Lee and Longstreet's 'Disagreement' on Day Two

The point is(once again) is why was Longstreet to Attack at 1100 or even1200 or 1600 hrs etc, instead of the early morning hrs as originally planned by Lee, on Day 2? Did Longstreet await laws brigade while on the march or did he wait for its arrival before starting the planned movement to the Union Left flank?
It can only be noted, again, that most of those 'circumstances' mentioned et. al., that most directly led to Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, had their source in Lee and Longstreet's Disagreement, both, on Day 2 And Day 3.



P.S. ref Post #221: Obviously the main attacks on Day 2 And Day 3; both imperfectly planned by Lee and imperfectly executed by Longstreet.(the importance of this, as to this particular thread, is that both failed for the same reasons and both happended within 24 hrs of each other)
 
Once again. The reason pushing the attack later in the day is that Lee has rec'd bad recon from Johnson and plans to attack up the E road toward CH. Lee and Longstreet argue re this as Longstreet prefers to attack across the E road,toward CR. Then Mclaws discovers that Union troops extend beyond his right. The brigades,therefore, have to be shifted farther South and realinged to attack accross the E. road. Longstreet needs to wait for Law to come up so he can extend the line to the South. Further,Hood's scouts discover that the Union line extends even farther South than Mclaws discovered and the the ground,over which,Hood is to attack is inappropriate,if not impossible to carry,etc.etc.etc. Look,it doesn't matter,when Lee attacks this superior enemy,with a superior General,with numerically superior troops, in a superior defensive position,with superior interior lines,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Lee's gonna lose. Get it! Longstreet gets it,Hood gets it,Meade gets it. So why didn't Lee,and why don't you get it?
 
Bumping your question up 30K feet, imagine how the "war" would have been different had Longstreet, the most brilliant mind on either side, been in command from the start. A military victory was not possible for the South. Lee never understood that. Longstreet did. Had the South waged a battle of recognition, and not warfare, the land you and I know today would look far different.

You've been reading too much of Longstreet's book.
 
The point is(once again) is why was Longstreet to Attack at 1100 or even1200 or 1600 hrs etc, instead of the early morning hrs as originally planned by Lee, on Day 2? Did Longstreet await laws brigade while on the march or did he wait for its arrival before starting the planned movement to the Union Left flank?
It can only be noted, again, that most of those 'circumstances' mentioned et. al., that most directly led to Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, had their source in Lee and Longstreet's Disagreement, both, on Day 2 And Day 3.



P.S. ref Post #221: Obviously the main attacks on Day 2 And Day 3; both imperfectly planned by Lee and imperfectly executed by Longstreet.(the importance of this, as to this particular thread, is that both failed for the same reasons and both happended within 24 hrs of each other)

First of all, Lee never planned for any attack in the early morning hours. He knew that Longstreet's two divisions were still on their way. Please do not delude yourself into believing in the "sunrise orders" hogwash. That is "lost cause" nonsense perpetrated by the SHS people. Captain Johnston didn't even return from his recon mission until about 6:30 to 7:00 am at the earliest. Longstreet was given permission to wait for Law. Thusly, he stayed put until Law came up.

Just what the lay of the land, the exterior lines, the fact that Longstreet's two divisions were just coming up at about 8:30 am and were tired, hungry and thirsty, the fact that Captain Johnston's intelligence mission was flubbed, the fact Federal troops and Meade worked hard and bravely to save Sickles, and the lack of support from Hill have anything to do with the roots of Longstreet's disagreement?

The reason why the attacks were imperfect had much to do with the lack of accurate intelligence. Lee chose to believe the faulty intel.
 
Surely, Lee or Longstreet are not depending on a recon report many hrs. old, even at 1100 hrs? Which both Lee and Longstreet is totally outof date, when they both learn of the occupation of the Peach Orchard by Sickles a little after1200 hrs. Is it not more accurate to point to the historical evidence of the words and actions of Lee and Longstreet, as explaining the slowness of the confederate attack to develop and assume that it was the direct result of Lee's and Longstreet's fundamental disagreement over strategy and tactics, rather than an out of date recon report, no matter how accurate, or not, it actually was?
 
Surely, Lee or Longstreet are not depending on a recon report many hrs. old, even at 1100 hrs? Which both Lee and Longstreet is totally outof date, when they both learn of the occupation of the Peach Orchard by Sickles a little after1200 hrs. Is it not more accurate to point to the historical evidence of the words and actions of Lee and Longstreet, as explaining the slowness of the confederate attack to develop and assume that it was the direct result of Lee's and Longstreet's fundamental disagreement over strategy and tactics, rather than an out of date recon report, no matter how accurate, or not, it actually was?

Yes, they were depending on that same recon mission. That's why Lee sent the man up there in the first place. Sickles did not finalize his position in the Peach Orchard until 1500 hrs. Buford's cavalry division was there until about 11:30 or noon. In between the time that he put his whole corps into the Peach Orchard area and Buford's leaving, Sickles sent up some skirmishers from Berdan's sharpshooters and from a Maine regiment. When they started skirmishing Wilcox's brigade from Anderson's division the Union skirmishers thought that they were fighting Longstreet's men. This further startled Sickles into the ill-advised advance. So there was bad intel going on on both sides. Circumstances like this are quite common in warfare and is called "friction" in today's parlance. Goof-ups like this were more the norm than the other way around.

It is more accurate to point to the historical evidence of their actions rather than anyone's words. Many participants in the battle embellished their accomplishments or downplayed their mistakes at the battle, this included Early, Trimble, Pendleton, Longstreet, Sickles, Birney and Chamberlain. Probably the most honest accounts came from E.P. Alexander and Henry Hunt (Although, Hunt's claim that he intentionally held artillery fire on July 3 to lure the Rebels into the attack sounds wrong, as they had already decided to attack anyway.)

And I still hold to Coddington's stance that the timing of the July 2 attack couldn't have happened at a worse time for Meade and a better one for Lee.
 
Surely, Lee or Longstreet are not depending on a recon report many hrs. old, even at 1100 hrs? Which both Lee and Longstreet is totally outof date, when they both learn of the occupation of the Peach Orchard by Sickles a little after1200 hrs. Is it not more accurate to point to the historical evidence of the words and actions of Lee and Longstreet, as explaining the slowness of the confederate attack to develop and assume that it was the direct result of Lee's and Longstreet's fundamental disagreement over strategy and tactics, rather than an out of date recon report, no matter how accurate, or not, it actually was?
No,it's not more accurate,etc. This is 1863,they don't have Twitter or Cell Phones with which to communicate. Communication up and down the lines takes hours;not seconds.
 
No,it's not more accurate,etc. This is 1863,they don't have Twitter or Cell Phones with which to communicate. Communication up and down the lines takes hours;not seconds.

Absolutely on target. One didn't just snap his fingers and have his corps move.
 
No commander worth his salt, wiould build his main assault on an out of date recon report. Surely such, if true, reflects badly on both Longstreet's and Lee's professional abilities as soldiers. The recon report was out of date, at least, as soon as Sickles sent his reconnaisance in force to the Peach Orchard a little after 1200 hrs. From that time until the attack at approx. 1700 hrs. Lee is predicating his main assault on a recon report made long before daylight that morning with no thought of changing it according to new evidence? Longstreet certainly did as did Hood later.
If we did not have the evidence of Day 3, supreme belief in Lee's and Longstreet's differing strategy and tactics having no decisive effect on the success of the ANV's attacks on Day 2, might have some logical or reasonable basis in fact.
 
No commander worth his salt, wiould build his main assault on an out of date recon report. Surely such, if true, reflects badly on both Longstreet's and Lee's professional abilities as soldiers. The recon report was out of date, at least, as soon as Sickles sent his reconnaisance in force to the Peach Orchard a little after 1200 hrs. From that time until the attack at approx. 1700 hrs. Lee is predicating his main assault on a recon report made long before daylight that morning with no thought of changing it according to new evidence? Longstreet certainly did as did Hood later.
If we did not have the evidence of Day 3, supreme belief in Lee's and Longstreet's differing strategy and tactics having no decisive effect on the success of the ANV's attacks on Day 2, might have some logical or reasonable basis in fact.

And again, we are not talking about a day and age when there were radios, deuce-and-a-half trucks, cell phones, etc. Deploying a corps for an attack could take a half hour (and that was fast). They had to go with what intel was at hand and hope that the situation didn't drastically change. Problem was not the age of Captain Johnston's report, but the intel, period. It was wrong at daybreak and wrong at 1500 hrs. Again, your timing is off, Sickles' reconnaissance in force did not occur until about 1500 hrs when he finalized his new position (he force he sent forward after Buford left was only a skirmish force). Buford didn't leave the Peach Orchard area until about 1200 hrs (give or take a half hour). Longstreet's July 2 assault began at 1600 hrs.

Once the battle started, despite his reservations about Lee's battle plan, Longstreet, for the most part, did as was ordered - especially on July 2. Thus, their disagreement did not have a significant impact on the battle's course, or the outcome.
 
But, by 1500 hrs, it was too late, as the results show. Does the historical record of the failure of two major confederate assaults indicate that Lee's strategy and tactics were defective, as implied by Lonstreet's heartfelt criticisms of them, or, because they were both delivered in the afternoon rather than in the morning, as Lee had wanted, both commanded by the same officer who voiced his lack of confidence in the first attack and predicted utter failure for the other?
There is a pattern of events, leading from the very planning stages of the Pa. Invasion in Richmond, through three days of battle, that can best be logically explained by the effects of a fundamental difference of opinion between Lee and his chief Lt., Longstreet.
 
But, by 1500 hrs, it was too late, as the results show. Does the historical record of the failure of two major confederate assaults indicate that Lee's strategy and tactics were defective, as implied by Lonstreet's heartfelt criticisms of them, or, because they were both delivered in the afternoon rather than in the morning, as Lee had wanted, both commanded by the same officer who voiced his lack of confidence in the first attack and predicted utter failure for the other?
There is a pattern of events, leading from the very planning stages of the Pa. Invasion in Richmond, through three days of battle, that can best be logically explained by the effects of a fundamental difference of opinion between Lee and his chief Lt., Longstreet.

The results do not show that 1500 hrs was too late, not when you factor in the fact that the fighting on Culp's Hill lasted until 2200 hrs. Longstreet's attack simply petered out because of a lack of available troops and a lack of adequate support from R. H. Anderson 's division. In fact since Sickles had just created the nice glass jaw for Longstreet to hit (as I posted before, about 1500 hrs), the time that Longstreet made it down to the Union left couldn't have been more fortuitous for the Confederates.

Lee's plan was defective mainly because of the poor intelligence delivered by Captain Johnston. Again, as I have repeated, Longstreet, for the most part, did not let his personal feelings regarding the plan stop him from carrying out what was ordered. As far as the third day was concerned, Longstreet had good reason to believe that Pickett's Charge would fail. You don't just will success.

Your last paragraph is just plain wrong. Once put in motion, Longstreet fell in with the planned operation.
 
The battles themselves have little or no relevance to the question of the effect of Lee's and Longstreet's disagreement over the best tactics and strategy to be followed, for the invasion of Pa. The question is, did that disagreement produce the 'circumstances' that resulted in Lee's plans for Day 2 inoperative or moot, directly leading to the failure of those plans on both days?
Were the 'circumstances' for the results of Day 3 a difference of degree and not substance, compared to the same failure of Lee's plans as that of Day 2?
 
The battles themselves have little or no relevance to the question of the effect of Lee's and Longstreet's disagreement over the best tactics and strategy to be followed, for the invasion of Pa. The question is, did that disagreement produce the 'circumstances' that resulted in Lee's plans for Day 2 inoperative or moot, directly leading to the failure of those plans on both days?
Were the 'circumstances' for the results of Day 3 a difference of degree and not substance, compared to the same failure of Lee's plans as that of Day 2?

And I keep telling you that, "no", the disagreement did not create or produce the circumstances that rendered the battle plans for July 2 moot. And I keep telling you what those circumstances were that rendered the plan moot or inoperative.

The circumstances that led to Pickett's Charge were the activities by Ewell and Longstreet on their respective flanks on the early morning hours of July 3.
 
The battles themselves have little or no relevance to the question of the effect of Lee's and Longstreet's disagreement over the best tactics and strategy to be followed, for the invasion of Pa. The question is, did that disagreement produce the 'circumstances' that resulted in Lee's plans for Day 2 inoperative or moot, directly leading to the failure of those plans on both days?
Were the 'circumstances' for the results of Day 3 a difference of degree and not substance, compared to the same failure of Lee's plans as that of Day 2?
Look,OC. Lee's attacks on days 2 and 3 were a "Bad Idea". It's,really,that simple.
 
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