Golden Thread Copse of Trees or Ziegler Grove

I have been doing quite a bit of reading and according to Colonel Birkett D. Fry, in a letter to Bachelder, on December 27th 1877 he stated that, on the morning of July 3, Lee, Longstreet and Hill rode up and sat on a fallen tree approximately 150 feet from Fry's position. They consulted a map for a great length, mounted up and rode away, immediately after, couriers and staff began moving briskly about. Within minutes Pettigrew rode up and said that after a heavy cannonade we would assault the position in our front. Pettigrew then instructed Fry to confer with Pickett about alignment. Picket, Garnett and Fry then met:

"General (Richard B) Garnett who commanded his left brigade, having joined us, it was agreed that he would dress on my command. I immediately returned to and informed Gen Pettigrew of this agreement. It was then understood that my command should be considered the center and that both divisions should align themselves by it."

Fry would go on to tell of his wounding and being carried a few paces behind the line by Union soldiers and tended to by officers of "Genl Shaler's brigade" and of an officer of Genl Hancock's staff. The location actually puts him south of the Copse as Shaler's brigade was part of the 6th Corps.

Captain J.B. Turny of Company K 1st TN Archer/Fry's Brigade:

"By this time General Armistead had noted the importance of the position held by the First Tennessee, and was obliquing to his left to reach us. A few moments of waiting brought his recruits to our aid. The General was on foot at the head of his column. I shall ever have a distinct remembrance of the dash and fire that was in him. He threw his hat on his saber, called for the command to follow, and sealed the stone wall. I kept by his side, and with us went the colors of the First Tennessee. Armistead's purpose was to enfilade, as I had at-tempted. Again we became the targets for the concentrated fire of the enemy's guns of all sizes and all positions. At the first volley I noticed General Armistead drop his saber, on which still hung his hat, and grasp with his right hand his left arm and stagger as if he were about to fall. I caught and supported him. He was wounded in the left arm, and his men bore him behind the stone wall for protection. Seeing the impossibility of effective work from behind the wall and the shattered condition of our lines...."

This position depending upon the size of the Copse at the time was most likely no more than 75 feet from it, well within the Angle.

The above seems to indicate that the object or at least the center of the attack was the Union center and coincidently the Copse.
 
Quite honestly Fry said a lot of stuff over a period of years, some of it quite possibly factual.
EP Alexander could certainly not be classified as untruthful and in his memoirs published in 1907 he states that "A clump of trees in the enemy's line was pointed out to me as our proposed point of attack...." The fact that the batteries in the vicinity of the Angle/Copse suffered more on the 3rd day than any others on the field gives credence to his claim.
 
EP Alexander could certainly not be classified as untruthful and in his memoirs published in 1907 he states that "A clump of trees in the enemy's line was pointed out to me as our proposed point of attack...." The fact that the batteries in the vicinity of the Angle/Copse suffered more on the 3rd day than any others on the field gives credence to his claim.
Well he did soften some of his previous statements as the years wore on but regardless the clump of trees would have been the much larger and wider grove.
 
EP Alexander could certainly not be classified as untruthful and in his memoirs published in 1907 he states that "A clump of trees in the enemy's line was pointed out to me as our proposed point of attack...." The fact that the batteries in the vicinity of the Angle/Copse suffered more on the 3rd day than any others on the field gives credence to his claim.

I think that had a lot to do with the fact that they could be seen from almost the entire artillery line. The batteries on Cemetery Hill took a lot of fire as well (as Osborn attests to in his papers) while McGilvery's line did not because it was masked from part of the Confederate artillery line (although McGilvery does mention that they were taking inaccurate fire).

Ryan
 
I do apologize for being gone for the last few days but was dealing with a wicked stomach bug. I have been following along but really haven't been able to concentrate long enough to respond.

Ryan
 
Well he did soften some of his previous statements as the years wore on but regardless the clump of trees would have been the much larger and wider grove.
There is no evidence to support this, the attack was directed at the angle and the majority of artillery fire was directed there as well, in fact contemporary accounts show that the initial 2 "signal" shots were fired at Cushing and Brown.
 
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There is no evidence to support this, the attack was directed at the angle and the majority of artillery fire was directed there as well, in fact contemporary accounts show that the initial 2 "signal" shots were fired at Cushing and Brown.
Common sense and pictures taken shortly after the battle support this. Speaking as someone who has read and studied military history since I was old enough to read leads me to believe the " angle" they were talking about back then was the federal line stretching down and then back up following the line of the ridge. Having looked around and stood on Cemetery Hill you don't have to be a military mastermind to realize the key to their position. Lee was probably a lot quicker than me and I suspect he figured that out as well.
As to quoting sources we can play that game if you like but they were contradictory even shortly after the war and it only got worse as the players got caught up in who did what or worse who didn't do what.
 
Common sense and pictures taken shortly after the battle support this. Speaking as someone who has read and studied military history since I was old enough to read leads me to believe the " angle" they were talking about back then was the federal line stretching down and then back up following the line of the ridge. Having looked around and stood on Cemetery Hill you don't have to be a military mastermind to realize the key to their position. Lee was probably a lot quicker than me and I suspect he figured that out as well.
As to quoting sources we can play that game if you like but they were contradictory even shortly after the war and it only got worse as the players got caught up in who did what or worse who didn't do what.
I don't believe there is any ambiguity regarding the Angle, either contemporarily or now, it was the location of Cushing's guns and the 71st PA's last position. I assume we are in agreement there?
 
Nope, The "angle" isn't the 68' section of the line it was the entirety of that portion mostly 2nd corps extending down and then back up. Lee was expecting to send most of his army and he wouldn't try to squeeze them into such a small zone of impact.
That being said as Rodes didn't even get started causing Pettigrew to be flanked and driven to his rear and right the survivors of the assault did end up at the copse of trees so I have no problem calling that the high water mark of the attack.
 
I do apologize for being gone for the last few days but was dealing with a wicked stomach bug. I have been following along but really haven't been able to concentrate long enough to respond.

Ryan
Sorry,hope you feel better,soon.
 
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I think some "can't see forest for the trees"( hint) on this question. The Copse is obviously the center point of the attack.
 
I think some "can't see forest for the trees"( hint) on this question. The Copse is obviously the center point of the attack.
I was once told by a very astute friend and professor to beware of any writer who used the word "obviously". According to him, it is a word generally used to mask a lack of evidence for a particular assertion.
Surely this does not apply here. But please help me understand why "the Copse is obviously the center point of the attack"....
 
EP Alexander could certainly not be classified as untruthful and in his memoirs published in 1907 he states that "A clump of trees in the enemy's line was pointed out to me as our proposed point of attack...." The fact that the batteries in the vicinity of the Angle/Copse suffered more on the 3rd day than any others on the field gives credence to his claim.

1907. 43 years after the fact and several years after the Bachelderean mythology settled in...

If that were pointed out to him (by whom?) as the "point of the attack", why doesn't that appear in any contemporary records or in Longstreet's or Lee's official reports?
 
I think some "can't see forest for the trees"( hint) on this question. The Copse is obviously the center point of the attack.

Categorically. As it was the beacon for a planned cocurrent attack by JEB Stuart and his 5,000 horsemen from the East
 
I think some "can't see forest for the trees"( hint) on this question. The Copse is obviously the center point of the attack.

The center point of the attack was north of the Copse at the Angle where Fry and Garnett came together. The question always is, was that a deliberate decision (you'll strike there) or was it just where they happened to strike?

My opinion is that Lee intended the attack to strike somewhere in that area on the ridge but never pinned down a target nor an aiming point as a reference.

Ryan
 
I have been doing quite a bit of reading and according to Colonel Birkett D. Fry, in a letter to Bachelder, on December 27th 1877 he stated that, on the morning of July 3, Lee, Longstreet and Hill rode up and sat on a fallen tree approximately 150 feet from Fry's position. They consulted a map for a great length, mounted up and rode away, immediately after, couriers and staff began moving briskly about. Within minutes Pettigrew rode up and said that after a heavy cannonade we would assault the position in our front. Pettigrew then instructed Fry to confer with Pickett about alignment. Picket, Garnett and Fry then met:

"General (Richard B) Garnett who commanded his left brigade, having joined us, it was agreed that he would dress on my command. I immediately returned to and informed Gen Pettigrew of this agreement. It was then understood that my command should be considered the center and that both divisions should align themselves by it."

Fry would go on to tell of his wounding and being carried a few paces behind the line by Union soldiers and tended to by officers of "Genl Shaler's brigade" and of an officer of Genl Hancock's staff. The location actually puts him south of the Copse as Shaler's brigade was part of the 6th Corps.

Captain J.B. Turny of Company K 1st TN Archer/Fry's Brigade:

"By this time General Armistead had noted the importance of the position held by the First Tennessee, and was obliquing to his left to reach us. A few moments of waiting brought his recruits to our aid. The General was on foot at the head of his column. I shall ever have a distinct remembrance of the dash and fire that was in him. He threw his hat on his saber, called for the command to follow, and sealed the stone wall. I kept by his side, and with us went the colors of the First Tennessee. Armistead's purpose was to enfilade, as I had at-tempted. Again we became the targets for the concentrated fire of the enemy's guns of all sizes and all positions. At the first volley I noticed General Armistead drop his saber, on which still hung his hat, and grasp with his right hand his left arm and stagger as if he were about to fall. I caught and supported him. He was wounded in the left arm, and his men bore him behind the stone wall for protection. Seeing the impossibility of effective work from behind the wall and the shattered condition of our lines...."

This position depending upon the size of the Copse at the time was most likely no more than 75 feet from it, well within the Angle.

The above seems to indicate that the object or at least the center of the attack was the Union center and coincidently the Copse.
Again, the point under discussion is the objective or 'target' of the assault, not the point where it ended. In Fry's writings- as in others- there is nothing to definitely show that the so-called 'Copse of Trees' was the objective.
Given the low height of the trees, the small area that they covered and that they could not be seen from the Confederate lines, it is clear that the 'Copse of Trees' as an objective was a post-war invention.
If any trees were meant as a reference point at the start of the assault, they must have been those far larger, far more mature and clearly visible trees of Ziegler's Grove.
 
Again, the point under discussion is the objective or 'target' of the assault, not the point where it ended. In Fry's writings- as in others- there is nothing to definitely show that the so-called 'Copse of Trees' was the objective.
Given the low height of the trees, the small area that they covered and that they could not be seen from the Confederate lines, it is clear that the 'Copse of Trees' as an objective was a post-war invention.
If any trees were meant as a reference point at the start of the assault, they must have been those far larger, far more mature and clearly visible trees of Ziegler's Grove.

To be fair, the Copse could be seen from much of the Confederate line. The reason that it would be difficult to use as a guide or target is because much of Pickett's Division would not be able to see it at the start because they began in low ground. After that, their line of sight to the Copse would be intermittent because of the rolling terrain.

Ryan
 
EP Alexander could certainly not be classified as untruthful and in his memoirs published in 1907 he states that "A clump of trees in the enemy's line was pointed out to me as our proposed point of attack...." The fact that the batteries in the vicinity of the Angle/Copse suffered more on the 3rd day than any others on the field gives credence to his claim.
That comment appears on page 418 and indeed reflects his thinking following a late-life visit to Gettysburg.
In his earlier, private writings later incorporated by Dr. Gallagher into Fighting for the Confederacy, Alexander wrote "My impression is the exact point for it [Pickett's assault] was not designated, but I was told it would be to our left of the Peach Orchard."
He goes on to say how he initially positioned his guns. "At three o'clock I was up & began putting the different battalions & batteries into position. In all the smoke & confusion of the afternoon before I had not been able to learn the exact location of all the enemy's line. &, in the very early dimness, I put over a dozen guns to the left of the Peach Orchard in a line which prolonged ran toward high ground I could see against the sky, where part of Anderson's divn. had been fighting the night before. I supposed this ground to be in front of the enemy's line. But, after getting the guns all unlimbered, I thought I had better make sure, &, going out that way, by the increasing light I saw the enemy's artillery all over it."
He was unnerved by how open his guns were to Federal fire, and quickly repositioned them further back. <Gary W. Gallagher, Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 244-245.>
Nowhere in this earlier work does he offer more specifics about his 'target'.
However, in both works he mentions observing the smoke from the muzzles of the Federal guns and adjusting his fire to bear on them.
Alexander's lack of a specific point, while stating a general segment of the Federal line, together with the evidence that the 'Copse of Trees' was not visible from his position on July 3, 1863, certainly lends credence to the view that the 'Copse as objective' narrative was, indeed, a post-war invention.
 
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