Chancellorsville Chancellorsville, A Recipe For Disaster For The ANV!

He was there to cover that flank. On the afternoon of July 2, between Brinkerhoff's Ridge and Hunterstown, four full brigades of Union cavalry--fully half of the AoP Cavalry Corps--was operating either on Lee's flank (in the case of Brinkerhoff's Ridge) or beyond it (at Hunterstown). Given that fact, is it any real surprise that Lee would send Stuart with a very large force of cavalry out there to guard that flank? Or that Lee called Imboden's brigade to the battlefield on the morning of July 3 and placed it behind his center so he would have a force to react if that Yankee cavalry got around his flank and into his rear?

That was Stuart's primary mission. IF the opportunity presented itself to make some mischief in the Union rear, fine. But that was not his primary mission. Read Stuart's report. Read Lee's. And adopt Occam's Razor when thinking about this: the simplest explanation is the most likely one. Nothing else makes any sense.

IIRC, didnt Stuart's report characterize his fight on July 3rd as being defensive? Something along the lines of, we kept the enemy from moving around the flank.

Ryan
 
Not until I participated in Eric's lecture about East Cavalry field and the action out there, did I realize how little I knew of what took place, there. So much of what is remembered on the 3 July 1863 "Third Day Gettysburg" revolves around Pickett's Charge, therefore assumed to be related to Pickett's Charge. I recently dug up this map to review what took place, in this engagement.


http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/maps/eastcavalryfieldmap.htmlExpired Image Removed
 
The thing is, it was rather effective in driving off a significant part of the Union batteries on Cemetery Ridge. But there were plenty of reserves to bring into action, so although effective it wasn't enough. Plus Union artillery chief Hunt kind of rope-a-doped the Confederates by having his guns slacken fire to conserve ammo for the expected attack.


Also the 2nd wave issue gets looked over but if there was truly a plan to send in more troops to exploit a breakthrough, they would have to start marching before the breakthrough actually takes place due to the distance between the lines. None were ever sent from the confederate side
 
Also the 2nd wave issue gets looked over but if there was truly a plan to send in more troops to exploit a breakthrough, they would have to start marching before the breakthrough actually takes place due to the distance between the lines. None were ever sent from the confederate side

Longstreet stopped them from moving.
 
Which takes us down a whole other path of would Longstreet have ever released them to go forward knowing his opinion of the attack to start with.
 
Indeed, Stuart's actions make no sense if he was to be part of the attack. Why would he fire a cannon in four directions? On the other hand, if he's there to guard the left flank he wants to know if there are Union units in the vicinity, and wants to see if he can smoke them out. In that case, firing the cannon in four directions makes a great deal of sense.

Also, there's no good route to take from where he was to the Union rear.

Nothing about the whole thing makes any sense if he was part of the attack, but if he's guarding the left flank, everything falls into place.
 
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Which takes us down a whole other path of would Longstreet have ever released them to go forward knowing his opinion of the attack to start with.

Well, we'll never know, but we can assume he would have done so if he had evidence the Union artillery was driven off. Such evidence would be much less long-range fire at the confederate formation than what he was observing.
 
Yeah, I've read about the bad fuses too. Still seems like too big of a gamble to me. Since he couldn't determine if his artillery was effective, and effectiveness of the artillery was critical to success, then it was really a roll of the dice sort of thing. Given that it seems to me that once things got going Lee should have seen that his artillery wasn't effective and called off the attack rather than continuing to send those men across a mile of open terrain.

But I wasn't there and it's easy for me, knowing what happened, to pass judgment. I just wish Lee hadn't done it.
I searched my files and just don't see this right now but in the OR's, General Lee gave a direct order for testing those fuses.
I believe there was a powder problem causing the cannon over shooting the target, or shooting up hill could also do the same thing. IMO
 
Indeed, Stuart's actions make no sense if he was to be part of the attack. Why would he fire a canon in four directions? On the other hand, if he's there to guard the left flank he wants to know if there are Union units in the vicinity, and wants to see if he can smoke them out. In that case, firing the canon in four directions makes a great deal of sense.

Also, there's no good route to take from where he was to the Union rear.

Nothing about the whole thing makes any sense if he was part of the attack, but if he's guarding the left flank, everything falls into place.
A reconaissacne by fire made perfect sense. Not only did it make sense. I worked slendedly.
 
I searched my files and just don't see this right now but in the OR's, General Lee gave a direct order for testing those fuses.
I believe there was a powder problem causing the cannon over shooting the target, or shooting up hill could also do the same thing. IMO
I think I remember something about faulty fuses?
 
I searched my files and just don't see this right now but in the OR's, General Lee gave a direct order for testing those fuses.
I believe there was a powder problem causing the cannon over shooting the target, or shooting up hill could also do the same thing. IMO

The Army of Northern Virginia normally got its fuses from arsenals in Richmond but due to a shortage after Chancellorsville, the army was resupplied with fuses from South Carolina and Alabama. About a week after the battle, these fuses were tested and found that they had a different burn rate than the ones from Richmond (they burned about a second longer for the same length of fuse). Many shells would travel about 200 yards further than expected before exploding.

Ryan
 
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Some one in the ordnance department failed by not actually doing quality control on the new fuses.
(When I was in the army and we took out a roll of "fuse" we always cut of the end, then took a piece and lighted it to make sure that it worked as it should)

Had this been done properly the artillery men of the army could have been told and modified their "rule" for fuse lengths.
 
Some one in the ordnance department failed by not actually doing quality control on the new fuses.
(When I was in the army and we took out a roll of "fuse" we always cut of the end, then took a piece and lighted it to make sure that it worked as it should)

Had this been done properly the artillery men of the army could have been told and modified their "rule" for fuse lengths.

They did the testing, just not in time for the battle of Gettysburg.

Ryan
 
This has been covered extensively before but as refresher as Hunt pointed out a main issue with the CSA artillery on day 3 at Gettysburg is that they did not concentrate their fire. Add that to the issue with faulty fuzes and smoke that filled sky thus obstructing any observations for adjustment and the result was random hits and misses with very little impact on Union artillery and even less on Union infantry.
 
This has been covered extensively before but as refresher as Hunt pointed out a main issue with the CSA artillery on day 3 at Gettysburg is that they did not concentrate their fire. Add that to the issue with faulty fuzes and smoke that filled sky thus obstructing any observations for adjustment and the result was random hits and misses with very little impact on Union artillery and even less on Union infantry.

I would think that Cushing would argue that they did concentrate their fire and that it was effective. :wink:

Ryan
 
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I've read Ewell's artillery did the most damage and fired the least number shells due to their inability to see the results of their fire.
 
IIRC, didnt Stuart's report characterize his fight on July 3rd as being defensive? Something along the lines of, we kept the enemy from moving around the flank.

Ryan
Stuart was instructed to cause mischief in the enemy rear if the opportunity presented itself. He was there to protect the Ewell's left flank and position himself to cause damage to the retreating enemy upon the breaking of the line by Pickett, Pettigrew-Trimble assault.
 
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