I will take that Hill | Gettysburg

The next morning the conversation at Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell’s II Corps headquarters concerned Lee’s expectations for the coming day. Said Lee pointedly: We did not pursue our advantage of yesterday, and now the enemy are in good position. Given Lee’s habitual gentlemanly demeanor, that amounted to a severe dressing down of Ewell, as Old Baldy immediately realized. Wisely, Ewell made no reply. The day before, ordered by Lee to take the Heights south of Gettysburg, specifically Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, Ewell had flinched. With much of his corps scattered and exhausted by the hard march and even harder fighting earlier that day, the usually aggressive Ewell had taken one look at the two hilltops bristling with Union artillery and chosen not to attack.

Ewell’s decision — or indecision — had pained Lee greatly, but to some extent it was Lee’s own fault. Accustomed to the brilliant and imaginative leadership of Stonewall Jackson, dead now for two months, Lee had fallen into the bad habit of suggesting rather than ordering. His directions to Ewell had been typically contradictory and confusing: he was to take the heights if practicable but not bring on a general engagement.


The battle on the Federal right remains the subject of endless speculation. In the end, the only way the Army of Northern Virginia could have succeeded in driving off its foes — and this is pure conjecture — would have been with a total commitment of both II and III Corps to an attack on the flanks at Cemetery Hill. Lee’s failure was due both to a lack of concert of action, as he would explain in his postaction report, and also to the fighting will of his resilient enemy, the Army of the Potomac.












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