Book Review: Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command
Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command by Kent Masterson Brown (2021)
The University of North Carolina Press
Review by Jeffrey R. Biggs (Hardtack Books)
“The reinterpretation of the primary sources and secondary works is where “Meade at Gettysburg” rises... Kent Masterson Brown has shown that despite hundreds of books on the Battle of Gettysburg, there is still room for new interpretations and fresh approaches.”
A wartime image of Meade’s headquarters (LC)
In Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, rests the nondescript headstone of General George Gordon Meade. “He did his work bravely and is at rest,” reads the inscription. While the headstone’s sentiment is consistent with Meade’s reluctance at self-promotion, the reality is that Meade may have done more to save the nation in a time of crisis than any other competitor to that title. At the end of June 1863, when Meade was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, the army was on a long losing streak of twenty-one months. The high rate of casualties in the loyal states left many unwilling to enlist for duty. The Lincoln administration and Congress instituted the drastic measure of a draft in March 1863. After the last defeat in early May at Chancellorsville, the threat of northern civil unrest was real. But after less than a week in command of the Army of the Potomac, George Meade delivered the army’s first unambiguous victory after three bloody days of conflict at Gettysburg.
In Kent Masterson Brown’s 2021 book entitled “Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command,” readers are given a fresh new look at Meade’s generalship in command of the Army of the Potomac from June 28, 1863, the date that Meade unceremoniously assumed command of the army, until Robert E. Lee’s army escaped to the other side of the Potomac on July 17th. This is the first study of its kind in the well-worn subject of Gettysburg, and what emerges is “a General George Gordon Meade never seen before,” acting as an intelligent and strategic-minded thinker while also wearing the hat of an aggressive tactical commander.
History has not been generous to Meade. The likes of Grant and Sherman dwarf his standing among the giants of the Civil War. Brown asserts that Abraham Lincoln damaged Meade’s reputation and his inner circle of advisors who, lacking any concept of how a retreating army should be pursued, felt that Meade failed in aggressively trailing Lee’s army after the repulse at Gettysburg. An unsent letter discovered years later after the deaths of Lincoln and Meade became the prime exhibit of the so-called evidence that destroyed Meade’s post-war reputation. “Again, my dear General, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune in Lee’s escape,” Lincoln wrote. “He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him...would have ended the war...your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably by it.” It was scathing words by the president and accentuated publicly in a cabinet meeting on July 17, with Lincoln stating Meade “has committed a terrible mistake.” The record that George Meade was reluctant to attack Lee’s damaged, but still substantial, force is sharply rebuked by Brown. Meade was determined that the move against Lee was to be made by using a parallel course, which was the only practical option available to him. Any direct pursuit would require forcing a passage through the South Mountain range, which Lee could take advantage of by defending the passes with small elements while holding back a large federal command deployed along narrow roads. Brown treats the classic military theorist Carl von Clausewitz as an expert witness in defense of Meade. As a student of Dennis Hart Mahan, an early West Point instructor and advocate of Clausewitz’s views, Meade was well-versed with the master’s view on strategy and tactics. Clausewitz cautions against ever following a defeated army through mountains; “the most effective degree of pursuit takes the form of marching parallel with the enemy toward the immediate goal of his retreat.” The parallel pursuit of Lee was also the only pursuit that satisfied the Lincoln administration’s directive to cover Baltimore and Washington. When Meade caught up to Lee’s retreating army outside of Williamsport on July 13, his army was reduced to sixty thousand men who had not been fed for days and desperate for forage, clothing, and shoes. The defensive works Lee had built were extensive. Brown writes, “to make that assault against any segment of Lee’s defense lines would have required the assault force to move nearly a mile across open, undulating ground, wading a swollen stream, and then moving up a slope, the summit of which was more than 150 feet above the surface of the stream, all the while under concentrated artillery and small arms fire from a well-positioned enemy of almost equal size as Meade’s.” The attack would have likely ended in defeat, thus undermining the late success at Gettysburg. “One wonders,” the author questions, what the administration would have said if “Meade attacked Lee’s defense lines on 13 July and suffered a bloody and crippling repulse.”
General Meade’s strategic planning in the days leading up to the Gettysburg clash has garnered negative attention. Tuesday, June 30, in particular, is an eventful day in the campaign; Brown clearly and cognitively clears up quite a few misconceptions on these critical days. By June 30th, Meade believed that the east-west turnpike axis (modern-day Route 30) between Chambersburg and York was the likely point where the Confederate forces would concentrate. Intelligence had gathered that Longstreet’s and Hill’s Corps were concentrated at Chambersburg, and Ewell’s divisions were spread near Carlisle and York. On June 30, in a letter not staffed out but written in his hand, Meade - after ordering John Reynold’s troops to Gettysburg - advised Reynold that should the enemy advance on him, he should fall back to Emmitsburg, about ten miles southwest. In a postscript, Meade confirmed, “your present position was given more with a view to an advance to Gettysburg than a defensive point.” The compelling point is that Reynolds was expected to advance on Gettysburg, not defend it. Brown views the mission more akin to a reconnaissance-in-force. Any Union movement on the Confederate main axis point was anticipated to force Lee to show his hand and “coalesce and show its intentions.” These orders aimed to lure Lee into an ill-advised attack against the key defensive position that Meade concentrated on along the Big Pipe Creek fifteen miles southeast of Gettysburg. Meade contemplated that the left wing of the army under Reynolds, perhaps being pursued by an unaware Lee, would fall back to the heights along the Big Pipe Creek, and there, the army would fight a pitched battle with Lee on the ground of Meade’s choosing. Brown is aware of the sacred cows that are being challenged here. Edwin Coddington and Harry Pfanz suggest the commitment to a general engagement was left for Reynolds to decide. Stephen Sears claims that Reynolds was sent forward without instructions on what to do when he arrived. The give and take of the histrionics in the case is beyond the scope of this review, but Brown, while respectful of the scholarship of these authors, does address each camp’s view in detail and makes a convincing argument in defense of his own.
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in the fields south of the town from Monday, July 1, 1863, to Wednesday, July 3, is covered at length in Meade at Gettysburg. Absent from the battlefield on July 1, Meade assumed field command after midnight on July 2. By sunrise, we find Meade issuing tactical orders, directing maps to be made, establishing field hospitals, and constructing signal flag operations. All activities in the day in the life of a general in full command of an army.
By the afternoon of July 2, General Sickles occupying the army's left flank was uneasy and deservedly so as Lee maneuvered for the afternoon attack. While informative and engaging, Brown’s narrative of the Meade-Sickles controversy is standard fare and offers little new insight into the controversy, perhaps wisely. Hence, it’s a well-trod subject with plenty of material available. (If someone is interested in understanding the background to the controversy, I recommend James A. Hessler’s Sickles at Gettysburg). Brown finds no nuance in Sickle’s advance forward against orders. “Sickles had been given plenty of explicit orders,” he writes, “but in a startling exhibition of insubordination, he refused to obey them.”
With the Confederate assault of July 2, George Meade was suddenly thrust into tactical command of the Army of the Potomac. We don’t find a passive commander here awaiting events but one making anticipatory moves to regain initiative. Meade ordered Little Round Top to be occupied and directed troops to the Wheatfield to arrest the movement. Later, as the Confederate wave moved further north along Cemetery Ridge, Meade personally ordered elements of Hancock’s Corps forward into the fray. Incredibly, Meade was seen directing the action near the point of attack, a sight very rare for an army commander, especially on the Union side of the conflict. At the end of the fight, General Meade’s horse, Old Baldy, was taken to the rear with a wound to the stomach. Despite losing twelve thousand, the Union line held on July 2nd. This day’s fighting perhaps showed Meade at his finest in tactical command of the army. “Although Meade was the operational commander of the army,” Brown reminds us, “he had proven himself to be a fearless tactical commander on 2 July.” For General Meade’s detractors, the council of war held at the Leister House on the evening of July 2 is often seen as evidence of Meade’s lack of will to continue the fight or perhaps a backhanded way of delegating command decisions via committee. The consensus of the corps command was to stay in position for at least another day and remain on the defensive. Brown sees no hidden agenda to the council of war, rather more evidence of Meade not a general lost in his head, but instead - to use a twenty-first-century term - a “team” player. “Meade allowed his corps commanders to express their resolve to one another, and, as a team, determine to hold the line at Gettysburg,” Brown comments. In firm belief that Lee would attack the center of the Union position on July 3, Meade strengthened his Cemetery Ridge line, thus rightly anticipating where the final assault would occur. Retaining the hat of a tactical commander, he bolstered the defense in the center with a group of Vermont volunteers, and later in the day, Meade ordered troops defending the right at Culp’s Hill to reinforce the center. Even battered troops severely damaged in the July 2 battle were ordered to take up a reserve position behind Hancock’s Corps along the ridge. Before the attack on July 3, Meade was on the move. After eating breakfast, he checked in with the division command on Cemetery Ridge and then rode down the line and reached the summit of Little Round Top, examining the terrain with his field glasses. This is not a general detached from his underlings and catching breaks at army headquarters isolated by a rigid staff hierarchy. Brown shows us a general exhibiting personal disregard for his safety, responding to real-time battlefield events, being visible to his army, and being willing to share its fate. “One trait that Meade possessed was absolute coolness under fire,” Brown writes. One of the lasting images of the battle following the repulse of the last desperate charge of the Confederates recalled in history as Pickett’s Charge, is the sight of an exultant General George Gordon Meade, never known for pageantry or theatrics, riding triumphantly down Cemetery Ridge with the national colors fluttering followed by his staff. The cheering by the Union rank-and-file soldiers, unfamiliar with the glow of victory, turned into a sustained ovation down the line. As a lifelong student of Gettysburg, I found Kent Masterson Brown’s work refreshing in reassessing Meade’s generalship in the campaign. After over 150 years of writing on the battle, few additional sources can be uncovered. The interpretations of the sources are where the opportunities lie in fully understanding the battle and the Civil War at large. While this academic work is meticulously researched, Masterson Brown's sources are commonly available. The reinterpretation of the primary sources and secondary works is where “Meade at Gettysburg” rises. Kent Masterson Brown has shown that despite hundreds of books on the Battle of Gettysburg, there is still room for new interpretations and fresh approaches.