The Killer Angels

The Killer Angels
By Michael Shaara

I enjoy history novels as they provide lessons from the past to navigate the shoals of the present. They do so in an entertaining way. Known and unknown, two sides of the same coin, the currency of war, could benefit from history when making ‘either-or’ decisions. Without it, beyond a coin flip, unknown has the upper hand in shaping not only the strategy but he outcome of at least the battle and on occasion the war, including why you fought it. In this review I conclude with lessons learned than may be applied to decisions you make in November 2012.

In our American Civil War, the troops from both sides were converging on Gettysburg, neither side knowing exactly who or how many as late as the day before the first day of the battle. Then there was the dynamic of what to believe from your Scouts. Robert E. Lee suffered from this in two ways. He didn’t trust his spies, and he trusted General Stuart of the Confederate Calvary who was out doing anything but following orders. The Union's Buford's Calvary strategy on day one was, based on limited intelligence and counting on battle instinct. Buford was already digging in on Cemetery Hill and Lee discounted that information as being a Militia of townspeople. This author portrays the first shot early morning of Gettysburg came from a picket line soldier from Buford's Calvary acting on Buford's orders into the advancing Rebel Army.

The first day…Buford’s stand held the Rebels at bay long enough for Union reinforcement to arrive and hold the high ground While Buford’s acts were courageous and strategic, two dynamics made the difference. First General Lee, not having accurate intelligence as to who was on Cemetery Hill, gave orders to proceed with caution. The orders were due to the unknown that should have been known had his Cavalry General Stuart followed orders and already been to Gettysburg. This combined with General Ewell freezing ‘like a pond in the dark” gave the Confederates the town of Gettysburg, but left the advantageous high ground to the Union Army. It was an inverse predicament to Fredericksburg, where the Confederate Army held the high ground and prevailed. Like Fredericksburg, there was too much momentum to reverse the pending conflict. The unknown set the stage for unmerciful carnage.

Lee's second day strategy dealt with some known and unknowns. He knew the first day's victory was due to numeric superiority against a Union Army that was just beginning to form, unbeknownst to him. He gave instruction to his Generals to proceed to Gettysburg with caution. Not having surveyed the town with that order he was not aware of the importance of achieving high ground immediately south of the town. Arriving in Gettysburg during the first day's battle he gave orders to General Ewell to take Cemetery Hill, the first hill. Ewell froze; they had the advantage in terms of battle momentum but did not take Cemetery Hill.

This allowed Union forces to dig, and bought time to replenish and reinforce in mass. Had General Stuart’s Calvary been available Lee would have had advance lay of the land and knowledge of Union troop strength. Instead of an order to preceed with caution, Lee would likely have stated Cemetery Hill and all high ground as an objective. Failures of Stuart and Ewell left the Rebels with a captured town and the Union digging in on high ground.

Lee's second day strategic orders were an ‘en echelon’ assault. Longstreet's orders were to sweep right and attack Cemetery Hill by surprise. In the middle of his march he realized he needed a different route than planned. This took extra time. When they were finally in position his army was tired from the march before and General Hoods regiment was facing a charge up a hill where the hill alone wad insurmountable. Both Hood and Longstreet knew at this time. Had Lee held better intelligence in the morning, an attack from the rear would have been included in the morning orders. Missing was intelligence that would have come from Stuart. What was missing was Stuart that would have carried out Lee’s orders.

The folly of day one battle was a clear display of undisciplined orders leading to lack of intelligence. Lomgstreet knew Lee’s strategy was flawed. He had the intelligence of a spy that Lee gave half hearted attention to. With General Stuart gallivanting his cavalry across Pennsylvania, not in accord with Lee’s orders, he gave Longstreet orders to attack straight up Cemetery Ridge. But Longstreet insisted on following Lee's morning orders. On day one the battlefield intelligence was much better in the afternoon than the morning, but the orders of the morning prevailed. Communications in that era did not allow for change in strategy. Strict army discipline let orders get in the way.

The high ground, creative initiative, and shear instinctive courage gave Colonel Chamberlain’s Maine regiment gave the Union army a strategic battle second day victory that forced an even more difficult battle plan for Lee on the third and final day of the battle of Gettysburg. In the days leading up to Chamberlain’s march to Gettysburg he was ordered to discipline Union deserters from his home state of Maine. He could not find it within him to shoot them so he gave them a speech to convince them to join his regiment. The result was an additional 200 men that would prove essential in defending the Rebel charge up Cemetery Ridge on day one.

The Rebels charged up the hill with what seemed to Chamberlain’s regiment and infinite supply of men. They came in waves and drained the Union army of their ammunition. In preparation of the Rebel last charge of that day, Chamberlain ordered bayonets to the rifles and a counter charge down the hill at the Rebels. It was that act of courage, akin to the Charge of the Light Brigade, observed by the Rebels that sent them back down the hill never to return. Had the Rebels knew Chamberlain’s troops were out of ammunition, they may had reacted differently. That Rebel charge not only cost Longstreet half of his men, he did not achieve the high ground advantage that forced an even more desperate battle strategy on Lee for the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Had Stuart and his cavalry been in Gettysburg for that second day, a flanking attack from the rear would have doomed Chamberlain long before his famous bayonet charge. Since Longstreet’s charge was at the end of the Union defense, a quick victory on that portion of the whole battle field would have allowed the Confederate Army to storm right through the Union Army from the rear. Without this key advantage, the ‘what if’ drama unfolded with the Union army digging in on both flanks forcing Lee to order on day three an attack right up the middle of the Union Army.

Longstreet had grave regret for the events ordered for day and the predictable results. This gave him reason for extreme contempt for Stuart and a high degree of disdain towards General Lee. Lee had, to a fault recognized by Lee himself, a fatherly approach towards his Generals which allowed for critical failures at Gettysburg. General Ewell’s failure to take Cemetery Hill when he had clear opportunity in conjunction with Stuarts failure to show up until the evening of the second day cost the Confederate Army half its troops. Together these were major contributors to the losses on day two and the eventual loss of the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee recognizing there was no one to back fill those senior ranks of General Officer was forgiving and consoling. Longstreet stressed and strained as he was the one officer with the vision to see Lee’s failure. He cried visibly at the beginning of day three, sucked it up and gave the general orders for the slaughter that he knew was ensuing.

Rounding out the strategy of the Battle is on was Sharra’s tapestry of character building through the dialogue of the Generals, .Shaara portrays the Generals and high command of the Southern Army to be gentlemen of a worldly view well studied with a shared longing for their Union counterparts. The dialogue of the Generals intended to espouse the rationale as to why the Rebel Army took to the offensive. With the battle of Fredericksburg having ended in their favor their confidence in the troops was high. Additionally, it was in there character makeup down to the individual troop to be an offensive army. Hence the infamous Rebel YELL. Yet the Generals had been more defensive in their strategy.

Robert E. Lee knew that a defensive strategy couldn’t last forever. The Confederate Army was always on the defense of her country but now they were the invading force. Old and busted up from a fall from a horse Lee tells his troops, “No matter no matter. We end this war the best we can". He put his hand to his chest. Napoleon once said, 'the logical end to a defensive war is surrender.' The collective thought from troop level through the General rank was to attack. For the Civil War student wondering why a Confederate Union looking to for secession form a country would exercise a strategy to conquer that which you have just discarded; here you have an answer. General Longstreet the veteran warrior was the exception. Yet as a General he followed orders from Lee.

The voice of the Union Army’s Colonel Chamberlain becomes the reason why the North is rallying troops to defend their capitol. A colonel a brigade from Maine, he found himself with orders to shoot deserters, fellow countrymen from Maine. Rather than shoot them he gave them a speech, He drew on the reasons for the fight. Not slavery, not independence, but liberty. The same liberty his founding fathers gave their lives for, a liberty not known anywhere but in America. Thus is a liberty once known but seems to have been forgotten by too many in 2011 America; an America whose galvanized difference approach the same legal pitch as did the Dred Scott case.

It was the voice of the character Fremantle who was an English reporter allowed to mix above the Generals to fill in the misunderstanding of views. His purpose in the book is to draw a third party perspective, a European view. He notes to himself the difference between the people of the North and those of the South is simple quality of the man and society. He notes the higher standards in English customs in Southerners. He finds they are still very much of English tradition whereas the Northerners are a collection of big cities with a cacophony of people from all parts of the world. There were no British customs permeating their culture. They were different people and that is what the war was about. In Fremantle’s view this war was about different ideology in two groups of people. In my mind, should Fremantle’s view be accurate, the Americans were fighting British ideals for a third time in the span of four score and seven years. In the next 150 years is seems America has defended Britain with their ideals aside and then suffered from her legacy of Empire.

In an immediately succeeding chapter Chamberlain, an educated professor from Maine, encounters his first black slave. He is alarmed at his adverse reaction to the wounded man. He was alarmed at his negative interpretation of their physical differences, holding
himself superior to the black man. He does not know he had that in him. He wondered if in fact with this new revelation that perhaps Southerners had a point. There exists, in 2011 two very obvious questions in this dialogue going on inside Chamberlains mind. First is the 1863 mindset of superiority, and second the reader cannot help but observe that poorly conceived differences in man at society level too often and too sadly brings them to war, where on the battlefield, eye to eye they see their mistake only an instant too late.

What is apparent is there is no truth in nominalist man, says an author of that time, Emerson. That truth is attempted as each man brings his truth to bear upon another where truths may merge like two primary colors. Emerging is now a new color of truth waiting for its next encounter. There appears only a representation of truth in the mind of man, where acceptance of what is ... Is. Lincoln had to amend our Constitution to deny a society's right to their truth to bring truth beyond society to the individual. In the unforeseen delivery of truth to the individual, the right to State level of society has given way to federalized democracy. The firebreak gap was mistakenly removed to allow for a fire storm of democratic administration, as opposed to segmented pursuit of liberty brought on by the voice of people. There exists today in the wake of Obamacare a parallel argument. Obama signed a bill as opposed to amending the Constitution. Obama ushered in a wave if administrative law akin to Hitler in the 1939s that denied liberty of one in favor of another that pits this country on a decision the betterment through unconscious plebiscite to the whole at the cost of the individual. Do we carry forward our forefather's cause to liberty and to what extent? Do we repeat, honor, and validate, the deeds of 1863 or 1776 in some 2011 fashion?

Ironically in 1915, yet another chapter of prevailing unknown, tells of a British navy fighting an unprepared Turk resistance in Constantinople. Had that Navy Admiral in command known that at the time he chose to retreat from battle on day one, the Turks were out of ammunition, he could have sailed into port and taken the city without a shot. Instead we are the proud owners of a history that provides us with a year long tragic tale of Gallipoli which ended in favor of the Turks and Germans. This changed the scales of military balance and strategy leading to a stalemate and Armistice as opposed to a declared victory, which led directly to yet another World War. Can the world learn from her past?” I ask this simply because in America we are facing difficult international challenges that are taking the same back seat to domestic woes as that in the 1930’s. We have in our leadership a President completely blind to the lessons of history with absolutely no experience for the job, pitted against a candidate pool where an historian and leader experienced in beltway protocol exists. Is the collective conscience of America willing to put aside any question of personal character, for a leader that can lead from the wisdom of history? I say read Newt Gingrich’s books…all of them. And then decide if the method of his thinking and the result of his thoughts, ie Welfare Reform, a preferred alternative to our current leadership.



Cool metaphors

He froze like a pond in the dark.
Eyes sad as a trout
Like wind in wheat

Bibliography:

Page 17: Longstreet thought: new factor. He Spurred the horse, but he couldn't move fast because of the dark. Lee must listen. God blessed politicians. Reynolds was their best man. Why did they give it to Meade? But I am sorry to see Hooker go. Old fighting Joe. Longstreet said “it was then not Reynolds?"

" Rumor was that Reynolds was offered the job but wouldn't have it on
a plate. That's what the paper said." [said the spy]

Note: When you read the preface and the first book of this series you come to appreciate that the senior officers of the war were at one time good friends with common history at West Point. While they were on opposite sides their respect for one another brought on a drama. This also told them how the other would make strategic decisions. This dynamic of the civil war is unique to most wars. The reader of the book becomes intrigued to see the affects of this dynamic from a historical view.

Page 29: [Chamberlain] He walked slowly toward the dark grove. He had a complicated brain and there were things going on back there from time to time that only he dimly understood, so he relied on his instincts, but he was learning all the time. The faith itself was simple: he believed in the dignity of man. His ancestors were Huguenots, refugees of a chained and bloody Europe. He had learned their stories in the cradle. He had grown up believing in America and the individual and it was a stronger faith than his faith in God. This was the land where no man had to bow. In this place at last man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become. This was the first place on earth than man mattered more than state. True freedom had begun here and it would spread eventually all over the earth. But it had begun here. The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appealing, but more even than that was the horror of old Europe, the curse of nobility, which the South was transplanting to new soil. They were forming a new aristocracy, a new breed of glittering men, and Chamberlain had come to crush it. But he was fighting for dignity of man and in that way he was fighting for himself. If men were equal in America, all these former Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere and there was no such reality as a foreigner; there were only free men and slaves. And so it was not even patriotism but a new faith. The Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom, for the people not the land.

My comment: My only consternation in this comes of Shaara’s choice of words. Could he have better chosen liberty over equality? I say this in the wake of Lincoln’s actions America has drifted from a Republic to a democracy. Today’s entitlement democratic society demands equality in the form of material comforts, which is much more than the liberty to ferret out those comforts on your own. Rome fell on this same slippery slope.

Page 70: They stood up as Longstreet approached. Sorrel’s face was flush. Jim Kemper was not finished with argument, Longstreet or no. To Freemantle he went on: “You must tell them, and make it plain, that what we are fighting for is our freedom from the rule of what is to us foreign government. That’s all we want and that’s what this war is about. We established this country in the first place with strong state governments just for that reason, to avoid a central tyranny.

My comment: The contradictions in this run rampant. First, to be clear, this is the dialogue in the Southern camp with a European journalist. Sorrel’s argument is from that of a succeeding group of States calling themselves a new country by the name of Confederate States of America, speaking to the values of the Nation they have succeeded from. When you contrast this with the previous words of Chamberlain, you find that the South succeeds from the North in aspiration to reclaim the values of old Europe, of whom their forefathers fought to ‘succeed’ from four score and seven year prior.

Looking at where we are in 2011, both the North and the South lost their way.

Page 84: Lee said “I once swore to defend this ground.” He looked across the misty grove. “No matter. No matter. We end this war as best we can.” He put his hand to his chest. “Napoleon once said, ‘The logical end to defensive warfare is surrender.’

Page 144: Lee said. “I had hoped you would move on through the town and take that hill.”

Ewell blinked, rubbed his nose, looked as Early, looked at Rodes, patted his thigh. Lee watching, felt a sudden acute depression.

Ewell said, “I didn't think ir was ah practical. We were waiting ah for many reasons. We had marched all day, and fought, and your orders were caution against bringing on a general engagement.”

Page 145: Ewell went on nodding. Lee looked at Rodes, who said, “You may remember, sir that I passed over this ground a few days ago and am familiar with it. The hiss is named Cemetery Hill. It has another hill beyond it, also occupied. It will be a vary strong position.”

Page 146: Rodes looked up, glanced away, shrugged. [Rodes to Ewell] “We’ll attack, of course. But the men have had a good fight. And it will be a strong position.” He looked up at Ewell, then quickly away. “I’m sorry we did not take it today.”

“Well” said Lee, “Today is done”

My comment: Shaara makes it clear that Lee accepted the fact that he was out of Generals and that he had to deal with their mistakes in a forgiving manner. Lincoln had the same problem in incompetent Generals. However he had reserves to call upon.

Page 147: “Longstreet is on the defensive again.” Erly grinned. “I suppose that’s to be expected. But really sire, it seems to me, we are here and the enemy is there, and Hill and General Ewell have engaged and Longstreet has not. If Longstreet can be induced to attack on the right, we can give you this hill tomorrow.”

Lee said, “ If we do not withdraw, and if we do not maneuver in the face of the enemy, then we must attack. There is no other alternative.” He rose not waiting for a answer.

My comment: a fate accompli

Page 171: Freemantle, [the European reporter] says [to Longstreet] “I say sire you wont be attacking for a bit?

Longstreet shook his head
“Then, ah, if I may be so bold, what’s to prevent the Yankees from attacking you?”

Longstreet looked at Hood.
“I mean ah, I don’t’ see that you have bothered to entrench,” Freemantle went on/

Longstreet grinned at Hood.
“ An interesting thought.” Longstreet smiled, I confess, it had not occurred to me.”
“Me neither Hood said.”

“well.” Longstreet hedged. He grinned, reached up along the edge of his hat, and scratched his head. ‘I guess not.” More soberly, he turned to Fremantle. “it would be most unlike General Mede to attack.

Page 173: [Freemantle’s view of the South] Um great experiment. In democracy. The equality of rabble. In not much more than a generation they have come back to class. As the French have done. What a tragic thing. That Revolution. Bloody George was a bloody fool. But no matter. The experiment doesn’t work. Give them fifty years and all that equality rot is gone. Here they have that same love of land and of tradition, of the right form, of breeding, in their horses, their women.

My comment: Envy as the opposite to greed. Equality – could it be the opposite of liberty?

Page 179: [Upon tending to a run away slave] Chamberlain felt an oddness, a crawly hesitation, not wanting to touch him. He shook his head, amazed at himself. He saw: palm of the hand almost white; blood dries normally, skin seems dusty. But he could not tell whether it was dust or a natural sheen of light on the hair above the black skin. But he felt it again a flutter of unmistakable revulsion….He had not expected this feeling. He had not even known this feeling was there. He remembered suddenly a conversation with a Southerner a long time ago, before the war, a Baptist minister. White complacent gace sense of bland enormous superiority” ‘my dear man, you have to live among them, you simply don’t understand.’

Kilrain said, “ and this is what it’s all about.”

[Chamberlain] backed off. He stared at the palm of his own hand. A matter of skin. A matter of color. The reaction is instinctive. Any alien thing. And yet Chamberlain was ashamed; he had not known it was there.He thought: if I feel this way, an educated man… what was in God’s mind?

He remembered the minister: and what if it is you who are wrong after all?

Page 187 - 188: Kilrain said; I tried to point out that a man is not a horse, and he replied, very patiently, that that was the thing I did not understand, that a Negro was not a man.

“But then he pointed out that he could not apologize for his views because they were honestly held. And I had to see he was right there. … I had one of those moments when you feel that the rest of the world is right, then you remember you yourself have gone mad.

“ Colonel, you’re a lovely man.” He shook his head. “I see at last a great difference between us, and yet I admire ye, lad. You’re a idealist, praise be.

Kilrain rubbed his nose, brooding. The he said “The truth is Colonel, that there is no divine spark, bless you. There’s many man alive no more value than a dead dog. Believe me, when you’ve seen them each hang together…Equality? Christ in Heaven. What I am fighting for is the right to prove I am better than many. Where have you seen this divine spark in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? The Great White Joker in the Sky dooms us all to stupidity or poverty from birth. No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf or a tree. There is many a man worse than me and some better, but I don’t think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. T’is why I am here.

Page 267: : God in Heaven,” Longstreet said, and repeated it, “there’s no strategy to this bloody war. What it is, is old Napoleon and a hell of a lot of chivalry. That is all it is. What were the tactics at Chancelerville, where we divided the army?”

My comment: The chivalry was aimed at Lee who as a gentleman General apologized for mistrials of his Generals, and commanded as though the mistakes could be overcome by the rebel yell.

Page 280: [thought Lee] He saw in his minds eye: his boys backing off, pulling out, looking up in wonder and rage at the Yamkee troops still in possession of the high ground. If we fall back, we will have fought here for two days and we will leave knowing that we did not drive them off, and if it was no defeat, surely it was no victory. And we have never yet left the enemy in command of the battlefield.

We have been out gunned. Our strength is in our pride.

My comment: and that is what Lee sent up the hill on the third and final day.

Page 282: [Lee to Stuart when he showed up for battle on the third day] “You were in my eyes. Your mission was to screen this army from the cavalry and to report any movement by the enemy’s main body. That mission was not fulfilled.”

Stuart stood motion less.

My comment: For any fault that one may want to apply to others for the Confederate loss at Gettysburg, none surpass the blatant and arrogant disregard for not just orders, but for the honor of warriors.

Page 285: [Lees thoughts at the beginning of the third day] The decision was clear. It had been there in the back of his mind all that night, as he worked, remembering every moment the sight of his blue Virginia flags goin up that long slope to the top, almost to victory, so close he could feel the world over there beginning to give like a rotten brick wall. He could not retreat now. It might be the clever thing to do, but cleverness did not win victories; the bright combinations rarely worked. You won because the men thought they could win, attack with courage, attack with faith, and it was faith more than anything else you had to protect; that was the one thing in your hands, and so you could not ask them to leave the field to the enemy. And even if you could do that, cleverly, there was no certainty they would find better ground anywhere else, not even any certainty that they could extricate themselves without trouble, and so he had known all along that retreat was simply no longer an alternative, the way a man of honor knows that when he has faced the enemy, and exchanged one round of blows and stands there bleeding, and sees the blood of the enemy, a man of honor can no longer turn away..

My comment: how does Shaara know these thoughts? If accurate one could simply say the Confederates lost the battle to chivalry; a chivalry that had one General gallivanting around Pennsylvania stirring up discontent everywhere, and another General first excusing him and second sending men to their deaths on blind faith..

Page 317: [just before the start of the third day’s battle, an exchange between Lee and Longstreet] Lee asked his advice on artillery support. Longstreet gave it quietly. They rode back down the line. A quietness was beginning to settle in over the field. The sun was rising toward noon. They came back toward Longstreet’s line. Lee said “Well, we have left nothing undone. Its all in the hands of God.”

Longstreet thought: God is not sending those men up that hill. But he said nothing. Lee rode away.

Page 320: “Meede wanted to pull the whole army out. He had a meeting of corps commanders last night. He really did.” Pitzer sneezed emphatically…..” Meede wrote an order for the whole army to withdraw, and then held a meeting of corps commanders and asked for a vote….”well hell, all the corp commanders stay. I mean the only one felt like pulling out was Meede.

My comment: Churchill writes that the difference between the Allies and Hitler was consensus management over the dictation of one man’s orders.