From: cowan@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu (P. L. Cowan)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Artillery at G'burg (was Re: Sickles)
Date: 5 Sep 92 01:19:03 GMT
Organization: SSRL, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab

In article <Bu0Hr4.Brn@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, tbarnes@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
(thomas wrentmore barnes) writes (in reference to my earlier discussion of 
Gen. Sickles, the Peach Orchard and CSA artillery):

[twb]  
[twb]  large amounts of stuff deleted.
[twb]  
[twb]  As I understand it, this overshooting by CS artillery was not so much
[twb]  due to elevation, as to the tendency of cannons which fire for prolonged
[twb]  periods of time to dig their carriages, especially the rear, into the
[twb]  ground due to repeated recoil. This gradually made the barrel of the gun
[twb]  rise and caused overshooting.  Presumably a good gunner could adjust for
[twb]  this, if he knew where his shots were falling.

According to Coddington in _The Gettysburg Campaign_, Brig. Gen. Henry Hunt, 
the chief of the Union artillery at G'burg (and the West Point instructor 
for Col. Alexander, who was in charge of Longstreet's artillery), was
"delighted that ... they were causing comparitively little damage, [but]
offended to see his former students perform so badly." 

[twb]     I have also read (in Foote?) that the effect of the CS overshooting
[twb]  of the US troops on Cem. Ridge was to isolate those units, by
[twb]  concentrating fire on the US support units behind the ridge. This would
[twb]  presumably include infantry and arty reserves, as well as ammo supply
[twb]  and division and corps HQs.
[twb]  The "box barrage" would also make it difficult to reinforce the front
[twb]  line troops, since troops going through the barrage would arrive blooded
[twb]  and possibly demoralized and disorganized. The CS "missed" their
[twb]  intended target, but the effect was still pretty nasty.
[twb]   

The CSA artillery did force Meade to evacuated his HQ, and caused the Union
Artillery reserve to move, but it didn't do much significant damage. 
As I understand it, their goal was to knock out the Union artillery before the 
charge and in this they failed.

When the bombardment began, Gen. Hunt, ordered his batteries to hold fire (for
the anticipated infantry charge). Gen. Hancock countermanded this order
(without proper authority?) for the guns in the 2nd Corps sector, because he
felt it would demoralize his men if their own artillery didn't reply. As a
result the batteries near the "Angle" ran out of ammo and withdrew. The smoke
cleared enough for Col. Alexander to observe this withdrawal, and he concluded
that he had been successful in knocking out the Union artillery at the intended
point of attack. He so communicated to Gen. Longstreet, and the rest (as they
say) is history.

[twb]   Have fun,
[twb]  
[twb]  Tom.

Back atcha.

-- 
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