re: #342 garzooma

Lincoln disagreed. As of over a year later he was sure he was going to lose re-election to a candidate committed to letting the South win:

TL:DR This gives me the opportunity to tell one of my favorite stories, of how the organizational structure of th North allowed it to use technology to a much greater effect than the South. Meade pushed power more to the edges, giving his generals much greater power to make strategic decisions than Lee.This made a difference.

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When we are in the middle of one of these transitions, it is always impossible to determine what the turning point is. But in hindsight, there is never any real doubt which side will win. And usually it is because the winning side has reorganized itself to deal with the increasing complexity of the world and the war it fights.

Gettysburg is important to me because it exposed all the faults with the South. To devastating effect when the North actually fought back. Meade had only been on the job for a few days going up against what many still consider a genius. And Meade crushed Lee. In my mind, by distributing much of the power to make decisions down the hierarchy to the actual men in the field.

One of my favorite points about this battle is how complex, yet simple it was. I’ll just look at the use of cannons and artillery. The largest cannonade in American history by the South was designed to destroy the Union forces. Because they were firing on an elevated position, the Rebels used cannon shells with fuses to explode in the air, sending shrapnel down on the Union. But, the timed fuses used were from a different factory that, in the humid conditions of the battle, burned slower. So all those shells overshot the hill, landing well behind it, actually forcing Meade to evacuate his headquarters. But due to the smoke, which hung in the humid air, they could not see that this was happening. The true fog of war.

The Union guns were under the control of one officer who Meade had givien total operational field command that placed him above ALL others, including major generals. In the return of fire, he purposefully had his cannons slow down their fire and eventually stop. Lulling the South into thinking their cannonade was successful. He had to override a superior general who wanted the firing to continue to help morale. But he now had lots of ammunition to deal with Picketts Charge, something he knew was coming.

The South thought they had destroyed the Union position and that they had no more ammunition to stop the charge. The unexpected fire from Cemetary Ridge destroyed the lines.

Pickett’s Charge was not a stupid plan, if Lee’s cannons had succeeded. He actually had some cannons that were effective against the Union position but they stopped firing for some reason because the Confederate cannons were not under the control of one field officer who was actually on the field, who could tell them to keep firing.

And a single officer who had spent the time before the charge placing all the Union artillery for devastating crossfire on the area of the charge.

Just to show the complexity yet simplicity of the battle, I look at Little Round Top. We all know about the heroics there on the 2nd day of battle but I find the importance of technoogy also. By holding Little Round Top, the Union was able to move several Parrott rifled cannons into position (this actually led to several Union officers being killed) that were able to point towards the field of Pickett’s charge the next day.

The rifling of these cannons made them capable of hitting targets at 1800 yards and with a muzzle velocity of 1300 feet per second. There were 2 of them capable of reaching the open field Pickett’s men were trying to cross, hitting them from the side. These two guns ripped through the Confederate line, plowing a line through muliple lines of soldiers, seeming to come from nowhere since the shells traveled faster than the speed of sound, faster than the eye could see. Longstreet later commented on how devastating the unexpected rounds coming from the charge’s right, thinking it was an entire squad of cannons.

It was two. Placed in the proper position because the Union held Little Round Top. Placed there because the North has a single officer in charge of ALL its cannons. One officer who, it turns out, literally wrote the book on the use of artillery during the Civil War. Henry Jackson Hunt is one of my favorite heroes of that battle. And all credit goes to Meade for distributing power to him, allowing him the ability to win.