re: opening of Confederate time capsule discovered during dissembling of Robert E. Lee

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Ewell himself admitted he moved too slow and you know it. The Union troops were in disarray and a good timely push along with coordinated artillery fire, which Lee had called for and was never delivered, likely pushes the Union from Cemetery Hill

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You argument seems more informed by the movie than it does by history. Lee's apologists made Ewell the scapegoat of the first day's failure to take Cemetery Hill but, in truth, Ewell made the absolute right decision. Of the 20,000 men in his command, fewer than 4,000 were actually available to press Cemetery Hill. And 2,000 of those, under the command of Brig. General Isaac Avery, actually were ordered to the base of the hill.

You argue that the Union troops were in disarray and that a good timely push with coordinated artillery fire would push them off the hill. Avery's men would disagree with you. Describing his time at the base of Cemetery Hill on the afternoon of July 1, this is what Lt. Warren Jackson has to say: "We were subject to galling fire. I spent about two hours as miserably as I ever did in my life."

Not only were the Yankees subjecting these Confederates to galling artillery fire, they were also quickly reorganizing and reinforcing. It didn't take long for the First Corps to reorganize itself and begin digging in on the heights. An entire division of the Eleventh Corps had already been entrenched atop Cemetery Hill before the retreat to it had even began. They were ready for a fight and backed up by artillery to boot. Not only that but Union reinforcements from the Third Corps and the Twelfth Corps had begun arriving starting around 4:30 PM.

If Jackson were there and placed in the exact same situation confronting Ewell, it's a repeat of Malvern Hill. He would have been forced to attack piecemeal and he would have lost several thousand men in a failed attempt to take the hill.