Chancellorsville and Gettysburg / Campaigns of the Civil War - VI by Abner Doubleday

Author:Abner Doubleday [Doubleday, Abner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865, Doubleday, Abner, 1819-1893, Chancellorsville, Battle of, Chancellorsville, Va., 1863, Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
Published: 2007-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V. BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG—THE SECOND DAY.

The ridge upon which the Union forces were now assembling has already been partially described. In two places it sunk away into intervening valleys. One between Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill; the other lay for several hundred yards north of Little Round Top, as the lesser of the two eminences on the left was called to distinguish it from the higher peak called Round Top.

At 1 A.M. Meade arrived from Taneytown. When I saw him, soon after daylight, he seemed utterly worn out and hollow-eyed. Anxiety and want of sleep were evidently telling upon him. At dawn he commenced forming his line by concentrating his forces on the right with a view to descend into the plain and attack Lee's left, and the Twelfth Corps were sent to Wadsworth's right to take part in the movement. It seems to me that this would have been a very hazardous enterprise, and I am not surprised that both Slocum and Warren reported against it. The Fifth and Sixth Corps would necessarily be very much fatigued after making a forced march. To put them in at once, and direct them to drive a superior force of Lee's veterans out of a town where every house would have been loop-holed, and every street barricaded, would hardly have been judicious. If we had succeeded in doing so, it would simply have reversed the battle of Gettysburg, for the Confederate army would have fought behind Seminary Ridge, and we would have been exposed in the plain below. Nor do I think it would have been wise strategy to turn their left, and drive them between us and Washington, for it would have enabled them to threaten the capital, strengthen and shorten their line of retreat, and endanger our communications at the same time. It is an open secret that Meade at that time disapproved of the battle- ground Hancock had selected.

Warren and Slocum having reported an attack against Lee's left as unadvisable, Meade began to post troops on our left, with a view to attack the enemy's right. This, in my opinion, would have been much more sensible. Lee, however, solved the problem for him, and, fortunately for us, forced him to remain on the defensive, by ordering an assault against each extremity of the Union line.

There has been much discussion and a good deal of crimination and recrimination among the rebel generals engaged as to which of them lost the battle of Gettysburg.

I have already alluded to the fact that universal experience demonstrates that columns converging on a central force almost invariably fail in their object and are beaten in detail. Gettysburg seems to me a striking exemplification of this; repeated columns of assault launched by Lee against our lines came up in succession and were defeated before the other parts of his army could arrive in time to sustain the attack. He realized the old fable. The peasant could not break the bundle of fagots, but he could break one at a time until all were gone.

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