Meade attacks after Pickett's charge

Rod67

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Meade has often been criticized for not attacking Lee after Pickett's charge, but had he done so what would have been the result?
Had he immediately ordered his troops to attack would it have been Pickett's charge in reverse? (Confederate artillery probably still had plenty of canister)
Would a night flank attack have fared better? (Hard to organize and execute)
Morning attack? (In the rain)
Send cavalry to try and delay Lee's retreat? (Pretty beat up from day 1)
With clear hindsight in your opinion what would and would not have worked?
 
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The Calvery harassed the Confederate Army all the way to the Potomac on its retreat. I personally think a full out assault on the Confederates would have been ill advised. The Army of the Potomac was pretty beat up, we all know they won the battle but the Army of Northern Virginia did some damage. Also I think the A of NV was poised and waiting for a counter attack, just didn't make sense to me. Now a calculated attack on the 4th or 5th may have faired better but in the end I think Meade needed to lick his wounds, reorganize and think out his next move. Good Question though and I'm sure you will get a lot of replies.
 
An unprepared, immediate attack after Pickett's Charge would be a debacle. As @Rod67 noted, the massive Confederate artillery battery had had little opportunity to expend its stock of canister. The Confederates started preparing for a counterattack as soon as they returned to their own lines. Some of their soldiers had fallen out during the advance and would be ready for action, no doubt relishing a chance to give it to the Yankees for a change. The men of the ANV were not given to panic.
 
I also agree that Meade's decision to not go on the offensive was a wise one.

The mountain passes on the retreat were not conducive to warfare.

My only what if question surrounds the AoP not attacking Lee's resupply ammunition trains. Intelligence was provided to Meade on the location of that train. Without resupplying the ammunition of the AoNV, Lee would of been especially vulnerable to attack. We will never know how Lee would of handled a large scale attack against his ammunition depleated army.

That has been my only criticism of Meade during Lee's retreat (with the minor exception of the lack better strategy and support for Kilpatrick ordering the ill fated Foxworth charge late on July 3).
 
I have thought that, if Meade had been a bit less careful, he might have sent a stronger cavalry force (maybe a better use for Kilpatrick and Need it) to Fairfield on July 3 instead of just 1 regiment. If his cavalry held Fairfield, it would have blocked one of Lee's principal retreat routes. Retreating Confederates would have had to fight their way through to Fairfield Pass, or the entire army would have had to retreat along the Chambersburg Pike. Either way, Lee's retreat is much slower, and Meade has a chance to get to the Potomac crossings first.

This scenario is not exactly a counterattack after Pickett's Charge, and it's based on 20/20 hindsight so I'm not sure how feasible it really was.
 
I don't know if there were any good examples of a victorious CW army successfully pursuing its defeated enemy and crushing it. On the northern side, Rosecrans' pursuit after the battle of Corinth was slow and disorganized, as was McClellan's pursuit of Lee after Antietam. On the southern side, Beauregard and Johnston did not actively follow up their victory at Manassas, and even Lee decided to abandon any plans to pursue the AOTP after it was defeated at Fredericksburg. While each of those situations had differences that governed the commander's decision to pursue or not, the overall similarity leads one to conclude that chasing a defeated army was not necessarily a winning plan. Under the circumstances, I would agree that Meade made the right decision.
 
Just wondering, what if Meade had immediately pursued Picketts retreating men, hard on their heals. Wouldn't the Confederate artillery had an awful choice of opening fire on their own men as well as Meades?
 
Thanks for the replies all! I enjoy the input.
I mean no criticism of Meade, just wondered if there was there a reasonably conceivable way to have finished Lee's army and maybe the war. Many opinions state that the most likely way for it to work is Lee at least delayed until rain interfered with his crossing the Potomac.
Your thoughts?
 
The Calvery harassed the Confederate Army all the way to the Potomac on its retreat. I personally think a full out assault on the Confederates would have been ill advised. The Army of the Potomac was pretty beat up, we all know they won the battle but the Army of Northern Virginia did some damage. Also I think the A of NV was poised and waiting for a counter attack, just didn't make sense to me. Now a calculated attack on the 4th or 5th may have faired better but in the end I think Meade needed to lick his wounds, reorganize and think out his next move. Good Question though and I'm sure you will get a lot of replies.
Did Meade reply to Lincoln's request that he should attack Lee after the third day?Did he not give Mc the same advice at Antietam? Was there reserves at both which could have been used to attack the CON.on the day of the fourth?Did Meade use these forces against the attach or in the flanks? Sorry but I do think an aggressive command would have done so of coarse I just as Lincoln were not engaged in combat for those days and to say that he should have be dismissed of not doing so is theory.The only positive result of this is that Grant came to the East and he brought HELL/SHERMAN with him
 
Did Meade reply to Lincoln's request that he should attack Lee after the third day?Did he not give Mc the same advice at Antietam? Was there reserves at both which could have been used to attack the CON.on the day of the fourth?Did Meade use these forces against the attach or in the flanks? Sorry but I do think an aggressive command would have done so of coarse I just as Lincoln were not engaged in combat for those days and to say that he should have be dismissed of not doing so is theory.The only positive result of this is that Grant came to the East and he brought HELL/SHERMAN with him
Lincoln was not only physically distant from the battlefield, but also a politician.
 
Just wondering, what if Meade had immediately pursued Picketts retreating men, hard on their heals. Wouldn't the Confederate artillery had an awful choice of opening fire on their own men as well as Meades?
There are reports of Confederate batteries not firing because the friendly retreating troops were in the way (for example at Chattanooga), but I don't think this would have happened with the deep wide open field at Gettysburg. To have any chance of success there would simply have been too many Union troops to be sheltered behind the retreating southerners. Elevate the guns a little and fire above your own troops heads...
 
The big question about a counterattack is "with whom?" The Union army had no concentrated reserve (the Sixth Corps was scattered all over the field from beyond Culp's Hill to the Round Tops) and was in terrible shape. The First and Third Corps were a wreck with their command structures shot to pieces (the First Corps was without their commander, 5 of their 7 brigade commanders, and would lose their senior division commander in a few days) and Meade had lost three of his most aggressive senior officers (Reynolds, Hancock, and Sickles and say what you will about him, Sickles was nothing if not aggressive). There was simply no one to make such an attack on a scale big enough to make a difference. Meade made the right call and, in all honesty, he also made the right call at Williamsport.

Ryan
 
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There's not enough organization to summon an immediate counter. Lee is already preparing for a counter as soon as the remnants of Pickett's attack come trickling back home. Coming off the dominating high ground to attack is also not a standard tactic. I believe such an attack would've been a disaster and undone a lot of the win that Meade had achieved on the previous 3 days
 
So it seems that most of us agree that Meade made the right call.
Just wondered if anyone could come up with an audacious "Hail Mary" that might have had even a remote chance of working. History is full of examples of victories against all odds. So far it seems that what did take place, overall, is the best the North could have hoped for.
 
Meade told Gibbon the night before he expected an attack to be made against his center. If he was not so new to command and had an offensive mindset, he might have confidently massed much of the Sixth Corps and other available reserves at an early hour and counter-attacked against Pickett's completely disorganized remnants, which I believe would have opened a half-mile gap in the Confederate lines and split their army while at the same time threatening Lee's line of retreat. I don't think Lee's short-range howitzers and meager reserves (including Wright and Mahone) could have turned back a major Federal counter-attack. Lee might have pulled back his line from Long Lane to hold the Fairfield road open, but at a cost from Federal artillery on Cemetery Hill. A subsequent push into the town by Federal infantry around Cemetery Hill could then have isolated Early and Johnson to the east, further dividing Lee's army into three separate parts.

Napoleon would often hold his veteran "Old Guard" in reserve until the decisive moment presented itself, then launch it into the fight to win a decisive victory. I think Meade could have held the Sixth Corps together as his "Old Guard" and done the same. Unfortunately it seems to me that Meade (along with some other senior Federal generals in the AoP), had been conditioned to cede the initiative to Lee and were content with parrying his attacks. Now the Confederates were typically strong in defense and Lee was cunning enough to have extricated himself from this kind of dangerous trap, but only at great cost if the Federals maintained the pressure. At a minimum I think Lee would have lost much of his artillery and the great bulk of his wounded. I think Grant would have made the attempt and perhaps secured a major victory like that of Missionary Ridge.
 
There are reports of Confederate batteries not firing because the friendly retreating troops were in the way (for example at Chattanooga), but I don't think this would have happened with the deep wide open field at Gettysburg. To have any chance of success there would simply have been too many Union troops to be sheltered behind the retreating southerners. Elevate the guns a little and fire above your own troops heads...
Since my original point was about proximity, it depends on how close the enemy is to your troops, field artillery fires by line of sight, by elevating the barrels the shot would simply disappear overhead into the distance. To fire over the head of intervening troops your target has to be sufficiently far away so as to allow for the natural fall of the shot to drop behind your own troops, where (in the case of round shot) it strikes the ground and skips up. Even trying to 'lob' howitzer shells into the path of fast advancing troops is very difficult to achieve with any degree of accuracy and you again stand an equal chance of hitting your own men.
 
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