5 thoughts on “Little Round Top”

  1. For me the two key events were Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top and Buford’s cavalry’s delay of Lee’s lead division. This bought time for Chamberlain and the rest to get up on the ridge before Lee. Totally different outcome if that doesn’t happen.

  2. I find myself in the camp that believes that if the Army of Northern Virginia had made it to the high ground first, then Meade probably would not have attacked. His (Meade’s) record fairly conclusively shows that he was quite methodical and tended to make very few mistakes. IMNSHO he would have withdrawn a short distance, keeping his army between Lee and DC to await the next move.

    Grant taking Vicksburg and Rosecrans maneuvering Bragg out of Chattanooga were far more important strategically.

  3. While not meaning to disparage the performance of Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Little Round Top, the cult of Chamberlain has over the years grossly inflated the importance of that action in the course of the battle. If the 20th Maine had broken and fallen back off the hill, Longstreet’s division commanders simply did not have the reserves in hand to exploit the opening, whereas the Union commanders *did* have unengaged brigades which could have been brought into line behind the hill to stave off any exploitation, assuming that a commander could have seen the problem.

    Something similar happened towards the end of the Battle of the Wilderness, when John Gordon’s flank attack crushed in the far Union right. Nothing came of it, even though it was as complete a rout as you could want. Time and resources simply weren’t available to exploit the collapse.

    Longstreet’s attack was linear, and without reserves. He put all of his regiments in line, which meant that it was powerful and comprehensive in the moment, but was heavily vulnerable to counterattack, which in the event was what occurred. The stand on Little Round Top meant that the Union reserves which went in were mostly directed to the Wheatfield, the crest of the hill itself, and the Slaughterpen rather than to the left rear flank. What Confederate reserves that *were* available were placed on Longstreet’s own left, from the unengaged Third Corps division which sent in those two brigades which were stopped by another of Hancock’s fire-brigade just-in-time reinforcements. As Warren was organizing the reinforcements of the Little Round Top sector, so was Hancock handling the center-left relief over the steaming corpse of what had been III Corps.

    Why does the world remember Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, and not William Colvill and the 1st Minnesota? The breach to the center of the Union line was just as catastrophic as a collapse by the 20th Maine on Little Round Top would have been – if not worse, given the proximity of other uncommitted Third Corps brigades to the north-west of the breakthrough – and the charge of the 1st Minnesota was far more reckless and self-sacrificial. But Joshua Chamberlain was a bookish man of many, many letters who survived the battle, whereas William Colvill died of his wounds. So we hear endless encomiums upon the charge of 20th Maine, and only occasionally, if they’re touring the battlefield with a decent docent, will someone hear of the agony of the 1st Minnesota.

    1. Actually, I recall a few years ago listening to an NPR report on the battle, and the reporter was taken to the scene of the 1st Minnesota charge, where the action was described by a docent. You could hear in the reporter’s voice that she was very moved, almost in tears.

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