What are your honest thoughts on Pickett's Charge?

Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, Pickett reportedly replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

I think it's failure had a lot to do with some rumors that Lee had a minor heart attack at the beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg. Not something big enough to kill him outright, but it should have taken him out of action for a few days.

The first mistake of the whole battle was effectively letting it start. He should have never done more than skirmished with Beaufort's forces on the hills outside Gettysburg. Lee was smart and experienced enough to know when an opponent was digging in and trying to bide time. Once he realized that he could not take that hill, he should have just abandoned that battle.

By the time of Pickett's charge, Lee would have been exhausted. My guess is he missed either the distance Pickett's forces would have to travel or the presence of Union artillery or just didn't acknowledge how much the two would damage his forces.

As for why Pickett didn't just stop the assault, the officers under Lee learned when they just obey and don't question, they win. When Pickett saw that the assault was a suicide, he may have been "uh...I am sure he knows best" and went on with it. The event would have shaken the officers under Lee and that would have directly done more to end the war more than loss of Pickett's army.

Pretty classic example of the southerners inferiority complex and need to lose, to further establish themselves and victims

It was a bad idea, obviously so even at the time, and Lee made a colossal blunder in ordering it.

The Confederates probably could have won had they taken and then reinforced Little Round Top for the usual Civil War definition of "win" (enemy army retreats in decent order). I seriously doubt it would have made a difference in the outcome of the war.

As things were, Lee should have realized he had lost at the end of the second day. Pickett's assault was simply a waste of limited resources.

Longstreet was right all along and he could have won the battle had Lee not been so high on his past victories. JEB Stuart also shouldn't have been galivanting around Pennsylvania.

Pickett's charge resembled a similar trick Napoleon used at the Battle of Austerlitz. I get the feeling that Lee was trying to pull a Bonaparte but didn't actually realize why Napoleon's uphill charge worked.

That would've decimated the south economically, so i couldn't see them rationalizing that. But in the long run, the Liberian plan would've strengthened America.

Foolhardy. Lee's biggest mistake.

Confederates could have won at the first battle of bull run, if they just continued on into DC (Maryland was mostly full of sympathizers, and feds had blocked a secessionist vote there). There was a genuine belief among many that feds would recognize what was going on, reason would take over, and they would want to avoid real bloodshed. Turns out they much preferred trampling on democratic values and committing war crimes.
Sweet tea drinkers with manners, military tradition, and a sense of honor and gentlemanly conduct were not prepared for the uncivilized, boorish, brutish nature of the yank.
They remain unpleasant people to this day.

>Liberian plan
Is it too late?

fellow southerner detected.

>5,000 casualties and a complete loss of the objective forever turning the momentum of the war
>A fucking fence
The state of the south lmao

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I don’t really get why yanks take pride in this war. The NY draft riots were massive. Feds we’re constantly quelling resistance in the areas they cucked; and forcibly conscripting fresh immigrants.

If everyone can be honest with themselves, they have to admit that antebellum America was best America, no matter the state.

coulda had a cooler name

- Lee was likely suffering from several medical issues during the campaign; heart failure and diarrhea
- The chain of command failed to communicate effectively, the artillery commander completely misjudged the damage his artillery was doing
- According to Napoleonic tactics, the charge actually makes sense, but both the artillery and rifles being used by both sides were deadilier than what Jominian tactics were designed for
- The battle itself was poorly planned and ill advised from the start

Basically, Pickett's charge was just a series of horrible military blunders coincinciding at the same time.

I've walked the fields between cemetery ridge and seminary ridge many times and it boggles my mind that the Southern troops actually made it as far as they did. I'm a Northern guy but I have mad respect for the men who made that charge no matter how bad the descision making that went into was.

>JEB Stuart also shouldn't have been galivanting around Pennsylvania.

Ya, his orders had been to raid for supplies but he got it in his head to go harass the Carlisle barracks ~30 miles northwest of Gettysburg.

The second invasion was bad idea to begin with. The South was getting creamed in the west at this point and Lee should have just sent forces west.

Even if he won decisively at Gettysburg, he didn’t have the manpower to threaten Washington.

>implying Jefferson Davis didn’t suspend Habeus Corpus first
>implying the Confederacy didn’t enact conscription first
Although it isn’t talked about much, life in the CSA was a lot more oppressive.

gee, user. Maybe there is a reason its not talked about much? neo-confederates are feels before reals.

>Jefferson Davis
>Implying the CSA had as much control in the south as the fed had in the north
Read more. They Harris didn’t have nearly as much power here as Lincoln did in the north. This even hindered the war effort at a point.
>neoconfederate
No such thing. The South never died.

kek

>That would've decimated the south economically
less than 8% of the entire country owned slaves during the height of slavery. America was absolutely not an economy that relied on slavery.

>percentage of slave owners correlates to economic involvement of slaves

The Souths primary agricultural product, and all of the most profitible ancillary markets in the South, absolutely relied on Slavery. The South could survive without slavery (see reconstruction), but it would have been a massive economic hit in the short term. Probably better for the tiny number of Southerners who actually owned slaves though, which is ironic.

>Implying dixiewads weren't fucking deserting constantly before the shit even hit the fan for them

It was a mistake that nobody could've really foreseen. Although Pickett knew that this charge was going to come at some cost, he could not have possibly predicted that this would've been the turning point in the battle and what would've ultimately lost them the war in the long run.

This kinda belongs in /his/ not Jow Forums btw

>tfw neither side wanted to fight for niggers
It’s almost like we have a lot in common

the war decimated their economy anyway

>No such thing. The South never died.
It was never alive to begin with

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I don’t need your propaganda. Knowledge was passed down to me from my father and to him from my grandfather. The truth will never die

>tells me to read
The fact you support the Confederacy alone tells me I know more about the Civil War than you.
>Davis didn’t have as much power as Lincoln
He still had the power to suspend habeas corpus which he did almost immediately. He also enacted the first conscription act in North America. I’m sorry if the jives with your Dixieboo belief that the South was somehow fighting to escape oppression.

Here are some other fun facts that will probably piss you off:
Jefferson Davis was elected in what can best be described as a sham election as he was the only candidate on the ballot and only recieved less than 50k votes.

The Confederate Army suffered from higher rates of desertion throughout the war

Over 100,000 white southerners fought for the Union (not including Union men from northern slave states).

Entirely no, but the South itself was highly reliant on slavery, not to mention that the slave owning class held a ton of political sway. If you look at the slave states that seceded vs the states that stayed in the Union, you’ll see that the magic number is around 25%. Slave states that had less than 25% slave owners stayed in the Union and states that had more left.

Military history is and has always been Jow Forums.
Besides, /his/ is filled with pinkos.

>The fact you support the Confederacy alone tells me I know more about the Civil War than you.
I’m southern, I have confederate generals in my family, and I am very well read on this topic. You’re just a brainwashed yank. Probably don’t even have a stake in it, seeing as most yanks today are the descendants of late 19th century immigrants onward. You’re statistically just another opinionated, newfag “American.” Fuck off nigger. Your kind is the worst thing to ever happen to this continent.

That redeems him a little, at least for me.

>not understanding what a confederacy is
>acually caring about Davis
State gov>Davis
Yankees really are too brainwashed to wrap their heads around, uncomplicated ideas

How do you do, I had relatives from the south from before the 19th century. I'm just curious how do you think the the Federal government was trying to oppress some states to the point of defecting and creating another union that's worse. They didn't want to conscript anyone, they didn't want to take anybodies land, they didn't want to take anybodies industries or business. They weren't passing laws targeted at anyone that I'm aware of aside from slavery. You're saying a lot of people are ignorant, so what are all these other stakes?

>thinking that the southern cause was for liberty and justice
OOOOOOOOOOOF

Most yankees assume that the Confederacy was a functional government.

They don't realize that When Davis asked for more supplies, the Confederate states usually said no.

>Dixie education
Let me go slow for you user, the Confederacy still had national laws and policies, as they were voluntarily delegated to the CSA. You seem to be trying to make the point that Davis’ suspension of habeas corpus or the confederate conscription act weren’t supported by all the southern states, and therefore toothless, when they in fact were supported and carried out by all southern states during the war.

I’ll even throw you a bone since you’re so lost on this subject. If you had wanted to say that conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus were difficult to enforce in the Confederacy because they effectively lacked the resources to do so in some areas, you would have been more correct. As it stands right now you’re so out of your depth it’s laughable.

Not until the late War when Lee kept asking for more men in Va while the rest of the Confederacy was getting BRFO

*BTFO

Longstreet is proabably the most underrated commander in the civil war. He opposed both the 2nd invasion and Pickett’s charge. He also was in favor of taking his corps west to help in the Vicksburg campaign.

>They weren't passing laws targeted at anyone that I'm aware of aside from slavery
>aside from slavery
>yknow, aside from the economic bachbone of the region at the time
I'm not gonna say slavery was good by any means, but the union should have recognized this with the weight it had in the south and not let the situation get as bad as it did to where Carolina decided to seceed

Not that guy, but he’s actually wrong. Republicans didn’t enact any national policies before secession. Despite the common held belief (by Southerners) today, it was actually the South that dominated the federal government up until Lincoln’s election.

Lincoln hadn’t even taken office before secession began. This is why we have all those speeches with Lincoln being in favor of slavery before the war. He was basically pleading with the South not to secede from the Union and come to an agreement. It was Southerners who acted like autistic man-children and speeded our the minute they realized they could no longer dictate national policy.

he was also responsible for the Confederates only big victory in the Western theater - Chickamauga.

good post.

>Despite the common held belief (by Southerners) today, it was actually the South that dominated the federal government up until Lincoln’s election.

Is that why we kept losing slave states? Kill yourself nigger lover.

If Lee gave Jackson the same order that he gave Ewell, the Confederates would've been in possession of Cemetery Ridge by the end of day 1 and then the two armies' roles are reversed and it becomes another Fredricksburg.

>muh popular sovereignty
>ass blasted when things don’t go the way dixiefags wanted
You kept NOT GAING slave states largely because the North had a way bigger population (due to slavery) and more of its population was willing to move west.

*NOT GAINING

Not him, but I would argue that if Jackson was still alive then the Battle of Gettysburg as we know it would never have happened in the first place.
However I do agree, Jackson would have taken that and a whole lot more that day.

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>Lee: "The North was dumb to attack uphill against a fortified position."

A short time later

>Lee: "Take your men, attack that fortified position up the hill."

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Longstreet was useless at Gettysburg all of Day 2 and 3 he mismanaged his corps and was late getting them where they needed to be.

How is it that Warren can immediately scramble men up to Little Round Top to make up for Sickles abandoning it, but it takes Longstreet until fucking 4 in the afternoon to on Day 2 get his assault going and he can't get divisions in order to sync with the cavalry action and assault on Culp's Hill on Day 3?

I see that I ought to go even slower for you, since you're now contradicting your own points.

It's not "oppression" when the states go along with it. In the north, the fed/Lincoln pretty much strong-armed its will in conscription enforcement. By your own admission, the conscription acts were not "toothless" precisely because they WERE supported and carried out by the states. Davis was not autonomously doing anything, and everything required that the states consent (which they did, but there's nothing Davis personally could have done if they didn't).

Do you even understand the difference here or are you too retarded to know what even you yourself are saying?

>What are your honest thoughts on Pickett's Charge?
100% worth it for the pure southern butthurt that exists to this day.

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>implying it's not
shut the fuck up YANKEE

Retard
A genuine mistake. Potential history literally does a video comparing this and Fredericksburg...both equally stupid moves in hindsight

I'm on the fence.

It’s important to talk to people of differing viewpoints unless you want to live in an echo chamber

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>it’s not oppression when state governments force their service aged males into the military, only when the federal government does it

He was delayed by one of his brigades not being there and having to have 2 of his divisions countermarch to avoid detection. Real life isn’t Total War.

Oh now you want it. You know what? No. The south can keep all the blacks. You made your bed, you can sleep in it.

They weren't even going to take the slaves. Lincoln knew it was a dying institution

It was a war fought so that the 1% in the south could continue to import literal slave labor rather than hire their countrymen. Confederates were the ORIGINAL zogbots

based

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I don't really care what the armchair generals and Monday morning quarter backs think. We weren't there at the time. We weren't privy to the information they had at the time. A decision was made. The attack failed, but who's to say it wasn't the best decision they could have made with the information they had?

All I can say is having stood in the wood line and looking up at the federal positions with my own eyes, and walking the length of the field, only to look back down on the path of the assault, those men were fucking brave. Seeing a battlefield in person really brings into focus how unbelievable some of the fighting was, how stupid some of the leaders were, and how unfathomably brave the men who fought there were.

You want to talk about some true stupidity in civil war tactics? Look at Antietam. How many thousands of men were cut down trying to cross a bridge over a stream that was barely waste deep? How many men died trying to capture the Sunken Road, which was an absurdly defensible position, and had very little real strategic value to begin with? They fought in a fucking cornfield where they couldn't even see who they were shooting at. Still it is counted as a Union "victory." I believe it's still the bloodiest day in American history, and it's all because of mind bending incompetence.

>The attack failed, but who's to say it wasn't the best decision they could have made with the information they had?
Sounds like he was running off the assumption they'd weakened their main line to reinforce the flanks. Punching into the center and getting surrounded by a force that out numbers you would have been a workable strategy if they were up against someone using smooth boore musket balls rather than minneballs, and they were heavy on cavalry with the ability to cover ground. I mean at the time when generals were becoming generals and technology hadn't advanced as much as before the war it would have maybe been a viable strategy if they had enough cannon fodder with experienced troops backing them up. Musket balls weren't very accurate, minneballs are.
That charge wasn't the kind of thing I'd call a plan or strategy.

>attack a numerically superior opponent uphill over open ground
It was a pretty stupid idea honestly and they should have retreated after the second day