August 2006 Defense Horizons  

Defense

Robert E. Lee is widely and rightly regarded as one of the finest generals in history. Yet on July 3, 1863, the third day of the Battle 

of Gettysburg, he ordered a frontal assault across a mile of open field 

against the strong center of the Union line. The stunning Confederate 

defeat that ensued produced heavier casualties than Lee’s army could 

afford and abruptly ended its invasion of the North. That the Army of 

Northern Virginia could fight on for 2 more years after Gettysburg was 

a tribute to Lee’s abilities.1 While Lee’s disciples defended his decision 

vigorously—they blamed James Longstreet, the corps commander in 

charge of the attack, for desultory execution—historians and military 

analysts agree that it was a mistake. For whatever reason, Lee was reticent about his reasoning at the time and later.2

How commanders digest information, draw on experience, weigh 

options, and make decisions in the face of urgency and uncertainty are 

concerns as old as human conflict. Yet these concerns are more critical than ever in the fast, unfamiliar, wired warfare of the information 

age—all the more reason to learn about cognitive performance, good 

and bad, from military history. Lee’s thinking at Gettysburg is an especially intriguing case to study: the facts are known, there is wide agreement that his decision to attack on July 3 was flawed, yet the cause of 

his misjudgment remains elusive. 

In the pages that follow, our hope is to reveal lessons of value in 

improving today’s military decisionmaking. We examine the facts surrounding Lee’s state of mind and his decision, offer and test alternative hypotheses on how he was thinking, draw some conclusions, and 

apply those conclusions to matters of current interest. We begin with 

a general framework for analyzing cognition in combat, hoping that it 

will help explain Lee’s decisionmaking at Gettysburg.

Battle-Wise Cognition

In war, when conditions are complex and dynamic, time is short, 

and information is sketchy, the key to making good decisions is to 

integrate reliable intuition with timely reasoning.

3

 Urgency demands 

intuition. Research in many fields—military, law enforcement, emergency medical service, firefighting, and disaster response—shows that 

the greater the time pressure, the more decisionmakers rely on intuition.4

 Military commanders with exceptional intuitive powers can be 

uncommonly purposeful, bold, agile, responsive, and inspirational. For 

our purposes, intuition is based on the mental model or map an individual brings to a situation, wholly or largely based on experience. The 

intuitive decisionmaker does not consciously compare the risks and 

I think that this is the strongest position on which 

to fight a battle that I ever saw. 

—Winfield Scott Hancock, surveying his position 

on Cemetery Ridge

It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed 

for battle can take that position.

—James Longstreet to Robert E. Lee, surveying 

Hancock’s position 

This is a desperate thing to attempt.

—Richard Garnett to Lewis Armistead, 

prior to Pickett’s Charge

The fault is entirely my own.

—Robert E. Lee to George Pickett, after the Charge.

Overview

At the Battle of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee made a mistake 

that doomed the hopes of the Confederate States of America to 

compel the United States to sue for peace. Why one of the great 

generals of his time made such a blunder continues to be a topic of 

research and intense debate. Lee said little at the time or afterward 

to justify his decision to launch what has become known as Pickett’s 

Charge, so analysis must be inferential and inconclusive. Our aim 

is to explain Lee’s fateful decision not with new facts but with new 

analytical methods to illuminate decisionmaking in combat. 

Understanding how commanders draw on reason and experience to make sense of information, weigh alternatives, and make 

decisions in conditions of urgency and uncertainty is central to 

improving military performance in the fast, unfamiliar, “wired” 

warfare of the information age. Lee’s leadership of Confederate 

forces at Gettysburg constitutes a valuable case to study: the 

order of battle and technology of both sides are known in detail, 

and the terrain and troop movements have been studied thoroughly. Only the cause of Lee’s misjudgment remains elusive. 

The pages that follow examine the facts that might have 

influenced Lee’s state of mind and his decision, offer and test 

alternative hypotheses on how he was thinking, draw conclusions, 

and apply those conclusions to matters of current interest.

Lee’s Mistake: Learning from the 

Decision to Order Pickett’s Charge

by David C. Gompert and Richard L. Kugler

A publication of the

Center for Technology and National Security Policy

National Defense University

A u g u s t 2 0 0 6

Number 54

Horizons
 Defense Horizons August 2006

using information to gain more time, and creating opportunity to reason, thus to enhance cognition. Indeed, the quest for data can be the 

principal aim of a chosen course of action. Adaptive decisionmaking 

relies on the ability to learn on the move and under fire. Such techniques exploit battle-wisdom and can be learned and practiced in 

military education and training. 

Four cognitive abilities are particularly important in battle-wise 

decisionmakers and decisionmaking: anticipation, decision speed, 

opportunism, and learning in action. Each of these abilities is aimed 

at gaining and exploiting an operational time-information advantage, 

by which we mean the product of time and information, as suggested 

earlier. Anticipation can make time an ally—and an enemy of the 

enemy—from the outset of hostilities. Decision speed can provide an 

edge in setting the tempo and course of action. Opportunism seizes 

fleeting conditions that offer nonlinear gains; when two opposing forces 

are both potentially vulnerable, the one that strikes at the moment 

the other is especially vulnerable can prevail. Learning in action, as 

the term implies, means getting smarter and adjusting rapidly and 

continuously despite complexity and confusion—and perhaps being 

shot at—all the more advantageous if the enemy is relying on a script 

that events have superseded. The time-information advantages these 

abilities offer mean that information can be used to overcome urgency, 

the bane of rationality in combat. 

Lee was battle-wise. He possessed intuitive powers normally 

associated with great commanders. His sense of the correlation of 

forces, including his enemy’s vulnerabilities, went far beyond numerical comparison (which ordinarily favored Federal forces). His timing 

was usually too exquisite to attribute to good intelligence-gathering 

alone. While risk-taking was a Lee hallmark, it was usually informed 

by a calculus of favorable if fleeting odds, as well as an awareness that 

Confederate forces had to take risks to offset Union advantages in 

numbers and steel. Lee generally took pains not to endanger his entire 

force, for he knew that the Confederacy could not survive the disabling 

of the Army of Northern Virginia.7 And, as we know from numerous 

campaigns, a more flexible commander than Lee is hard to find. Unlike 

George Armstrong Custer, whose unwavering faith in his intuition and 

utter lack of self-awareness led to the destruction of the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn, Lee combined intuition and reasoning, seemingly aware of the limits of each.8

 Whereas Custer stood dead last in his 

class at West Point, Lee was known for his intellect.9

If battle-wisdom is the basis for sound decisionmaking in combat, and if Lee was battle-wise, his failure at Gettysburg must have 

resulted from either circumstances beyond his control or a rare cognitive lapse. His defenders have offered the former explanation, though 

unconvincingly. Yet if it was an exceptional lapse, the reason for it has 

not been elucidated. Critics have done well explaining what was wrong 

about Lee’s decision but not how he—especially he—could have been 

so wrong. 

To understand how Lee could have erred so badly, we must first 

look at his performance in the Civil War up to Gettysburg and then 

examine what we know and can infer about his thinking in the runup to Pickett’s Charge. Since Lee’s cognition is more or less a blind 

spot in contemporaneous records and subsequent analysis, we will 

offer two alternative interpretations and then suggest a preference 

between them.

Lee’s Presumption of Victory

Lee’s strategy at Gettysburg reflected above all his experiences of 

the previous year, which gave him confidence that the Army of Northern Virginia could defeat the Army of the Potomac in head-to-head 

combat. Although Union forces were, as usual, larger and better supplied, Lee judged that Confederate forces had better leadership, stronger infantry, greater maneuverability, and more “fight.” 

David C. Gompert (dcgompert@yahoo.com) and Richard L. Kugler (kuglerr@ndu.edu) 

were Distinguished Research Professors in the Center for Technology and National 

Security Policy at the National Defense University at the time of writing.

rewards of alternative courses of action but instead cognizes and then 

proceeds down the path he or she has been conditioned to believe is 

right for the circumstances at hand. 

Because of its time efficiency, intuition can be invaluable. However, because intuition is based on experience, its reliability depends 

heavily on whether the circumstances at hand are broadly familiar. 

When circumstances are unusual, intuition can be inadequate, inapplicable, and, if relied on absolutely, hazardous—like navigating perilous 

waters with the wrong chart. Intuition is most useful when the decisionmaker is aware of its limitations.

Conversely, reasoning—structured, logical analysis—is important when heightened complexity and unfamiliar conditions deplete 

the utility of experience, on which intuition depends. Time permitting, 

reasoning cannot but help, especially when it complements intuition. 

Reasoning makes systematic use of new information to check and correct intuition, to compare multiple options without bias, and to think 

through the knock-on effects of those options. However, because such 

methodical mental work can take time, decisionmakers tend to skip 

reasoning when time is precious, as it often is in combat. It follows that 

intuitive decisionmakers can be at an advantage, up to a point. But it 

also follows that the ability to buy time, to mine fresh data, and to create opportunity for reasoning can be crucial for cognitive effectiveness. 

It is not a matter of substituting analysis for intuition, but of integrating 

the two to get the benefits of both in urgent, complex, and unfamiliar 

situations. 

For an intuitive commander, think of George Patton. For one who 

excelled in reasoning, there is Dwight Eisenhower. Each had strengths 

and weaknesses; each was a great, if imperfect, commander. Together, 

they were a potent duo.5 Package the strengths of the two into a single 

officer—thus canceling out their weaknesses—and you have what has 

been called a battle-wise decisionmaker.6 Lee usually exhibited this 

blend of intuition and reasoning, making all the more puzzling his error 

at Gettysburg.

Persons who are good at mixing reliable intuition with timely reasoning tend to be very self-aware: to know or be able to judge objectively 

when and how much they can rely on their intuition. Before making 

irrevocable decisions, especially weighty ones, they will ask themselves 

if their prefabricated mental models are applicable to the situation they 

face. All else being equal, the U.S. military establishment should favor 

this quality of self-awareness in the recruitment, retention, development, and assignment of people. Beyond that, the ability to integrate 

intuition and reasoning can be cultivated and ought to be stressed in 

military education and training. By recognizing the importance of both 

cognitive components and the benefit of integrating them, development programs can make more soldiers more battle-wise. 

The way decisions are made during operations is also crucial. In the face of uncertainty, there is a need for what has been 

called rapid-adaptive decisionmaking, in which self-aware intuition 

is used purposefully but provisionally when both time and information are scarce—in turn, gaining time to gather more information, 

“I think you are right about Lee’s intuition rather than reasoned 

analysis governing his decisions at Gettysburg. Lee clearly overestimated the potency of his own army and sorely underestimated the 

Army of the Potomac. This was all part of his mental map.”

 —James McPherson, Princeton University
August 2006 Defense Horizons  

Lee further judged that his troops could win on offense (although 

he was equally comfortable on defense when circumstances warranted). He did not embrace the idea that the rifles and cannons of the 

era, despite improved range and accuracy, gave a decisive advantage to 

fixed defenders.10 He knew that although defensive successes were 

needed to protect Richmond and the South, offensive victories were 

vital if he was to destroy the Army of the Potomac, strike fear in the 

Federal capital, undermine Northern public patience with Lincoln, and 

win the war. Lee thus approached Gettysburg with an offensive mentality, aiming for a great victory that would persuade the North that it 

could not subjugate the Confederacy at a tolerable price. 

In Lee’s mind, even if crowning his mid-1863 invasion of the 

North with a victorious battle was not sufficient to win the war, it may 

have been necessary to avoid losing it. It was not enough to parry the 

North’s threat to the South’s capital. A military stalemate would not do. 

Federal forces were gaining in the West, thanks mainly to the success 

of General Ulysses S. Grant. Eventually, the North’s larger population 

and industrial base would wear down the agricultural South. The key 

was to shatter Northern public support for Lincoln’s war before these 

advantages tipped the military balance. So Lee entered Pennsylvania as 

convinced of the need for victory as he was sure of its prospect.

Lee’s confidence in his army’s ability to defeat Union forces in 

direct combat began forming in June 1862, when President Jefferson 

Davis appointed him to command the Army of Northern Virginia. At the 

time, General George McClellan had brought the Army of the Potomac 

to the Chickahominy River, just east of Richmond. Lee had 87,000 

troops to McClellan’s 105,000.11 After bolstering his defenses at Richmond, Lee launched a counterattack, breaking through Union defenses 

at Gaines Mill and compelling the risk-averse McClellan to retreat. The 

Confederate advance was halted 6 days later at Malvern Hill, enabling 

the Union force to escape.12

After this Seven Days’ Battle, McClellan withdrew northward above 

the Rappahannock River, ending the threat to Richmond. On August 6, 

Lee went on the strategic offensive, sending his army to attack the 

Union rail juncture and supply base at Manassas, Virginia. At the Second 

Battle of Bull Run, Confederate Generals Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson 

and James Longstreet fielded 55,000 troops against 65,000 Union troops. 

Again, the Confederates won by timely offensive maneuvers. 

The following month, Lee led a Confederate force of 40,000 troops 

onto Union territory in Maryland, where it was attacked at Antietam 

Creek by a Union force of 60,000 led by McClellan. Although Union 

soldiers fought hard and both sides took heavy losses, Lee was able to 

contain the attack and withdraw his army intact. McClellan’s failure to 

pursue the Confederates left Lee further doubting the aggressiveness 

of Union generals and troops. 

Lincoln replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside, but this did 

not change the pattern of regular success by Lee. In December 1862, 

Burnside ordered repeated frontal assaults on prepared Confederate 

defenses under Longstreet at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Although the 

Union force had an advantage in numbers—110,000 to 75,000—Lee 

easily repulsed the attacks, inflicting heavy losses on Union troops.13

In May 1863, Burnside’s replacement, General “Fighting Joe” 

Hooker, moved South with a Union force of 110,000 near Chancellorsville, Virginia. Outnumbered two to one, Lee mounted a brilliant 

defense of maneuver and guile that culminated in a successful surprise counterattack by Jackson on Hooker’s right flank. Hooker withdrew his army, and another threat to Richmond was averted. The victory, however, brought a significant Rebel death: that of Jackson, Lee’s 

main instrument of offensive maneuver. By the summer of 1863, both 

Lee and Lincoln were impressed by the inferiority of Northern military 

leadership. Lee also had learned that he could gain decisive advantages 

at specific places and times despite a generally unfavorable balance of 

forces—the essence of maneuver warfare.

Gettysburg

Not long after Chancellorsville, Lee began preparing for a second 

invasion of Union territory with the intent of driving across southern 

Pennsylvania and menacing Philadelphia or Washington, DC. More 

important than overrunning Northern territory, Lee sought a battle in 

open country. He hoped to catch the Army of the Potomac off guard and 

then defeat it as it streamed northward in fragments to stop the Army 

of Northern Virginia. Execution of Lee’s invasion plan suffered when 

his cavalry commander, General J.E.B. Stuart, wandered too far east 

to provide Lee with intelligence of enemy movements. With Lee partially blind, the Union army, now under the command of George Gordon 

Meade, moved smartly into Pennsylvania. 

The two armies converged on Gettysburg, a key road juncture. A 

race was on to determine which side could gain control of the juncture. 

Lee had not planned to fight at Gettysburg, but he was not dissatisfied with the location or the timing, since he knew that supplying his 

army would become increasingly problematic. The Battle of Gettysburg 

pitted 75,000 Confederate soldiers against 90,000 Union soldiers.14 But, 

as usual, Lee entered the battlefield expecting to win. The decisive 

battle that Lee had sought raged for 3 days.

Day 1

Hostilities began 

early on July 1 in haphazard fashion because 

only a small portion of 

each army was at the 

scene.15 Lee himself did 

not arrive until midday 

and found serious fighting already in progress. 

Initially, a Confederate 

division under Henry 

Heth, from the corps of 

General A.P. Hill, tried 

to enter the Gettysburg 

town center from the 

north but was blocked 

by two Union cavalry 

brigades under General John Buford, who 

is credited with preventing the rebels from seizing the town and its 

high ground. By the time Confederate reinforcements from Hill’s corps 

and General Richard Ewell’s corps arrived, a Union corps had come 

up, with another on the way. By mid-afternoon, 24,000 Confederates 

faced 19,000 Union troops. The Confederates attacked, and by 4:30 PM 

they had driven the two badly battered Union corps out of the town of 

Gettysburg southward to Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill. Lee urged evening assaults against these elevations, but Hill and Ewell, their forces 

exhausted, failed to act. 

The first day of battle ended with the Union force having lost over 

9,000 troops killed, wounded, or missing, compared to 6,000 in Confederate losses. While the Union Army’s numerical advantage was reduced, 

it held important heights south of Gettysburg. As additional Union 

reinforcements arrived on the scene, Lee found himself facing Meade’s 

entire army on higher ground. Because they failed to seize Cemetery 

Hill and Culp’s Hill on the first day, the Confederates missed an opportunity to win the battle.16

Day 2

By the second day, both armies had been reinforced and were 

spread out along a 3-mile front from north to south. The Confederates, 

now fielding 3 corps (about 63,000 troops and 250 artillery pieces), 

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 1, 1863 (Day 1)

Big Round Top

Little Round Top

Culp’s Hill

Union Line

Cemetery Hill

Gettysburg Town

Cemetery Ridge

Seminary Ridge

Confederate

Line
 Defense Horizons August 2006

attack was contained. 

The same happened 

to Hill’s attack, which 

lacked comparable verve 

and met stiff resistance. 

By the end of the second 

day, the Confederates 

had inflicted another 

10,000 Union casualties 

and lost 7,000 troops, 

but they had failed to 

punch through. 

Day 3

Lee approached 

July 3 with a belief that 

the Confederates were 

winning and had come 

close to victory on July 

2. He knew that Meade’s losses were heavier than his. That the Confederates had not overrun the Union line was, in Lee’s reckoning, the 

result of poor execution by his generals, not of an inherently disadvantageous position, flawed planning, or Meade’s skill in shifting forces 

along the Federal fishhook. By nightfall of July 2, Lee had made up his 

mind to continue the offensive in search of a breakthrough.

But Lee would attack differently than on Day 2. To lead the main 

thrust, he chose Longstreet, his best corps commander and the one who 

had fought hardest to that point. Longstreet recommended a march 

around Meade’s southern flank to position the Army of Northern Virginia 

between the Union’s army and its capital, forcing Meade to attack. Lee 

decided instead to attack the Union center on Cemetery Ridge, which 

he figured had been thinned of forces because of the previous day’s 

fighting south of there. While Longstreet thought the previous day had 

confirmed the folly of assaulting the Federal line, Lee was emboldened 

by how close to victory he had come despite poor execution. Pointing to 

what he thought was that spot—a copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge—

Lee brushed aside Longstreet’s recommendation: “The enemy is there, 

and I intend to strike him.” If Lee meant to convince Longstreet that 

there would be no reconsideration of an attack, he succeeded.17

Longstreet was told to use General George Pickett’s fresh division 

from his own corps, plus six brigades from Hill’s adjacent corps—nearly 

13,000 troops. The attack would be preceded by a massive cannonade 

aimed at suppressing Union artillery and hammering Union infantry at 

the intended point of attack. The 

Federal center was chosen by 

Lee because he believed he could 

pierce the line there and effectively unhinge Meade’s entire 

force. Longstreet was assigned 

three additional brigades from 

Hill that could be used as reinforcements to exploit the break. 

Lee also ordered another attack by Ewell against the Union right to prevent reinforcement from there to the center. Stuart, having arrived at 

last, was to enter the Union rear to create havoc and impede retreat. 

In sum, Lee’s plan of attack was at once intricate and elegant. 

Synchronizing artillery, infantry, and cavalry, he aimed to gain a decisive advantage of force at a vulnerable point in the Federal center. 

Upon breaking through there, his forces would drive into the rear and 

envelope and destroy three corps that formed the entire northern flank 

of the Union Army. 

Longstreet’s attack in the center was itself guided by a precise 

plan of maneuver. The nine assault brigades initially were spread out 

occupied Seminary Ridge 

and the terrain north and 

west of Gettysburg. A mile 

away, 6 Union corps (about 

65,000 troops and 300 

artillery pieces) described 

a “fishhook” that curved 

from Culp’s Hill and 

Cemetery Hill in the 

north (the Union right) 

down Cemetery Ridge to 

Little Round Top and Big 

Round Top. Another Federal corps of 13,000 men 

was due to arrive shortly. 

Because Stuart’s 

cavalry had yet to arrive, 

Lee still lacked good intelligence about the strength 

and disposition of Union forces. He was faced with the choice of continuing the assault or withdrawing to find more advantageous terrain 

for a decisive battle. Longstreet favored withdrawal because he lacked 

confidence in a Confederate attack against massed Union troops on 

high ground (having been on the receiving end of Burnside’s failed 

attacks at Fredericksburg). Lee, the student of maneuver, reached 

the opposite conclusion. Reluctant to forfeit a chance for a conclusive victory, he judged that a multipronged attack could sweep the 

enemy’s line and enable the Confederates to defeat the retreating 

Federals in detail. 

Accordingly, Lee crafted a sophisticated strategy for the second 

day. He ordered Ewell to launch a diversionary attack on the Union 

right flank on Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill, the aim being to pin 

down Union forces there, preventing them from redeploying to where 

the main attack was to occur. Simultaneously, Longstreet was to commit eight brigades to assault the Union left flank on Big and Little 

Round Tops. Shortly after Longstreet attacked, and assuming Meade 

would divert forces from his center to meet him, Hill was to use five 

brigades to assault further north along the Union line on Cemetery 

Ridge. Lee’s aim in this phased attack of 18,000 troops was to produce a 

breakthrough by Longstreet, Hill, or both. 

On this day and the next, Lee thought it was possible to create favorable odds at a particular point for his infantry to overrun Federal infantry 

that he had come to regard as inferior. Although on higher ground and 

more tightly coiled than Lee’s 

army, Meade’s was vulnerable to 

collapse if it could be breached. 

Thus, a critical premise of Lee’s 

thinking appears to have been 

that a rupture in the Federal 

line could carry the day, the 

battle, and possibly the war.

Lee’s attack plan on Day 2 

was theoretically capable of producing such a rupture. Yet it required 

a precise choreography that exceeded the capacity of his generals and 

forces. Lee wanted the attack to commence early in the day, thereby 

denying the Union army time to reinforce and prepare. But troubles in 

moving Longstreet’s brigades into position delayed the attack until late 

afternoon. When the battle began, Ewell’s attack on the Union right was 

not carried out with sufficient vigor to prevent Meade from reinforcing from north to south. In contrast to Ewell, Longstreet attacked with 

vigor and smashed a Union corps under General Daniel Sickles that had 

ventured too far forward into a peach orchard between Cemetery and 

Seminary Ridges. But because Meade was able to reinforce, Longstreet’s 

Lee’s plan of attack aimed 

to gain a decisive advantage 

of force at a vulnerable point 

in the Federal center

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 2, 1863 (Day 2)

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 3, 1863 (Day 3)

Pickett’s

Charge

Ewell

Attack

Longstreet

Attack

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 1, 1863 (Day 1)

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 2, 1863 (Day 2)

Gettysburg Battlefield

July 3, 1863 (Day 3)

Pickett’s

Charge

Ewell

Attack

Longstreet

Attack

Big Round Top

Little Round Top

Culp’s Hill

Union Line

Cemetery Hill

Gettysburg Town

Cemetery Ridge

Confederate

Line
August 2006 Defense Horizons  

Above all, the plan was anchored in the premise that Union generals would not command well and Union troops would not fight well. 

In fact, the Army of the Potomac, including its much-maligned infantry, 

fought with skill and courage. As one scholar has put it, “It is questionable whether [the plan] would have worked even if everything had 

gone right, for the factor that Lee never seemed to consider seriously 

was the Army of the Potomac.”23 Again, Lee knew he faced risks, but 

he did not anticipate that an effective enemy, well commanded, would 

compound and exploit them. 

None of the tactical prerequisites for success were fulfilled. In 

the end, the critical segment of the Union center was not isolated nor 

weakened nor outfought, and the Union Army, on its advantageous 

heights, concentrated too many reinforcements and guns to be broken.24 If any plan could have succeeded in dislodging and defeating the 

Army of the Potomac that day, it is not obvious that a better one was 

available to Lee. But its design was such that the failure to break the 

Northern line would result in catastrophic Southern losses. 

Lee’s complex attack plan, 

for all its beauty, required precision and proficiency seldom 

achieved against a formidable 

enemy in the friction of warfare. Yet the Army of Northern 

Virginia did not perform up to 

its previous levels at Gettysburg 

in general and on July 3 in particular. Lee’s lieutenants, especially Hill, Ewell, and Stuart—

less so Longstreet—fell short in carrying out his orders. Whether Lee 

understood the odds against success for Pickett’s Charge is unclear; 

none of his known statements during or after suggest that he ordered 

it out of some fatalistic judgment that he had no choice. Because Lee 

had underestimated the enemy, expected too much of his own forces, 

dismissed Longstreet’s advice to fight differently, and lost the battle at 

great cost to his army, he was right to shoulder full responsibility. 

What Was He Thinking? 

Though many scholars have surmised what was going on in Lee’s 

mind before Pickett’s Charge, no one—the authors included—really 

knows. For this essay’s purposes, it is as important to understand how

Lee was thinking as what he was thinking. To this end, we offer and will 

test two alternative hypotheses. The first is that of a predominantly intuitive and subjective Lee. The second is a dispassionately objective and 

analytical Lee.

In the first hypothesis, Lee comes to Gettysburg with a mental 

model of decisive victory—a victory both needed and possible—and 

observes nothing in the first 2 days of fighting to invalidate it. This 

model is predicated on Lee’s admiration for Confederate infantry 

and low opinion of the Federal infantry, based on his experience in 

several battles over the previous year. James McPherson calls this 

Lee’s “Chancellorsville Syndrome,” based on his success in attacking 

Hooker’s flank and then following up with a successful frontal assault.25

Convinced that the attacks of Day 2 would have cracked Meade’s army, 

had they been properly executed, Lee’s model readily yields a plan to 

isolate, pound, then rush the Federal center. Believing he would not 

have better odds if the war dragged on, Lee sees great reward for immediate victory and great penalty for the absence of victory. The attack by 

Ewell to prevent Meade from reinforcing from the right and the artillery bombardment on the Federal center would improve the odds but, 

in this model, are not considered prerequisites. By the evening of July 

2, Lee’s mind is settled. All that remains is to give his corps commanders firm and clear instructions, lest they repeat their desultory performance of the second day.

along a wide front, attempting to prevent the Union Army from perceiving the intended point of attack. As these brigades charged toward 

Cemetery Ridge, Pickett’s three brigades, under Generals Richard Garnett, Lewis Armistead, and James Kemper, were to pivot to the left, 

thus concentrating nine brigades against a narrow and overmatched 

segment of the Union line. 

Lee’s plan just might have worked if all its moving parts had 

functioned as and when planned.18 Success had multiple dependencies: Ewell’s attack on Culp’s Hill; knocking out the Union artillery on 

Cemetery Ridge; Pickett’s oblique infantry maneuver during the charge; 

Meade’s failure to reinforce his center; and the availability of sufficient 

combined Confederate forces to turn a breach in the Federal line into 

a complete rout. Lee knew that this plan contained risks; he admitted as such when he told A.P. Hill that his corps “will be needed [as a 

reserve] if General Longstreet’s attack should fail.”19 However, inspired 

by faith in his troops, he judged that the attack could succeed. 

Ewell became engaged much earlier than Lee intended when 

Union forces preemptively 

assaulted him early before dawn, 

long before Longstreet could 

organize his ad hoc force from 

two different corps to attack. By 

mid-morning, the engagement to 

the north produced a stalemate, 

freeing Meade to focus on Cemetery Ridge, where he correctly 

predicted the main attack. The 

Confederate artillery barrage took 

place in early afternoon. But Union artillery was not suppressed, and 

Union infantry was not weakened as planned.20

Without either artillery support—Confederate artillery had 

expended its ammunition—or a timely attack by Ewell, Pickett’s division and the other six brigades started across the open field. Their 

corps commander, Longstreet, was sure they would fail but had been 

given no latitude by Lee to call off the attack if conditions were not 

right. By the time the Confederate infantry neared Cemetery Ridge, it 

was already decimated.21 Only 200 men under Armistead reached the 

Federal line, whereupon Armistead was shot dead. The Yankee reinforcements quickly sealed the small puncture in the Federal lines. 

Confederate reserve brigades, a mile away on Seminary Ridge and facing active Union artillery, were never committed to help—not that 

they could have rescued the situation. 

Pickett’s Charge and associated operations resulted in 7,500 Confederate killed, wounded and missing—60 percent of those committed—to only 1,500 Union casualties. Nine of Pickett’s 15 regimental 

commanders were killed, and the rest were wounded. The next day, 

Lee and his badly damaged army began an orderly retreat to Virginia. 

The Army of the Potomac, also spent from the 3 days, did not counterattack or pursue Lee aggressively, for which Meade was severely criticized. Even so, he had won a victory. Ironically, Lee had been right to 

expect his invasion to climax in a decisive battle: Gettysburg proved 

to be the high-water mark of the Confederacy. 

Why Lee Lost

Lee’s attack strategy for Day 3—for that matter, also for Day 2—

was based on vintage Napoleonic thinking: to gain and exploit, by fast 

maneuver and concentration, an advantage at a critical time and place 

despite lacking favorable terms overall. Similar strategies had worked for 

Lee in the past.22 But it depended on the synchronization of Ewell’s and 

Longstreet’s attacks and the success of Confederate artillery in suppressing Federal artillery, with something left to support Pickett’s Charge, 

neither of which occurred. It also depended on the discipline and 

spirit of Confederate infantry crossing an open field against deadly fire.

Lee’s complex attack plan, 

for all its beauty, required 

precision and proficiency seldom 

achieved against a formidable 

enemy in the friction of warfare
 Defense Horizons August 2006

In the second hypothesis, Lee makes his decision only after 

weighing the pros and cons of several alternatives: withdrawal, repositioning astride the Army of the Potomac’s line to Washington, and 

renewed attack. Fearing the political impact of retreat in the South, 

the North, and Europe, and knowing that unless he defeats its army, 

the North can gain time to bring its industrial and demographic power 

to bear, Lee rejects that option. The idea of maneuvering around Meade 

is not without merit (though Lee would not admit so to the ambivalent 

Longstreet), in that it would necessitate a hasty Federal attack or else 

leave Washington vulnerable and in a panic. But exiting the Gettysburg 

battlefield would be tricky and expose Lee’s army in motion to a Union 

attack. All things considered, Lee decides that attacking Meade’s weakened center is best, as long as the dangers of Federal reinforcement 

and Federal artillery are neutralized. 

One clue supporting the first hypothesis is that Lee did not convene a war council to help him 

decide whether to attack, something he had done before and 

after when grappling with such 

strategic decisions.26 Indeed, Lee 

seemed not to welcome the unsolicited advice he got from Longstreet. However, this is at best 

circumstantial evidence. Perhaps 

Lee did seek advice, of which no 

record was made. Or perhaps he chose not to seek advice but nonetheless systematically reviewed his options before deciding.

More significant is whether Lee treated his decision to attack as a 

conditional one. Had Lee relied on analysis to reach this decision, per 

the second hypothesis, he is likely to have recognized that an attack 

was better than any alternative if certain preconditions were satisfied. 

In particular, given the importance of isolating and weakening Federal infantry at the point of attack, either Meade’s tactic of engaging 

Ewell early or uncertainty about the effects of the pre-charge artillery 

bombardment might have caused Lee to reconsider. Lee became aware 

of the premature engagement of Ewell 10 hours before Longstreet 

released Pickett to attack. At the very least, Lee might have been sensitized to the need for a successful artillery bombardment.

Thus, in a painstaking review of options, attack may well have 

looked better than do not attack, but attack if should have looked better than attack no matter what. After all, the consequences of defeat 

were undoubtedly worse than those of passing up an attack. In the second hypothesis, a calculating Lee would likely have treated the decision to attack as a provisional one and left room to acquire information, learn, and adapt as indicated. To the extent that Lee did not think 

through the implications of a failed attack with those of the flanking 

strategy proposed by his leading corps commander, the first hypothesis 

seems more plausible. 

We do not know what Lee was thinking. But we do know he did not 

act or speak as if he had made a provisional decision to attack and then 

kept the decision under review pending progress in meeting what can 

reasonably be viewed as preconditions. “Analytic Lee” would have done 

what Lee did not in fact do. In particular, he would have been intensely 

interested in the implications of unmet preconditions. As noted, the 

lost chance for a coordinated attack by Ewell would have alerted Lee to 

the danger that his odds would be worse than planned. But the “smoking gun” was that Lee did not insist on a report from Longstreet or his 

artillery commander about whether the bombardment had silenced the 

Northern artillery with enough ammunition left to support Pickett’s 

Charge. We know that the artillery commander, Colonel E.P. Alexander, 

had doubts on precisely this point.27 Had Lee sought a report, it would 

have called into question the wisdom of proceeding and made other 

alternatives look better by comparison after all.

Alternatively, a more calculating Lee would have given Longstreet 

the latitude to call off the charge if the artillery bombardment did not 

have the necessary effect. In fact, we know from Longstreet’s remarks 

at the time that Lee was unequivocal in ordering the attack, leaving 

Longstreet with no choice as the bombardment ended but to allow an 

attack he fully expected to fail. Given Longstreet’s premonition of catastrophe, had Lee given him room to call off Pickett, or even appeal to 

Lee to reconsider, there is little question that he would have done so, 

especially after hearing Alexander’s analysis. 

Conversely, if Lee was relying on his faith in the superiority of 

Confederate infantry over Federal infantry, his decision is less likely 

than otherwise to have been contingent. Confronted with the question of whether he should resume the offensive following Day 2, Lee 

invoked his mental map, which told him that he should. With that 

as a given, not to be revisited, he then ordered measures to improve 

the prospect of success—measures that proved inadequate 

because of poor Confederate

execution, superior Federal 

artillery, and Meade’s skillful 

movements.28 But Lee did not 

“keep a string” on his decision 

to see if those measures were 

effective and to reconsider his 

options if they were not. If Lee’s 

inclination to attack was strong enough to forego serious analysis of all 

options, it would not be reversed because conditions were not ideal. 

Though he did not acknowledge it, Lee was confronted with unfamiliar circumstances at Gettysburg: namely, a Federal infantry that 

would not fold and a Federal commander who would not panic. Yet, 

Lee’s decision was as if the enemy he faced was the enemy of his experience. There is no indication that Lee considered the possibility that 

this was not the enemy of his model.29 Moreover, Lee’s subjectivity—his 

esteem for his troops and maybe even his wish to end a brutal war that 

he entered with misgivings—appears to have affected his judgment. 

This is another indicator of heavy reliance on intuition, insofar as reasoning demands and rewards objectivity. 

The other possibility is that Lee concluded after objective reasoning and careful consideration of his options that he had no choice but 

to attack. After all, there was merit in his assessment that Confederate 

chances would likely get worse. One historian suggests that “Lee must 

have known that an attack was a calculated risk that had to be taken.”30

If this was his reasoned conclusion, he would not necessarily have 

placed conditions on the order to attack, which could explain why he did 

not rethink when the plan started to go awry. But if Lee rationally concluded that he had no choice but to order Pickett’s Charge, his thinking 

was very bad indeed. Even if he felt this was the best chance for victory, 

he should have calculated that a retreat with his army intact would have 

been better than a retreat with several divisions destroyed. 

Although consideration of our two hypotheses reveals no clear 

answer, it seems that the usually battle-wise Lee depended too much on 

his experience and not enough on cold reasoning in the light of the latest information available. On balance, we agree with those who believe 

that Lee’s decisionmaking failed him and his army, and our explanation 

is that he trusted a mental model that did not describe reality on July 

3, 1863. Lee’s judgment of how to attack was excellent but inadequate 

given his original sin in deciding whether to attack. 

Conclusions

Holding up Lee’s decisionmaking preceding Pickett’s Charge to 

the standards of battle-wise cognition, three shortcomings stand out, 

each compounding the others. 

the usually battle-wise 

Lee depended too much on his 

experience and not enough on 

cold reasoning in the light of the 

latest information available
August 2006 Defense Horizons  

First, Lee did not employ adaptive decisionmaking. There were, in 

fact, necessary conditions for success: a coordinated attack and a successful artillery bombardment, both aimed at isolating and weakening 

the Federal infantry in the center so it could be beaten by Lee’s own. 

Lee did not adapt, or even put himself in a position to adapt, such as 

giving instructions that the final green-light for Pickett had to come 

from him. Adaptation is dependent on analysis of new information, 

and Lee seems to have been indifferent to new information. In circumstances that warranted an attack if decision, Lee neglected the if and 

thus saw no reason to learn and adjust as Day 3 unfolded.

In his general approach to command, Lee felt his main duty was 

“to bring my troops to the right place at the right time,” and then to 

leave execution to his corps, division, and brigade commanders. “I 

strive to make my plans as good as human skill allows, but on the day of 

battle I lay the fate of my army in the hands of God.” True to this philosophy, Lee made no attempt to revise his plans or to intervene after he 

had issued his instructions. Whatever virtue there may be in such faith 

in his generals and troops, it left no room for adaptation, which could 

have averted disaster. Again, so adamant was Lee that the attack would 

occur no matter what that subordinates in position to see the plan go 

awry—Longstreet and Alexander, among others—dared not appeal. 

Far from adaptive, Lee’s decisionmaking on the third day at Gettysburg 

was rigid and fragile. 

Additionally, by relying so heavily on his regard for Confederate 

infantry and disregard for that of the Union, Lee fell victim to subjectivity and pride, bordering on the romantic. In Kent Gramm’s words, “Lee 

is a victim of his own hubris.”31 These beliefs were rooted in Lee’s affection for his men and his sense, not 

completely justified, that they were 

as committed as he to the Southern 

cause. (Lee’s soldiers were seemingly more committed to him than 

to his cause.) Such sentiments 

gave rise to an illusion of superiority that reality did not support 

and that objective reasoning could 

have banished. The illusion was 

that Northern soldiers would not 

withstand a well-executed attack 

by his soldiers, even though the 

Yankees had proved stalwart for 2 days and were defending their 

own soil under a tough new commander. Lee’s subjectivity obscured 

his recognition that conditions at Gettysburg were unlike those 

of his experience. 

Finally, Lee did not exhibit the important cognitive quality of 

self-awareness. In regard to his basic decision to attack, he probably 

did not ask himself, “Might I be wrong?” (He certainly did not ask others if he might be wrong.) Had Lee been more aware of the limitations 

and pitfalls of his model under the circumstances, he might have contemplated the merits of other options or, if nothing else, the need to 

satisfy the preconditions of a successful attack. After 2 days of heavy 

fighting, a more self-aware Lee might have questioned his premise 

that the enemy he fought at Gettysburg was the same one that fled at 

Chancellorsville.

Still, the question lingers: Why did the normally battle-wise Lee 

perform otherwise on this particular day?32 Perhaps conditions at 

Gettysburg were such that Lee’s imperfections as a decisionmaker 

were more consequential than on other occasions. Perhaps a subjective 

model formed by a career as a soldier (a bias toward offensive maneuver) and year as a successful commanding general (an almost spiritual 

faith in his infantry and disdain for his enemy) collided with factors 

that contradicted it (superlative artillery and an unyielding enemy). 

Before Gettysburg, Lee’s model worked; after, he altered it.33

Keep in mind that the relationship of offense to defense was 

changing during the Civil War. The virtues of precise and sharp attack 

had been shown and accepted since the Napoleonic wars, throughout 

Lee’s development as a soldier. But industrial-age firepower was starting to favor the defense, all else being equal. If Fredericksburg showed 

the promise of fixed defense, Chancellorsville showed that maneuver 

could still prevail. If Lee was struck by the latter, which confirmed lessons of his career, the former was etched in Longstreet’s mind.34 Gettysburg might be regarded as a turning point not only in the Civil War but 

in military history, as the era of Bonaparte receded and the slaughter of 

charging soldiers in World War I was foreshadowed. It was the same Lee, 

but the need for self-awareness and objectivity was never more acute. 

Perhaps, too, the battle-wisdom of his Union counterpart was 

unforgiving of Lee’s cognitive shortcomings. We must note what military 

analysts and historians often overlook: the brilliance of George Gordon 

Meade in the run-up to Pickett’s Charge. He saw the likelihood that Lee 

would elect to attack his center. He initiated action on the Confederate

left before Ewell could attack his right. He had his forces poised to 

reinforce quickly where attacked. He had his best corps commander, 

General Winfield Scott Hancock, stationed at the exact place where 

Pickett charged, and Hancock performed up to Meade’s high expectations. On the recommendation of his artillery commander, Meade ordered 

the Federal artillery fire to subside in order to convince the Rebels that 

their artillery bombardment had suppressed it. In inviting an attack, 

Meade saw a future that Lee could not. 

Meade was as dogged as he was brilliant at Gettysburg. He 

never considered withdrawing from Gettysburg—as McClellan and 

Hooker might have done—despite 

the beating his left took on Day 2. 

His determination owed as much 

to his analysis of a favorable situation as to any innate tenacity.35

In battle-wise terms, Meade was 

adaptive, opportunistic, analytical, quick, and good at processing 

fresh information. He also sought 

and carefully weighed inputs from 

his chief subordinates—he held a 

thorough war council on the eve of 

July 3. Had Meade not exhibited 

battle-wisdom at Gettysburg, Pickett’s Charge might not have been 

a mistake. 

Implications

What do such findings imply for present-day military decisionmakers and decisionmaking? We could hardly argue that today’s military ought not to recruit and give important assignments to persons 

with Lee’s cognitive abilities. Again, he embodied and usually employed 

the combination of sound intuition and thoughtful analysis that is so 

precious in our times. Lee’s predilection for risk-taking was dictated 

by the Confederacy’s situation, and he normally took well-calculated 

risks. True, Lee was susceptible to romanticism; but the military should 

not expect or want commanders without beliefs, provided they do not 

contaminate objectivity. As a commander, Lee is a splendid model overall, notwithstanding the defects revealed by his mistake in ordering 

Pickett’s Charge. Indeed, Lee’s plan of attack is worth studying for its 

merits, just as his decision to attack is worth studying for its flaws.

Perhaps the most significant lesson from July 3, 1863, concerns 

the method of decisionmaking. Though he may not have seen it as such, 

Lee’s decision to attack was at best a close call. It should have been 

consciously acknowledged and then revisited when preconditions for 

success were not met. The decision to attack can be understood today, 

if not necessarily endorsed; but the failure to seek new information, 

Lee’s decision to attack was 

at best a close call. It should 

have been consciously 

acknowledged and then 

revisited when preconditions 

for success were not met
 Defense Horizons August 2006

learn, and change course cannot. Rapid adaptive decisionmaking might 

have saved Lee’s army. If anything, it is more vital in today’s world of 

networked information and unfamiliar conditions than it was in 1863.

At a deeper level, Lee’s inability to question his model, to ask if he 

could be wrong, should be taken to heart. Lee’s model was formed by 

a time that was giving way to a new and very different era. He thought 

the situation and the enemy he faced at Gettysburg were familiar, but 

they were not. His failure to stand away from his experience and doubt 

his intuition cost his army dearly. In our period of rapid change in military technology and operating dynamics, it is especially crucial to have 

decisionmakers with enough self-awareness to see the limits and hazards of their mental maps.

Finally, military educators could not do wrong to stress the lessons 

of Meade’s decisionmaking at Gettysburg—even his failures to counterattack or to give chase as Lee’s army limped off the field. The ultimate 

lesson for the U.S. military is that it is not enough to have battle-wise 

decisionmakers; they must be more battle-wise than their enemies. On 

that day, Meade out-thought his legendary adversary. 

Notes

1 One scholar argues that Lee was a better general after Gettysburg than before. 

Kent Gramm, Gettysburg: A Meditation on War and Values (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 

University Press, 1994). 2 Lee’s official report on the battle to Confederate president Jefferson Davis 

revealed little more than Lee’s judgment that continuing on the third day the offensive 

action of the first 2 days was the correct course of action but that execution was flawed. 

Apart from its economy, the report suggests that Lee did not think, or would not admit, 

that he had made a fundamental mistake. 3 David C. Gompert, Irving Lachow, and Justin Perkins, Battle-Wise: Seeking TimeInformation Superiority in Networked Warfare (Washington, DC: National Defense 

University Press, forthcoming). 4 Gary Klein, Intuition at Work: Why Developing Your Gut Instinct Will Make You 

Better at What You Do (New York: Random House, 2005). Klein’s work on intuition has 

paid dividends in preparing people, including military personnel, to make decisions 

under pressure. Battle-Wise largely embraces Klein’s research and insights but, in addition, stresses the importance of complementing intuition with analysis. 5 Gompert et al.

6 Ibid. 

7 Arguably, Lee’s decision to split his force at Chancellorsville could have resulted 

in major damage to the Army of Northern Virginia, though in that case the combination 

of excellent Confederate generalship—by Jackson, in particular—and the fierceness of 

Confederate troops produced victory. 8 David C. Gompert and Richard L. Kugler, Custer in Cyberspace, Defense Horizons 51 (Washington, DC: Center for Technology and National Security Policy, February 

2006). 9 In fairness, Custer established himself as an exceptional fighter and leader (as 

a Northern cavalry brigadier general) on the very day—July 3, 1863—that Lee proved 

fallible. 10 In this, Lee’s thinking reflected the military experiences of the first half of the 

19th century rather than the technological applications of the second half. Although 

there were instances of disastrous attacks in the Civil War, such as those of Union forces 

at Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor, they were typically ill-conceived, as Pickett’s charge 

was, rather than doomed by technological odds. Toward the war’s end, however, the 

forces of both sides were in trenches, reflecting the shift of advantage toward defensive 

firepower. By World War I, of course, industrial-age technology had tipped the advantage 

to the defense. 11 McClellan thought Lee’s army was significantly larger than it was, which helps 

account for his caution. 12 For a historical appraisal of Lee’s battles before Gettysburg, see James M. 

McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1988). 13 The complete failure of repeated Union charges at Fredricksburg may have 

contributed to Longstreet’s misgivings about such frontal attacks. Evidently, Lee did 

not read it that way. 14 Total casualties (dead, wounded, captured, and missing) were horrific: 28,000 

(37 percent) of the Confederate army and 23,000 ( 25 percent) of the Union army—the 

most of any Civil War battle. Lee’s army after the battle numbered about 47,000 more or 

less able-bodied men, whereas Meade’s was 67,000, with the latter having a much easier 

time re-filling the ranks.

15 At Gettysburg, each of the three Confederate corps (three divisions apiece) 

averaged 20,000 troops; Stuart’s cavalry numbered 10,000. Each of the seven Union corps 

averaged 10,000 troops; Union cavalry totaled 12,000. Confederate corps were large 

because each division typically contained four or five infantry brigades. Union divisions 

had only three brigades. 16 Multiple historical books provide descriptive appraisals of Days 1–3 at Gettysburg. For an especially detailed account, see Scott Bowden and Bill Ward, Last Chance 

for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo 

Press, 2001). 17 Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, Fredericksburg to Meridian, Volume II 

(New York: Random House, 1974), 529. 18 It is a matter of debate whether Lee’s plan would have worked even if well 

executed. The expectation that the Army of the Potomac would completely fracture if 

Pickett succeed in rupturing its center assumed that Union generals would not be able 

to respond to seal the wound and that the Confederates could follow up with sufficient 

force to exploit it decisively. 19 Foote, 531.

20 Confederate artillery ran short of ammunition, was unable to strike some Union 

artillery because of terrain, and overshot Union infantry units. Union artillery, which 

had a reputation for excellence, conserved its ammunition so that enough was available 

when the Confederate infantry attack began. 21 On Day 2, the 11-brigade Confederate attack along the southern portion of 

Cemetery Ridge was spread out along 1 miles of frontage. On Day 3, by contrast, the 

9-brigade attack was focused on only mile of frontage. The effect was to concentrate 

great pressure against a small portion of the Union line. But the Union Army was able 

to concentrate several brigades there, supported by large artillery forces. Thus, Lee did 

not have a decisive advantage at the point of attack. 22 Lee’s forces had broken through under similar conditions at Gaines Mill a year 

earlier. Foote, 522 23 Gramm, 188.

24 A key feature of Days 2 and 3 is that Meade always had a full corps in operational 

reserve to reinforce pressure points along his line. General George Sykes’ Fifth Corps 

provided the reserve on Day 2, and General John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps provided the 

reserve on Day 3. 25 McPherson, 94.

26 For example, Lee consulted Jackson at length before deciding how to respond 

to Hooker’s initiative at Chancellorsville (Foote, 282ff) and, earlier, with Jackson and 

Longstreet at Fredericksburg (Foote, 32ff). Indeed, Lee conferred with his corps commanders and carefully weighed their views prior to Day 2 at Gettysburg (Foote, 486ff). 27 According to Foote, Alexander knew that “no cannonade had ever driven Union 

batteries from a prepared position, and he certainly had no confidence that this one 

would accomplish that result.” Foote, 540. 28 Lee would have known of Meade’s reputation for sound preparations and skillful 

placement of forces. 29 In Gramm’s analysis, Lee became a better general after Gettysburg because “he 

had learned something about possibilities.” 30 Bowden and Ward, 446.

31 Gramm.

32 Claims that Lee was sick, possibly from a heart condition, at Gettysburg have not 

been confirmed; nor is there any evidence that Lee’s usually strong mind was affected by 

any weakness of his body. See McPherson. 33 Gramm. 

34 Significantly, Longstreet was at Fredericksburg but not Chancellorsville. 

35 Later claims of Sickles that Meade had to be talked out of retreating appear to 

have no substance and were self-serving. See Foote. 

Defense Horizons is published by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy. CTNSP 

publications are available online at http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html.

The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are those of the 

contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any other 

department or agency of the Federal Government.

Center for Technology and National Security Policy

 Hans Binnendijk

Director