re: We are now 162 years removed from the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg...

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He did understand that. Lee was an engineer, his genius was in defense and defensive works, but the war was dragging on beyond what the resources of the South could endure. Lee had to take the fight to the North.

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Have to agree with this. Similar to Japan in WW2; Lee, like them, needed a decisive victory or set of victories to hopefully bring about a negotiated peace before being beaten by superior numbers and logistics.

I don't know if Longstreet's defensive offense suggestion of moving around the Union left flank to find good ground between the Union army and Washington would have worked.

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While it is true that Grant regretted ordering that assault to his dying day, what's also true is that the casualties were nowhere near as severe as people like to make them out to be.

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I think part of it was that it was so late in the war to be losing so many men in what was by then clearly a losing effort on the part of the South. But also that the assault wasn't really necessary after such brilliant maneuvering leading up to it. Grant should have simply kept trying to turn Lee's right into a death spiral ending in totally cutting off supplies to Richmond. He didn't have to try for Richmond at Cold Harbor.

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With hindsight I think this is an easy argument to make. However, you have to put yourself in Grant’s shoes in June 1864.

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I think I am putting myself in Grant's shoes, and that's why I think he says he regretted it so much. He knew when the decision to make the assault was made, and he knew what he was weighing. His lines were getting longer, Lee's lines were getting shorter, it was just a matter of time. He miscalculated thinking Lee's army was demoralized, and ready for surrender. That's what he probably knew he knew better, but he simply hoped one big push might end it sooner.

But, in the end, he knew better. That, imo, is the basis for his regret.

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Unfortunately for the Union, the plan [frontal assault against entrenched, veteran soldiers] failed.

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...yet again. :shockedface:

Much of the ire directed at Longstreet came from the fact that he became a Republican after the war and put down a white insurrection in New Orleans.

I would imagine some of the facts began to change after those incidents.

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I don't know if Longstreet's defensive offense suggestion of moving around the Union left flank to find good ground between the Union army and Washington would have worked.

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I re-read the beginning of Coddington's book last night, and, the alternative strategy that you suggest was a legit alternative, provided that the Union military forces inside the Wash DC Fortress could have been effectively masked with enough Confederate units to keep Wash DC from attacking Lee's main body from the rear while the Union Army of the Potomac attacked from the front. Lee may have been a risk-taker, but he declined to take this risk.

Lee chose to invade through the Shenandoah Valley. Historical evidence is there to allow us to conclude that, when he first began to think about invasion in May, 1863, he did anticipate a clash with the whole Union Army near Gettysburg. We also have evidence to show that Lee's intent was to catch the Union Army over-extended, so that at least two corps of Lee's Army would be concentrated enough to jump on and destroy a Union corps or two before the whole Union Army could stop it.

THAT was a great plan. But Lee's execution of that plan was so very faulty that it failed. Lee was so very secretive about what we today call his "Commander's Intent". Lee never clearly and thoroughly briefed his main subordinates on what his plan was and how the main subordinates fit in his plan. That's why we saw how his fragmentary and incomplete written orders to his main subordinates failed to give them a clear mission.

Lee was secretive. That explains why he refrained from distributing complete and clear written orders. But, Lee took operational security too far. He could have physically met with all three of his corps commanders and with JEB Stuart. He could have rolled out the map and stuck pins in the map to brief these four main subordinates on his Commander's Intent, the Objective(s) and his Mission Orders to these subordinates. He could have ensured that all of them knew what they were doing and why. There's no evidence that he did such a thing. Yes, the evidence shows that he did sit down with Longstreet and have such a "War Conference", but, not with JEB Stuart, Ewell or AP Hill. Was Lee so very concerned about Operational Security that he decided to withhold complete information from all except one of his main subordinates? This was a great mistake.

Lee himself was the one who over-ruled President Davis and insisted on an invasion of the North in 1863. Davis wanted to send a chunk of Lee's Army over to the West in order to keep Grant from taking Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Lee overruled him. Davis let Lee have his way. I make this point in order to emphasize that Lee himself accepted full responsibility for strategy-making and execution of the entire Confederate Nation's war-fighting for 1863. When Lee took this responsibility out of President Davis's hands, then Lee himself must be judged on whether that Confederate Grand Strategy for 1863 was sound.

It was sound. But, Lee is to blame for the failure to execute the strategy/plan effectively. His failure to perform his duties of "Commander, Army of Northern Virginia" is to blame for what happened. Lee failed to clearly express his Commander's Intent and he failed to issue clear and complete Mission Orders to his four main subordinates are the reasons why 1863 was a Victory for the Union.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I was blaming Grant for being wrong about the offensive, just that I think I can understand his regret - and that it had more to do with the timing in the war than with the absolute numbers of casualties, which, while high, weren't as high as some other days as you pointed out.