CLEARING SMOKE

     Had the Union line been completely broken on Cemetery ridge, had Gibbon and Hays been unable to sustain the angle, the Confederate States of America most likely would have carried the day. Had the Confederacy carried the day it may have carried the battle, and onlooking European nations like Great Britain and France may have swayed to the South’s side. And had the South gained foreign support they may very well have carried the war. But they did not. Some may call it luck, luck that Meade was able to secure the high ground around Gettysburg, luck that many prominent Confederate Generals had been killed or incapacitated in action, luck that Jeb Stuart was so long delayed. Though the particulars may have been lost in the confusion and haze of battle, the fact remains that the Rebels did not carry the day, nor the battle, nor the war. Perhaps, as mused by Longstreet after the battle, Lee “should have put an officer in who had more confidence in his plan,” (Wert, General James Longstreet, 286) but who is to know what the outcome may have been? Longstreet knew in his veteran bones that the attack was doomed from the very outset. This kind of attack was never his ideal plan, and certainly not while in enemy territory. Doing as Lee instructed, however, Old Peter fulfilled his orders as best he could while involving himself as little as possible. The outcome is remembered by all as the high watermark of the Confederacy, the pinnacle of penetration into the Union, and when the day was done, Longstreet recalled that, “Never was I so depressed.” (Wert, General James Longstreet, 281).