claym711 said:
It's hard to imagine an improvement to the bombardment would have altered the result of marching a mile uphill in the face of an entrenched enemy. And, if you're going to risk so much in an attempt to win a major victory and force peace, why not commit more to the assault or at least cover the ground quicker?
How many examples are there of such and assault succeeding? Lookout mountain and Missionary Ridge, but Bragg was horrible.
The slope of the Missionary Ridge assault at Chattanooga made Confederate rifle fire pretty useless, and artillery couldn't depress far enough to render effective aid, so I don't think even that's a fair comparison.
What's baffling about the artillery bombardment is that they had some positions that offered a partial enfilade of the copse of trees, but they didn't use them. They just went for the straight shot and wound up hitting the reserve artillery park.
The soldiers went as quickly as they could, but the Hollywood picture of a charge as a free-for-all is horribly inaccurate. A 19th century charge was only effective if you provided a united front in line and under control.
So why did Lee do it? At that point, the center of the Union line probably was legitimately the weakest point in the defense. Oh, Meade absolutely could have called divisions into action that had been placed into the rear to rest after the 2nd day to plug any gaps, and Lee had no force capable of exploiting any breakthrough, but it was the weakest point. There's not much attention given to the cavalry fight early on the 3rd, but I've read a couple of interesting pieces that argue the cavalry was intended to be a bigger piece of the day's strategy and that the failure of that attack meant the infantry assault had little if any hope of success.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can say Lee should have broken camp on the night of the 2nd. He lost his chance to win that afternoon, before VI Corps arrived on the field in force, and nothing was going to work. And the entire basis of the invasion, as a way to relieve pressure on Vicksburg and end the war (which made no strategic sense in the first place), had badly failed even before the battle began. Major Civil War armies did not disintegrate after losses (until you beat them into oblivion over the course of months) and Washington was not going to fall. But if I'm Lee on the 3rd, I probably do the same damn thing. It's hard to know and admit when you're beaten. And the best generals can't admit it. Grant made similar mistakes during his campaigns.