I’m not sure Lee was enough of a master strategist to see the picture of the whole war as clearly as he’s given credit for. Lee had the men and the logistics to send reinforcements to Vicksburg to try and break that siege. From a strategic perspective that was the meaningful battle. In May or early June Grant had 3 understrength corps, and Johnson had a gathering army north of Jackson. At that moment a large Confederate force in his Grant’s rear combined with the Army of Vicksburg could have broken the siege. He didn’t make that choice and on July 3 about the time the Confederate artillery stopped at Gettysburg flags of truce fluttered over the works at Vicksburg. Grant and Winfield Scott had the vision for how the war could play out and so Grant and Banks took the Mississippi River, enlisted tens of thousands of US Colored Troops who garrisoned the river towns and fought the guerrilla war in the countryside while Grant took his now large army and headed east. Early Civil War historians largely miss this, their eyes full of the stars of the genius of Lee. Turns out Lee wasn’t the master strategist that Grant was.

I have been to Gettysburg and seen the ground of Picketts charge. Although I am proud to be named after Robert E. Lee, and am a US ARMY Veteran, I was astonished that anyone would have charged across that ground under those circumstances. It was as much a killing ground as the worst battles in WW1. I do understand that desparate circumstances can cause men to do desparate things. The Japanese lost countless men in suidcidal Bonzai frontal assaults in WW2. The battle fatigue on both sides must have been enormous after Gettysburg fell silent .

One thing that keeps getting overlooked is that Lee wanted very much to redo the "strike from the rear" by sending the cavalry around behind the Union and threaten the line of supply and retreat back to Washington. Pickett's charge was to be a kind of pincer with the cavalry strike at close to the same time. But George Custer prevented that with his full bore charge into the Confederates. Meade did not have to worry about his backside. Couple that with the Union Artillery playing their part to the T. Just as in most games the one who wins makes the fewest mistakes. It is a crying shame that Grant was not in charge at Gettysburg or Lee would have found himself but worse like the Confederate forces high tailing it back to Corinth. Except they would have ran smack dab into flooded rivers. With the reinforcements that the Army of the Potomac had gotten after Gettysburg Lee would have likely been smashed to bits. Imagine being downstream of the Confederates with their back to the river and a Union Army led by Grant! A very reversed Shiloh on the first day. Might have been more like Lake Trasimene.

Lee ignored his generals’ pleas not to launch a front assault over a mile of open ground! For supposedly being a brilliant military tactician, Lee ended up sending his young men to slaughter in Pickett's Charge - instead of living to fight another day! They were cannon fodder for the Union guns on the high ground! The battle - and the war - were lost in one fateful decision!

Lee's strategy on the 3rd day was brilliant. I just wasn't executed. There were 3 components of which Picket's Charge was only one. The second was a massive artillery bombardment of the Union center. Because the South did not have smokeless gunpowder, Alexander who commanded the artillery, could not see that his guns were over shooting the Union line. Most shells fell harmlessly in the Union rear. The 3rd component is where Lee should have destroyed the Union army. It called for a movement not unlike Chancellorsville. Stuart's entire cavalry corps was to sweep around the Union rear and attack the Union center at the same time as Picket hit from the front. Stuart who was not present until the evening of the 2nd day, was stopped cold by George Custer's Michigan Brigade supported by the 1st NJ and 2nd PA cavalry regiments. Custer himself led 3 charges against the head of Stuart's Corps which was in column formation and could bring its full force to bear. Custer disobeyed a direct order to move his brigade to the extreme left of the Union line to protect the flank. Had he not saved the Union Army from being cut in half and swept away he would have been court martialed. An interesting footnote is that on 22 June Custer commanded a single cavalry troop. Suddenly orders came through making him a brigadier general and putting him in command of the 4 regiments of the Michigan Brigade: obviously a very fortuitous blunder at the War Department.

I don't think that the cavalry attack was part of a much larger plan by Lee. I think that he thought he had much better troops and that the union would fold as it always had done. He underrated the union troops and overrated his ability to win every time against the odds. He should not have ignored Longstreet whose idea of attacking the Left flank would probably have won the day for the Confederates. Why would you attack men on better ground, with a long march while under the guns of the Union, to finally fight against Union soldiers who have enriched their positions? It was hubris, plain and simple.

Lee was an arrogant southern aristocrat.

Lee is over-rated as a general. He was the Revolutionary War Gates of the Civil War South. Way to aggressive, continually ordering frontal assaults, and didn't understand Sun Tzu, "know yourself and know your enemy." He didn't have the troops or industry the north did to support his army, but lead it like a Union General. Victory or defeat, he would lose a higher percentage of troops than the enemy many times. George Washington understood to win against England, his main goal was to keep the army alive; Lee seems to take the same outlook as we did in Vietnam - win enough tactical engagements, and the strategic victory will follow.

RE Lee won so many times because Union side had too many incompetent generals. If Grant was at Chancellorsville, he would not had won even if OO Howard messed up. At Gettysburg, as long as the leader is one from Meade/Renolds/Hancock, he is in trouble. So he basically didn’t anticipate that Union will run out of bad generals

I think it was arrogance. Lee had manhandled Federal generals before and perhaps he was a little too self assured with Meade and company.

You really deserve a great compliment. I have been reading military history for more than 45 years, and your explanations and analysis are among the best.

Lee also ordered the attack on Malvern Hill in 1962, which was a mistake similar to Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Sent an attack straight into the teeth of massed artillery file and got thousands of men mowed down. Lee was no more immune to impatience and rash decisions than any other commander in the war.

Perhaps one reason why Lee appears so brilliant and in my opinion is over-rated is not solely due to his own tactical genius but is made to appear as genius due to the shear in competence of so many Northern generals. McClellan had many opportunities for a decisive victory over Lee and squandered them all. This speaks more to the incompetence of McClellan than to the genius of Lee. Lee was lucky. The South should have been defeated well before Gettysburg. Not to say that Lee was an idiot. He certainly was a competent and skilled general. But his feats have been mythologized and romanticized. In the case of Gettysburg over-confidence and sheer arrogance were key factors in Lee's foolish decision to doom thousands to their death on the 3rd day. Once the North finally did get a competent general in Grant (who also made some bad decisions and doomed men to needless death in the Overland campaign) , Lee was defeated pretty quickly once Grant took charge.

Thank you for all your videos!

Hey, great video with a lot of interesting context surrounding this famous event!

Excellent summary. Thank you!

My God! Thank you. A dispassionate, realistic look at a battlefield mess that isn’t tainted with should have would have. No opinions or unnecessary dialogue. Thank you. Do this people, this is history and then you dig into it, learn it first.

Thank you for your excellent work!

It's nice to put a face to the voice. Keep up the great work!

Your videos are awesome!