145th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

This past week has seen the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, arguably one of the most significant battles in American history and certainly one of the most famous. Unfortunately I have been engaged in something not dissimilar on a professional level (that is to say, a bloody civil war) and therefore have not found the time to compose a post that would even begin to do justice to those momentous days in Pennsylvania in July 1863. I will therefore simply offer a few fairly random thoughts based on my recent reading of the subject.

It seems to me that Gettysburg was a classic example of intelligence failure, of the type which dogged many commanders as warfare shifted from bright uniforms and open fields of the Napoleonic era to more recognisably modern forms. Large armies were difficult to control and even difficult for the other side to detect, depending on the terrain. First World War generals just over half a century after the Civil War were still suffering the same problem. In the Civil War this problem was more acute for the invading armies. Gettysburg was located upon Union soil. The locals passed so much information to the Army of the Potomac prior to the battle that Meade’s army knew to within four guns how much artillery was at Lee’s disposal. Lacking equivalent sources, Lee’s own intelligence was extremely poor by comparison. It was, moreover, even worse than it should have been: the cavalry commander Jeb Stuart, supposed to be acting as Lee’s eyes and ears, was off on a frolic of his own to try and disrupt Union supply lines. Without regular information from the trusted Stuart, Lee was left blind, and he knew it.

Absence of reliable information may have been an important factor in the Confederates spending too much blood on the first day hastily trying to secure a victory. It did not help that their attacking infantry were using muskets against the Union cavalry’s carbines. The latter had a rate of fire more than twice as fast, and blunted the Confederates’ numerical advantage accordingly (though they were not, contrary to occasional sources, using repeating rifles). At the conclusion of the first day, the Confederates thought they were in the ascendancy; arguably, however, they had simply sealed their own fate by pushing the Union onto the high ground and suffering serious casualties in the process.

Superior Union intelligence continued for the battle’s duration. By virtue of occupying a shorter line on higher ground - from Culp’s Hill to the Round Tops, the Union soldiers were able to signal accurate and up to date information across the entire line to Meade; Lee’s own flags were not so well placed and his line was far longer. Relying on sound - trying to follow the pattern of the battle by reference to the volume and apparent direction of fire - was no substitute. The heat of those July days would have resulted in sound travelling upwards quickly, away from the ears of the generals on the ground, and the confusion must have been intense in any event.

Finally, however, the Confederacy suffered due to events beyond the control of General Lee or anyone else on the battlefield that day. An explosion in an arsenal in Richmond four months earlier had removed the Confederates’ chief source of artillery shells. They were forced to obtain replacements from Charleston. But the replacement shells’ fuses burned slower - a crucial factor in aiming the guns (another manifestation of the Union‘s technological and logistical superiority. It would not have been immediately obvious that the barrage was missing its mark, because the enormous clouds of smoke would have obscured the gunners’ vision.

A week after the battle, tests were run which disclosed the nature of the fuses to Confederate gunners. But it was a week too late for Pickett’s division, and for the Army of Northern Virginia as a whole. Their aura of invincibility was already gone.

Note: the above photographs were of course virtually contemporaneous. Good internet sources of American Civil War photographs are found here, here and here.