- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
- Location
- Center Valley, PA
Got to love battlefield maps. They have been used for 150+ years as guides to understanding what happened back then. Yesterday, I posted this one of Pickett's charge, which is a lot of fun and a lot more inaccurate.
It is not a secret that I believer that the Confederate Assault of the Cemetery Ridge is still one of the largest mysteries out there as far as a single Civil War action goes (no conspiracy, just confusion, is the root of the mystery IMHO ) And it is kind of fun trying to put visuals, old testimonies and modern technology together to see what you get (or what you don't get.)
By far, I think that the best map of the initial line up of the charge is this one, that Steven Stanley did, and it is hosted at the Civil War Trust website:
Expired Image Removed
And then you go back and find words that describe the lining up of the Confederates before the assault started (so they were pretty lucid) and you hear things like they were lined up two deep (that's for Garnett's Brigade.)
And that begs to calculate the width of the front (Garnett's Brigade again) : 1480 folks total, so 740 folks wide, and let's say 3 feet per person that's 2,220 feet. Or 0.41 miles.
So you look at that feet marker up there (right above the "Map prepared by Steven Stanley" bit) and you realize that something is wrong, if you compare that to the drawn Garnett line (which was the smallest of the 3 Picketts' Brigades to begin with)
21st Century to the rescue. Mapmyrun.com. Great site that calculates distances based on aerial image data. Here is what .41 miles look at that area of the Battlefield:
So... If Garnett's Brigade was 2 men deep, it's front would be all the way from Spangler's farm to right about the Codori House and about 2.5 times the width shown in Stanley's map.
Now take that and extend it that much and a tad more to account for Kemper's Brigade the other side of the path...
Or imagine where the "obliques" would hit at their ends
Something's got to give
It is not a secret that I believer that the Confederate Assault of the Cemetery Ridge is still one of the largest mysteries out there as far as a single Civil War action goes (no conspiracy, just confusion, is the root of the mystery IMHO ) And it is kind of fun trying to put visuals, old testimonies and modern technology together to see what you get (or what you don't get.)
By far, I think that the best map of the initial line up of the charge is this one, that Steven Stanley did, and it is hosted at the Civil War Trust website:
Expired Image Removed
And then you go back and find words that describe the lining up of the Confederates before the assault started (so they were pretty lucid) and you hear things like they were lined up two deep (that's for Garnett's Brigade.)
And that begs to calculate the width of the front (Garnett's Brigade again) : 1480 folks total, so 740 folks wide, and let's say 3 feet per person that's 2,220 feet. Or 0.41 miles.
So you look at that feet marker up there (right above the "Map prepared by Steven Stanley" bit) and you realize that something is wrong, if you compare that to the drawn Garnett line (which was the smallest of the 3 Picketts' Brigades to begin with)
21st Century to the rescue. Mapmyrun.com. Great site that calculates distances based on aerial image data. Here is what .41 miles look at that area of the Battlefield:
So... If Garnett's Brigade was 2 men deep, it's front would be all the way from Spangler's farm to right about the Codori House and about 2.5 times the width shown in Stanley's map.
Now take that and extend it that much and a tad more to account for Kemper's Brigade the other side of the path...
Or imagine where the "obliques" would hit at their ends
Something's got to give