What Was the Purpose of Lee’s Plan on Gettysburg

The book by Tom Carhart about Lee’s plan on Gettysburg argues that Lee wanted to divide the defender’s troops and achieve a divide and conquer win. Carhart relies on the fact that Lee was a very good confederate strategist and he would not have taken his army to the slaughter without an elaborate plan on how to win.

However, this argument does not hold water. Lee indeed had an elaborate plan. But he thought that it would be easy to take out the troops that were perched on top of the hills. This would push the other troops towards Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill. They would be trapped and since Lee had more soldier’s it would be easier to finish the troops.

On day 3 in the East Cavalry Field, Lee had anticipated fewer soldiers and so, he sent out fewer numbers. It is interesting to note that despite having fewer soldiers, Lee’s troops caused more damage. They killed more than 8000 soldiers and lost approximately 6000 soldiers. This just goes to show that Lee had a good plan on attacking the opponents.

In addition to this, the book claims that Lee wanted Pickett and Stuart from the northeast side. However, this would have been an impossible and bad strategy. The two troops would have been lying out in the field waiting for the other troops to push the opponents towards Culp and Cemetery Hills. However, the assumption that the other troops would have been successful caused the Confederation more lives than they anticipated. There is no argument regarding the prowess of Lee. However, in this particular war, his strategy failed.