe that Lee, who could be very hard on some subordinates, just could not stay angry with Stuart for too long. In the end, Lee said "He never brought me a piece of false information". Oh, I am sure Lee was more than furious with Stuart for being 'missing' those days leading up to Gettysburg, but I think Lee had such a soft spot for Stuart, steming from Lee's superintendency at West Point, and Stuart's failed courtship of Lee's daughter, Mary. I see Stuart at the prodigal son at times. "Beauty" always worked his way back into Lee's good graces.
This is all my very humble opinion from what I have read of the Lee and Stuart relationship, and contains a heavy amount of 'reading between the lines' which I know can be an anethma on these boards.,
__________________ "Live in the world you inhabit. Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them. Turn them to your advantage." - R. E. Lee
Another excellent observation, Miss Markie. Makes good sense. And we all do a lot of reading between the lines.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
The "should have been shot" is making the rounds of another site.
Stuart was not entirely blameless, and neither was Lee. Stuart got a late start from Virginia because he was fighting a rear guard action at the gaps of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Lee gave permission for Stuart, who was coming up late to begin with, to cross the Bull Run Mountains to the east.
Stuart got blocked by Hancock's 2nd Corps. Hancock had the gaps blocked before Stuart's arrival.
Few attackers of Stuart's movement ever mention that as Lee's rear guard protector at the Blue Ridge gaps, Stuart did not start his trek to Pennsylvania until the day Hooker started moving the Army of the Potomac across the Potomac River. How anyone can expect a commander some thirty miles below the Potomac River to preceive AoP movement is beyond me.
Of course, many have never read the official OR Gettysburg report submitted by General JEB Stuart and other timely AoP reports from June 25th to July 1.
Many will condemn Stuart for his actions preceding his arrival at Gettysburg. But the wonder of wonder is their account of Lee's actions per Stuart in the "disobedience of orders" and he "should have been shot" situation.
Lee "possessed a noble and lovable nature." If that's the excuse why Lee did not replace Stuart, isn't Lee militarily incompetent. One often sees comments that this or that confederate general failed at Gettysburg. Of course Lee is considered the greatest generals of all time. But.... Lee was totally unable to see the failure in his generals, so the story goes.
But how could a great general not see the failure in Stuart, if it were so. Lee can't be great on one hand and not have the competence to see miserable failure.
That's the problem, if it were so. I think so many have never read the OR report that Stuart wrote. It was a long report. If Stuart had disobeyed orders, a long report would have hung him.
Why did Stuart ride around the Yankees? Because the Yankees had something to do with it! They crossed the Potomac River before Stuart, Lee and every other Confederate general thought the AoP would.
But if some "historians" had read the actual Stuart Gettysburg report, what the Yankees did to delay Stuart is very clear.
Some hold to the old mantra that Robert E. Lee never made a mistake; the Army of the Potomac never did anything to win. Such is misplaced logic!
The entire subject of Stuart's Ride is a very difficult one to study. Much that is said about it sounds right on the surface and looks much weaker after you plunge through the details.
I know a retired Air Force colonel who is a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg. This topic is a favorite of his; he gives tours on it from time to time. At one point, he went to the trouble of tracking down the last surviving officer of the old US horse cavalry to ask questions about what it took to maintain a large cavalry force on a ride like that.
His opinion: once Stuart started and ran into the Yankee columns, he was out of good choices. Turning back would have forced him to cross the Blue Ridge, putting him behind Longstreet's & Hill's columns, keeping him out of action for quite a while. Gambling on crossing the Potomac to the East at least allowed his force to have an impact.
All that criticism about dragging along the 125 wagons he captured: turns out he might have moved slower without them. Why? Because many of them were loaded with grain, which meant he didn't have to stop and disperse to let his mounts graze.
The long ride from Hanover on the 30th to Carlisle and then back to Gettysburg: just bad luck -- combined with inefficiency at the Ewell end. Although Ewell knew by this point that Stuart was out there somewhere, he didn't have his units looking for him. However, Ewell did have some mounted men who heard the firing on the 30th. They didn't go looking to see what it was. They didn't notify Ewell. If they'd done either, Stuart probably would have been coming into Gettysburg with Early's division on July 1.
Lee himself mishandled the cavalry Stuart did leave behind -- or his small staff did. Otherwise those 2 bridgea (Jones and Robertson) Stuart had left behind would have been moving north earlier.
Or Robertson (who, as a field commander, made a great rear area training officer) could have simply followed the orders Stuart left with him, in which case he would have started moving north of the Potomac 1-2 days earlier.
Lee himself seems to have thought of Stuart as his cavalry/intelligence officer. With Stuart unavailable and no one on his small staff tasked with or seemingly capable of handling the function, things fell through the cracks.
What Lee missed was not so much Stuarts Cavalry, but Stuart himself, or more precisely, timely intelligence of the location and movements of the AoP, from the only source that Lee considered adequately reliable. Apparently, Lee was inclined to discount most other sources of intelligence that did not originate from Stuart.
It is a fact that Gettysburg was the only battle that Lee stumbled into. It is a fact, that Stuart had only 1/3 of his Cavalry with him, the other 2/3's was with Lee. It is a fact that the AoP never march so fast for so far, in its career as it did from Meades accession to command until the 2d day of battle at Gettysburg. It is a fact that Lee was unable to coordinate the actions of his corps commanders during the battle.
P.S. Would Lee have been more favorable to Longstreets plan, if Stuart had been available on the 1st or 2d day of battle, to give Lee his necessary reassuring intelligence on the AoP?
P.S. Would Lee have been more favorable to Longstreets plan, if Stuart had been available on the 1st or 2d day of battle, to give Lee his necessary reassuring intelligence on the AoP?
Excellent question! The rest of your post was good, too.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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Logic on Stuart? 
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