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Longstreet was right. The Confederates should have stuck to a defensive strategy.
If I had been Meade I would have been praying for the Confederates to go into a defensive posture. Deep in enemy territory, with their lines of supply and communications cut off and with the Union free to transfer as many of its overwhelmingly greater number of troops as necessary to maintain the siege, they could only have waited until they starved or were cut to pieces trying to break out.
If I had been Meade I would have been praying for the Confederates to go into a defensive posture. Deep in enemy territory, with their lines of supply and communications cut off and with the Union free to transfer as many of its overwhelmingly greater number of troops as necessary to maintain the siege, they could only have waited until they starved or were cut to pieces trying to break out.
A general defensive strategy, not just in Gettysburg. Under that scenario, there would be no Gettysburg. Condefetates would dig into defensive positions and put the burden on union troops to force them out. I can’t remember if he called for gurellia warfare or not. I guess war was still somewhat of a gentleman sport then.
If I had been Meade I would have been praying for the Confederates to go into a defensive posture. Deep in enemy territory, with their lines of supply and communications cut off and with the Union free to transfer as many of its overwhelmingly greater number of troops as necessary to maintain the siege, they could only have waited until they starved or were cut to pieces trying to break out.
I don't think Longstreet meant that the entire Army of Northern Virginia should find a hilltop to defend in Pennsylvania and stay there until it was totally surrounded out of supply and eventually forced to surrender like Pemberton out in Vicksburg.
Rather he wanted to try to maneuver between the Union Army of Potomac and the cities it was trying to protect like Baltimore and Washington and try to get the Union Army to attack the Army of Northern Virginia somewhere at a disadvantage. Indeed, just a portion of the ANV could hold off the Federals defensively while the rest of the Southerners attacked the Federal flanks, classic Lee style.
Instead, Lee opted for frontal assaults at Gettysburg and we all know the result.
Personally, I think the campaign that could have really sealed the Confederates doom was the Peninsular Campaign. Had a Sherman or Grant been in charge of that campaign, as opposed to the poseur McClellan, the war might have been effectively over inside of a year.
The Civil War was not all that unlike the Pacific War in WW II. It just the winning side more time to gear up and bear down on the losing side.
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