re: #109 silverdolphin

Absolutely. That forcd the battle that Meade did not want but which he accepted, to his everlasting credit. To my mind, the entire success of Gettysburg depends on the accurate decisions made by the generals under Meade, often with only minutes to make the decision. And the entire failure of the Rebels can be laid on the wildly inaccurate decisions of Lee. He asked his men to follow orders that were simply not realistic or possible.

For a contrary opinion of the generals under Meade, check out Kent Masterson Brown’s take from a YouTube video (he has a book Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command on this):

Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command

My take away was that Meade had wanted to defend a line a good deal closer to his supply base, but was forced by his subordinates into a much more sticky situation due to logistical problems of having to move supplies much further. From the Amazon overview:

Brown argues that supply deficiencies, brought about by the army’s unexpected need to advance to Gettysburg, were crippling.