What if Sickles didn't advance?

I am sorry but what do you mean when you say lost command for 3 days what happen to them the command thank you
 
All that was needed to prevent Sickles' movement was for Longstreet to organize and begin his attack anytime from 1100 hrs(when Lee originally planned for the attack) until the middle of the afternoon (when Sickles' finally decided on his move) .

I don't think there was any way Longstreet was going to get his men in position for an 11 am attack, under the best of circumstances. Just to give you a comparison, one July 2 we were giving a program at Devil's Den and had about 300 attendees assembled in the parking lot at Big Round Top. We wanted to get them down the hill to Devil's Den and took them down the Boy Scout Trail that leads down that way. Single or double file was the best we could do. It took more than half an hour to move 300 people less than half a mile. Picture moving thousands of troops, lots of artillery, getting them placed, from the area of Chambersburg Pike and Marsh Creek to the area near the Peach Orchard, some four miles.

According to Coddington, Longstreet ordered his corps (about 17 miles west of Gettysburg) to march to Gburg at about 10 am on July 1, but they did not move until 4 pm, reportedly because Johnson's Division (Ewell) and the Second Corps wagon train had the road blocked. McLaws reached the Marsh Creek area at about midnight, Hood reached about 1 am. Artillery was delayed by wagons on the road and left for Gburg between midnight and 1, arriving at the Gburg area around 8 or 9 am. Law's brigade and Pickett's division left early in the am of July 2. Longstreet's troops stopped at Marsh Creek because that's where the water was and they were in desperate need of it. Getting all those men and equipment to the battlefield four miles further east takes time.

In the meantime, as dawn broke Lee had people checking out the terrain. Among these was Johnston and his party who went down near the Peach Orchard to check out LRT. Union troops were not there yet but were nearby but apparently Johnston could not see them because of the woods. Around 9 am Johnston was finished and went looking for Lee. Around this time, Pendleton told Lee that Sickles's troops had arrived and were in the lower sections of Cemetery Ridge. Lee still thinks no one is on LRT itself.

About 10 am Longstreet met with Alexander to arrange for artillery and troop placements, and they could see there were Union signalmen on LRT. Lee and Longstreet did not want his troop movements seen by these signalmen. Lee gave Longstreet permission to wait for Law's Brigade to arrive (Pickett was nowhere nearby yet) and when it did at about noon, Johnston began to lead them south toward the Union left flank.

Johnston led them, staying on ground that was not visible to LRT, to the Black Horse Tavern on Fairfield Road and then onto a road that would take them toward Willoughby Run as he gets closer to Marsh Creek. Suddenly (and I know it's sudden, I was just there on Friday), this low ground rises and is visible from LRT. That's when the countermarch back to find another way to move south unobserved began. They have to go back to Black Horse Tavern, move across fields and take down fences, to find a way, and in the meantime they have to sort themselves out because they are getting all tangled up.

The odd thing is that when the Union signalmen spotted the Confederate troops, they had already started their countermarch and were headed north toward Chambersburg Pike. Coddington doesn't say this and I honestly don't know if Sickles knew that the report was that the Confederates were moving north, but in any event, they turned back south and found a way to get down to what is now the Millerstown Road area, and by the time they did, Sickles had moved.

Meantime, of course, among the Confederates everybody is fighting with everybody else. Longstreet is mad at McLaws and Lee, Lee is mad at Longstreet, Ewell is unhappy because Lee wants his men moved south and then doesn't want his men moved south....... and the troops are hot and tired and out of water. The miracle is that anything got started at all on July 2.
 
Whatever the excuses, Longstreet was not in favor of the attack and was in no hurry to implement it. If Lee had suddenly agreed to Longstreets wide ranging flankiing movement(with no intel whether all the AoP was at Gettysburg or their exact positions) can we assume he would have been in agreement with Lee that move faster?
My point is though, that whatever the reason's for Longstreet's chronic tardiness, he was late on all three days of the battle and did nothing to speed up his corps movements nor his assaults, in order to implement plans, with which he was in violent disagreement.
 
Whatever the excuses, Longstreet was not in favor of the attack and was in no hurry to implement it. If Lee had suddenly agreed to Longstreets wide ranging flankiing movement(with no intel whether all the AoP was at Gettysburg or their exact positions) can we assume he would have been in agreement with Lee that move faster?
My point is though, that whatever the reason's for Longstreet's chronic tardiness, he was late on all three days of the battle and did nothing to speed up his corps movements nor his assaults, in order to implement plans, with which he was in violent disagreement.

Agreed, he did get petulant about it, but the route chosen by Johnston that necessitated the turnaround was not Longstreet's fault, nor was the late start of his troops from the Cashtown area on July 1 (thank Ewell's troops for that). Too many blame Longstreet's whining entirely for everything that went wrong. I believe that the whole thing was a combination of all kinds of Confederate mistakes and disagreements, and Federal poise and determination.

But whether Longstreet was right or wrong about moving around between the AoP and Washington or not, he WAS right that the Union position was too strong to attack successfully. Lee allowed himself to get suckered into a battle he should never have fought, and he should have known it by the evening of July 1 when he knew the Federals were digging in on Cemetery Hill and there were still five more corps moving in. Lee was too good a general for that mistake, but he just let his testosterone to get the better of him.
 
Right the position was too strong. Would have been another Pickett's charge,at best,had Sickles followed Meade's orders.
 
My compliments, Lt. Rob, Many know that Gen'l. Lee was not at his best physically at Gettysburg. Neither side wanted Gettysburg. Gen'l. Meade wanted Pipe Creek, MD. (Although Gettysburg was probably better ground for the AoP.) Gen'l. Lee would have preferred an earlier entrance from Gen'l. Stuart with fresh intelligence for positioning the ANV perhaps somewhere else, also. Lee was also aware of Gen'l. A.P. Hill being indisposed and Gen'l. Ewell being indecisive. Gettysburg just happened. Personally, I believe General Lee was exasperated with his overall situation and decided simply to roll the dice, come what may, placing his trust squarely on the backs of his confident foot soldiers. Gen'l. Longstreet was, in my opinion, the beneficiary (scapegoat) of the inevitable failure because he was in charge of the execution of days 2 & 3. Perhaps Gen'l. Longstreet's Gettysburg legacy would be much better had he executed both assaults cheerfully and w/o resentment, irrespective of the outcome.

At great risk of insulting someone, one can only look at Gen'l. Longstreet's horribly inadequate equestrian statue at the battlefield to see how badly maligned he is.
 
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Agreed, he did get petulant about it, but the route chosen by Johnston that necessitated the turnaround was not Longstreet's fault, nor was the late start of his troops from the Cashtown area on July 1 (thank Ewell's troops for that). Too many blame Longstreet's whining entirely for everything that went wrong. I believe that the whole thing was a combination of all kinds of Confederate mistakes and disagreements, and Federal poise and determination.
But whether Longstreet was right or wrong about moving around between the AoP and Washington or not, he WAS right that the Union position was too strong to attack successfully. Lee allowed himself to get suckered into a battle he should never have fought, and he should have known it by the evening of July 1 when he knew the Federals were digging in on Cemetery Hill and there were still five more corps moving in. Lee was too good a general for that mistake, but he just let his testosterone to get the better of him.



Well, in fact, Longstreet did not have to wait and turn his whole corps around. In the interest of regaining lost time(Lee was apparently the onlyconfederate commander aware of, much less worried about, lost time), he could have just reversed his corps in its track.
In fact though, WE students of the history of the CW, Know the attack was doomed to failure, after the fact. Longstreet's confidence in failure, was no more obvious than Lee's confidence in its success.
Lee, of course, was not suckered into doing what he had been doing for three day.
 
Late to the debate, but I've thought about this one A LOT. Sickles deployment sucked not only because it was out of position, but he also left his own flank in the air, which to me is unforgivably stupid -- and is a major reason the 1st Minnesota had to be thrown into the breach. Picture 3rd Corp being deployed in a slight < shape (140-150 degree angle) early in the day, pointed nearly directly west, connected to Hancock's II Corp, with the other end anchoring below LRT -- where they were essentially forced later in the day. More of the Artillery reserve is brought up to protect the center of the < before Hood/McLaws, etc. are in position. Now Longstreet has NO approach to LRT that can't be quickly countered. Yes/no?
 
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