Should Lee have listened to Longstreet's advice and not have attacked the Union Center on Day 3 of Gettysburg?

2017-07-21T11:24:21-04:00

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 21 at 2017 11:49 AM

2017-07-21T11:49:42-04:00

He should not of he should of kept the old plan of bring them to you from a position of strength.

Response by SSgt Rob Millard made Jul 21 at 2017 3:07 PM

2017-07-21T15:07:58-04:00

Fascinating observations from a total grunt. Your perceptions and insights are excellent reads! Or as we say here in the south...
Y'all are talking real funny! General Lee don't make mistakes! Its was the other 75,000 people that just got confused! lol
If the cavalry charge of Little Round Top and Big Round Top on day 2 were more intense and could have turned the left flank of the Union line, General Meade would have had to dedicate a great deal more resources to that attack, weakening the power of the center of the line, making the full frontal assault successful!
Thank God it failed!!!

Response by SPC Kevin Ford made Jul 21 at 2017 3:23 PM

2017-07-21T15:23:24-04:00

I'd say it is hard to answer this without looking at a more macro picture of the war itself. The Union strength was steadily increasing and the Confederate strength was slowly decreasing. Prolonging the war wasn't a viable path to victory for the Confederates and they were forced to take more and more chances to continue to keep themselves together, eventually one of those gambles was going to fail.

At that point there best path to victory was to try and force a settlement before they were overwhelmed, which is why they were in PA but they could only maintain that for a short period too. Should they have taken that particular risk? In hindsight no. Perhaps they could have waited for the Union to attack instead but it also seemed the Union was constantly sending in more troops, their chance to put pressure on DC was slowly expiring and it's always possible the Union would have continued a blocking action. Lee made another gamble while he still could. The others paid off and perhaps he was waiting for a mistake to exploit as had happened in the past.

Unlike the Union, the Confederates couldn't lose such a gamble but not taking them was going to result in a loss too.