If he had a history, why was he a corps commander?Rather, Sickles fell victim to a temporary bout of insanity. And as he had a history of such spells, and it was well-documented, it's the Union Army's fault that they put someone in charge of a corp who could at any moment take leave of his senses.
Oliver Stone?
All true - plus the intended ANV attack so far as appears would have ended up with Longstreet's force moving obliquely across Sickles' front, not quite presenting his "flank" but similar. There's no doubt that the ground Sickles moved to was "higher". But he lacked enough brains to balance that "benefit" against all the other "detriments". The notion that he made this decision to disrupt Longstreet by sacrificing his corps is the sort of post-battle effluent one would expect from an ethics-challenged Tammany pol.
He didn't have that "history". He was very politically-connected in NY and had raised a brigade at the outset of the war. He got promoted by working his connections. He was also tight with Hooker and that helped him get corps command. The problem is that his "military experience" before the war was his role in the NY Militia.
I was being sarcastic.
I figured you were but the post you were replying to wasn't - so far as I could tell, anyway ...I was being sarcastic.
I highly doubt he got off the horse unaided, unless he ended up splayed flat on his face in the mud.
Potential problems: (1) you'd be stuck with the tab without knowing it; (2) I hope you had your wallet under lock and key; (3) he's "the kind of guy" you might find with your wife when you "came home 48 hours later".
I'd say that's only the "tip of the iceberg" in that story.
I'll give Dan this much. In the area of public relations, he was well ahead of his time in employing lackeys and flunkies to get his "story out". Not until MacArthur perfected the art of stuffing his staff with boot lickers did another US General master this art.
My view is that Sickles took the wrong actions for understandable reasons. He was receiving reports that strong columns of Confederates were moving south along and behind Seminary Ridge and so dispatches part of the 1st US Sharpshooters and 3rd Maine who ran into Anderson's Division in Pitzer's Woods. As the pressure increased, Buford's cavalry (who were guarding the Union left) were ordered away and no other cavalry replaced them. As the 1st USSS and 3rd Maine retreat back to Cemetery Ridge, they again report Confederate troops moving south. With no cavalry watching his left, Sickles started to look at the Emmitsburg Road ridge as a good position to both keep an eye on Confederate movements and to protect the left flank of the army. He sent multiple reports back to HQ but the only response he gets back is for General Henry Hunt to hear what he has to say. Sickles took him out to his skirmish lines and pointed out the strengths of the position to which Hunt agrees although he also noted that if the Confederates occupied Seminary Ridge in force, Sickles would be in trouble. After Hunt left and his skirmishers kept noting movements on their front, Sickles took it upon himself to advance his line to the ERR.
That's apocryphal. By some accounts, he was probably in shock when they took him off the horse and into the blanket when they carried him to the rear. At some point, one of his staff stuck a cigar in his mouth but it's tough to believe that he was actively smoking it.
I agree that Sickles was not actively attempting to blunt Longstreet's attack. But that said, I don't see Longstreet making such a terrible attack either. His orders from Lee were to find and attack the Union flank and, hopefully, roll it north in order to close in on Cemetery Hill. If Sickles had not moved forward, it's a distinct possibility that no attack would have been made until much later as Hood and Longstreet searched out where the line ended and deploying. Lee's orders to attack up the Emmitsburg Road were predicated on the flank being someplace around the Peach Orchard. I don't think that Lee would have been too upset if Longstreet had to go off-script if the Yankees didn't cooperate.
Sickles was helped off of his horse, which was strangely uninjured by the shell.
That's a reasonable analysis, but I think we agree that whatever the basis for Sickles' "why" in the abstract, the decision to make the move unilaterally was simply incompetent for the numerous reasons Powell and others have pointed out. The "strength of the position" became pretty much irrelevant when the result was exposing his flanks and doubling the length of a line his corps was already strained in holding. The other thing that bears mention is that Sickles may have "overcompensated" on July 2 for his erroneous conclusion about where Jackson was headed on May 2. His message issued that morning had helped fuel the flawed assumption that Jackson was retreating. (Of course, Sickles being Sickles, his subsequent report played that down).
I took that as sarcasm - could be wrong.
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