Gettysburg: What if?

When students of the Civil War get together, the issue always arises as to when the South lost the war and whether the South could have won the war. Some say yes, and many of those who do say Gettysburg was when it was lost for good. Most say Gettysburg was the "High Tide" of the Confederacy, and that "Pickett's Charge" on the afternoon of the third day, when Armistead reached the Union cannon, was the precise apex. It was all downhill from there, these experts say.

As usual, I read and read and analyze and analyze, and, also as usual, I don't always come to the same conclusions as everyone else. What can I say - that's just who I am. An INTP is never impressed by "experts."

At Gettysburg, there were so many things coming together, then drifting away - so many opportunities taken or lost - that it is really hard to prove one's case, even with 20-20 hindsight.

1. Maybe Lee should have refused to engage at Gettysburg at all; should have just continued with his invasion plan - Ewell was already making for Harrisburg when Lee called him back.

2. Maybe Lee should have been more precise and forceful with Ewell in the late afternoon of day one at Gettysburg and given him a more direct and unambiguous order to take Culp's and Cemetery Hills while the Federals were in retreat.

Maybe.

3. Maybe Lee should have kept his cavalry right there with his army all along.

4. Maybe Lee shouldn't have ordered the suicidal frontal attack on the Union center on the afternoon of day three.

5. Maybe Lee should have listened to Longstreet and disengaged on the afternoon of day three; passed Meade's left flank to the south (he had his cavalry by then to screen him) and bolted for Washington.

6. Maybe Lee should have fought on the fourth day instead of returning to Virginia.

Maybe. So many chances. So easy to see them from the distance and clarity of time when we are sitting in our armchairs rather than standing in the Pennsylvania rain, dazed by artillery shells exploding around us, cowed by the screams of a thousand dying men. Maybe. So easy for us to be Lee today and make the right precise "better" choices.

As General Lee himself said so simply (though not truthfully) after the Battle of Gettysburg: "It is all my fault."

Despite the futility of second-guessing, I personally find it interesting to discuss and debate the above issues and more. I will do so in subsequent posts.

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Years after the war, when General Lee was President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) he was having his "mistakes" at Gettysburg explained to him by a student. Lee listened politely, then replied, "Young man, why did you not tell me that before the battle? Even as stupid a man as I am can see it all now."

Opinions: Reasons for the Civil War

Ask practically anyone at all - even people who don't live in the U.S. - what the American Civil War was fought over, and you will get a quick and simple answer: slavery.

Was it?

Certainly the issue of slavery was a big part of the Civil War equation, but it is a bit far-fetched to imagine tens and hundreds of thousands of northern white men leaving their homes and families to put their lives on the line for years on end, because they knew the cause was just, and they were willing to die for the freedom of their black brothers and sisters in the South.

Give me a break.

In the same vein, I can't really imagine tens and hundreds of thousands of Southern boys going off to fight and die for the right of some rich slave owners to own slaves, either. These people who went off to fight didn't own slaves. Or even a winter coat. Some of the generals and politicians did, but not the boys with no shoes, for whom it was probably rare to even interact with slaves. But these men went off willing to fight, just as the Northern men did. Why, then?

Other people say the Civil War was fought over the principle of what came to be known as "States Rights" - the contention that the Federal Government was usurping the constitutional sovereignty of individual states more and more with each passing year. Many people in the South felt the North was bullying them with unfair laws and taxes, and generally conspiring to screw them over, and that it was getting progressively worse with every passing year. These people say (with some truth, frankly) that the situation finally became intolerable. Just as certain British laws and taxes had become intolerable to their ancestors, four-score and seven years earlier, so, too, had the Federal Government - the NORTHERN government - become a hated symbol of oppression in the South.

The Civil War didn't resolve that way of thinking, of course; it is still very prevalent in our politics even today.

Were either of these things the reason the U.S. had a civil war?

If we take the word of the man who was the U.S. President during the Civil War, the reason the war was fought was "to preserve the Union" and nothing else. To quote him:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."

And then he added:

"I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

This was in August of 1862. A few weeks later he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Apparently he thought freeing the slaves would injure the South's war effort. So did many others. Of course the Proclamation meant nothing until the North won the war.

What do I think personally was the reason for fighting the Civil War? I've tried to read books on both sides and try to understand both sides over the years. My inclination is to take Lincoln's statement at face value and say the Civil War was fought to preserve the Union.

The only minor tidbit, though, is that the U.S. Constitution doesn't forbid states from leaving the Union. It only says Congress shall prescribe by law the manner in which new states are admitted. And all Congress required was a blood test and a 3-day waiting period. (Actually, it requires most of the other states to agree to let the new state join the club.) Neither says anything about having to stay 'til death do them part. I guess no one contemplated that, once admitted to Heavenly Union, no state would ever contemplate giving up such divine bliss.

Legally, then, the South was right.

Moral? I suppose it would be that "being legally right" doesn't always mean you get to do it unmolested. The North had more than a little invested in the South over the years - not just money but many other things - and felt the country - as a whole - now sort of "owned" the South, in a manner of speaking. In the larger scheme of things, everybody owned everybody else, and nobody was just going to be allowed to take their ball and go home. Sometimes, even though it is your ball, someone bigger and stronger sometimes comes along and forces you to stay in the game instead of going your own way with your ball. Or your slaves, either, as far as that goes.

What do YOU think the cause of the Civil War was?

Military organization. Or is that an oxymoron too?

In an effort to make it even MORE fun to follow these Gettysburg posts (both previous and upcoming), please try and memorize the following information. If there are no corrections within 1 blogging day, I will assume the information is correct.

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An army is broken down into specially-named organizational units. These units have "commissioned officers" who are in command. The larger the organizational unit, the higher in rank is it's commander. Usually. Following is a list of the organizational units found in an American army. They are the same names now as in the Civil War. The Confederate Army had the same organizational structure as well. They are shown in order of size:

army (commanded by a general)*

corps (commanded by a lt. general)*

division (commanded by a major general)*

brigade (commanded by - of course - a brigadier general)*

regiment (commanded by a colonel or lt. colonel, depending on size)

company (commanded by a major or captain, depending on size)

Following is a list of the ranks of "commissioned officers" in a current American army. In the Civil War, these modern ranks were also used by the Confederacy. The Union ranks for generals in the Civil War were the same except for the top generals, explained at the bottom. The ranks, from lowest to highest in today's American army (and in the Confederate Army of the Civil War are/were:

2nd Lt.

1st Lt.

Captain

Major

Lt. Colonel

Colonel

Brigadier General (1 star)

Major General (2 stars)

Lt. General (3 stars)

General (4 stars)

*In the Union Army in the Civil War, they only had Brigadier Generals and Major Generals. There was only one Lt. General (3 star) in the Union Army, and that only from 1864. That was Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, promoted to that rank only shortly before the end of the war, when he was made commander of all the Union Armies. Also, technically, Winfield Scott was still on active duty and he was a brevet Lt. General. There were no full (4 star) generals in the Union Army back then.

Foot soldiers (or cavalry, for that matter) such as privates and corporals and sergeants, are not commissioned officers.

Commissioned officers in the Civil War had swords (sabers) and they rode horses. Cavalry of all ranks rode horses. In close fighting, cavalry would (very often) prefer sidearms to sabers. Generally, sabers were only sharpened on one side near the tip, since sabers were mostly just used for breaking collar bones and upper arms. When slashing or probing was required, the tip sufficed. Rifles were next to useless for mounted cavalry in combat, but were used, of course, by "mounted foot" who dismounted to fight in skirmish lines. Even then, carbines (rifles with much shorter barrels) were preferred. Here, it should be noted that 25% of "mounted foot" were wasted, since one man in four had to hold the four horses (which would otherwise bolt in terror, especially with incoming artillery explosions) while the other three used their rifles. Artillery was drawn by horses. Supply wagons, ammunition trains, and ambulance trains were drawn by horses. There were a LOT of horses in the Civil War. More horses than you can probably even envision were at Gettysburg and died at Gettysburg.

"Dependent on size" tells us that military organizations are always in flux, especially during battles (people get killed) and therefore you can't really say things like "a company has 150 men; a regiment has 600 men; a brigade has 3,000 men." But those are nice targets. Otherwise, an army can have as many corps as needed; a corps consists of 3 divisions if it is fully manned; a division consists of 3 brigades when fully manned. How many regiments in a brigade? As many as it takes to make up 3000 or so men. Regiments are always being merged and supplemented as people die and newly recruited regiments arrive. It is really impossible to try and say with exactness how many soldiers make up this or that organization. That is true for our modern army today as well.

In today's modern army, there are also battalions (larger than a company), platoons (smaller than a company) as well as squads and fire teams. One solitary soldier is a "troop". Not to be confused with horse cavalry units, (of the Indian Wars and of some Civil War units) some of which were also called troops collectively. "Battalions" in the Civil War often referred to the artillery units, and there were artillery brigades and even divisions, and the same applies to cavalry. A cavalry division had a LOT of horses, and long feed trains to feed them. Confederate cavalry, incidentally, brought their own horses, by and large. 60 days were given to a Confederate cavalryman to procure another horse if his got killed, and if not able to procure one, he got to be in the infantry. Artillery units will be talked about separately for those still awake at that time. The above information is intended to mainly refer to infantry. Today's cavalry is speedy ground (Bradleys, Humvees, Strykers, some tanks - perhaps ALL tanks, depending upon the mission and your definitions) and "air cavalry" consisting of helicopters instead of horses, but the purposes (recon, raids, rescue, disruption, blitzkrieg, and breaking through lines) remain the same. Although we don't usually think of major armor engagements like Patton and Rommel and Montgomery as being cavalry allegories, they really were. And certainly Patton was as much of a maverick as Stuart ever was.

Companies and regiments were recruited by the states (both sides) and sent off to war. Some larger cities could recruit entire regiments (several hundred people) but most were made up from companies recruited by smaller towns and counties. Regiments were assigned numbers followed by their state name (both sides.) Many had nicknames as well for various reasons.

Confederate generals of all four ranks wore the same insignia of rank, shown below, not 1-star, 2-stars, 3-stars or 4-stars like the army does today. Generals in the Confederate Army were appointed by the Confederate President directly. Obviously recommendations for promotions were made to him. As higher general ranks were authorized, the Confederate Congress began having to approve those high ones. The Confederate President was the Commander-in-Chief of all Confederate Army, Naval, and Marine forces. President Lincoln was Commander-in-chief of the Union forces. Incidentally, both sides had air forces, if you count air balloons which were used for (rather scary) reconnaissance work. As I understand it, they often went up tethered so as not to float over the enemy lines (that would be the scary part, otherwise.)

Many, many more tidbits keep popping into my mind that would be enhance your understanding of this battle a bit better, but I think it best to stop here since I realize a few of you are not as interested in the American Civil War as I am, and would rather analyze other things.

Confederate General Insignia (all)

Interesting (to me) trivia: Robert E. Lee was one of only six (surviving) full generals in the Confederate Army at the time of Gettysburg, in command of the entire Army of Northern Virginia. None of the other generals of the other Confederate Armies outranked him. Yet, Lee chose to wear the insignia only of a colonel (three big stars, no oak leaf encirclement). I don't remember ever having read "why" he did this, other than he was a modest man, and that doesn't make sense. I (of course) have a theory about this, which I will share in a later post.

On the need to teach the American Civil War in our schools

"Any understanding of this nation has to be based and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believed that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement with the European wars, beginning with the First World War, did that it did. But the Civil War defined us what we are, and it opened to us what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads." —Shelby Foote, 1990

"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." —Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, 1863
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Shelby Foote died in 2005, 15 years after Ken Burns' 1990 epic documentary "The Civil War" aired. Mr. Foote was an historian with a life-long interest in the Civil War. His own writings on the subject are monumental.

I am a lover of history. I know some of you are as well. I, too, have gotten sucked in by the Civil War, mostly, I think, because of it's many facets and complexities. I am one who likes to try to unravel complexities. But, more than that, I really believe the Civil War was exactly the turning point for our country that Mr. Foote says it was.

The Civil War had to happen, of course. I think many Americans today don't think much about it's lessons anymore.

I can't believe Burns' documentary was 21 years ago! And I am saddened to learn Mr. Foote has died. Many people don't recognize the name, but know him when they see his picture.

Documentary films

A documentary film, as opposed to a film which simulates or portrays a work of fiction, is, technically, a film whose object is to document some aspect of reality. There is wide latitude under this definition, and several genres which call themselves documentaries.

1. The "true" documentary.

A "pure" documentary is the act of setting up a camera somewhere and then walking away and coming back later to pick it up. Set it up on a busy street sidewalk, turn it on, forget about it and just stand there and talk to your friend until the film or tape runs out. What you capture is an absolute true and pure "documentary" - that which unfolded in real life and real time in front of a camera. You have "documented" that particular slice of life for a certain period of time.

The closest I can think of to an actual pure documentary today is the film in a bank's surveillance camera, but even that is tainted due to the fact it is not running at real speed and therefore leaves time lapses, however short, to accommodate the size of the camera and it's limited capacity.

Perhaps a "real-time" camera in the halls of a hotel which are sent on a closed circuit to a security room is a better example. Sometimes, those are not even recorded on film or tape though.

2. The next step "down" in the hierarchy of documentary films are the films that consist of honestly edited footage which has been obtained in a documentary manner. These are what most of the documentary films you see today are, the most common.

These are produced by analyzing your subject or event and making a list of scenes you want to go out and capture. This requires that you know your story or event thoroughly, and have determined what elements an honest portrayal of that subject would consist of. Let's say I wanted to "document" San Francisco. Assuming I didn't want to go into great interpretive depth, my list of things to film would include the famous structures and streets and water and normal events that take place in San Francisco. I would go out and set my camera on a tripod and take some footage of the Golden Gate Bridge (if only to have viewers know where the film was taking place); then Market Street, a cable car, Coit Tower, maybe. Alcatraz footage would be obligatory as would Fisherman's Wharf and maybe the Tenderloin District. Maybe the Bay Bridge and sports stadiums. City Hall. Chinatown. Whatever.

Then I would come home and begin the VERY long and laborious process of post production: making my film out of the recorded scenes I had shot. Add interviews in the background and some music. Seagulls. The sounds of a crowd at a baseball game. Whatever. Hopefully the result would edify an out-of-town viewer about what a little bit of San Francisco tastes like.

That's a small, basic project. A huge project might be Ken Burns' documentary of the American Civil War, or the history of Baseball. Those are big-time, big-money projects that require investors. The key here is to tell the story truly, almost dispassionately. No axes to grind, no sponsors to please.

How about if someone wants a video of their wedding? Is that a documentary film? Sure. You set up the camera so you can see the audience, see the bride coming down the aisle, see the newlyweds dancing at the reception. And on-and-on ad-nausium. And that it is, make no mistake about it. But a documentary? Sure. You go home and edit out Uncle Charlie and his big stinky cigar pointed at the camera and Aunt Doris puking in the punch. Bingo. Documentary. (At least by this particular definition.)

3. The propaganda film.

Think Nazi Germany and Josef Goebels portraying the low down animal character of the Jews. Think of Michael Moore filming only the things that support his agenda and purpose, sticking the camera needlessly into the pathetic face of a dying Charlton Heston, or selecting snippets of conversation from the mouth of the CEO of General Motors. Like that. Now you know what a propaganda film is. However, if you take your propaganda to Cannes like Michael Moore does, you get a Golden Palm for an "Important Documentary, " just as if it really WERE a documentary. Whatever. The key to a propaganda film is to only present one side (YOUR side) and to leave out stuff that might diminish the sensationalism of your argument.

4. Reality TV.

This type of work is very common nowadays. It is one more step away from a "true" or "pure" documentary. Basically, in Reality TV, you stage events and scenes, but you don't rehearse. You take a non-professional "actor" and say, "Please ride your bike down this hill and smash into that truck over there" And then you film him as he smashes his bike. Maybe you leave the camera running until the ambulance has left. You collect several of these events and then you put together a film called "Jackass 2003" and sell it to MTV. I guess it is SORT of a documentary. The action is real enough.

I prefer number 2. How about you? I know, I know - Jackass 2003 for this crowd. Ha!

Tightening up

After much deep and careful thought (over 4 minutes, actually - that's pretty deep and thoughtful for me) I have come to the momentous decision to not make my blog posts so long any more. Hold your applause, I didn't say I was going to stop blogging altogether.

It's not that I am yielding to all the sarcastic criticism you have dished out to me (especially Canucklehead) and it's not because I have lost a lot of regular readers. Well, maybe that. It's just that I am a person who likes to explore things more than superficially, but superficially is what blogging is all about.

I am going to continue to write essays and entire book chapters for future use, but I am no longer going to inflict myself on your good nature by posting the whole treatise on the blog. I will try to find a part of the whole that is interesting and post that. If you find it interesting, I may link to the entire essay or article (if it is not a chapter to some book I hope to someday publish.)

I have two current writing projects. The first is a historical sketch of Mexico and the second deals with tactics and aftermath of a certain battle of the American Civil War. Neither of these subjects is likely to amuse an international blogging audience, so you are unlikely to get much of these projects on the blog. But who knows.

Rest assured I will continue to belabor you with my unfortunate imagination. But not right now. :)