I must say in any style of writing history that was entirely inadequate by Bruce Catton on Gettysburg. It reads as if Catton cut out material that he had written in draft, or suffered the cuts from the editor. For example, he twice teases another account of Robert E. Lee's military brilliance:
So there was only one card left to play, and it was played so magnificently that it is not always easy to see that it probably was a losing card all along. (187)
Pickett's Charge that is.
But the way it was tried still commands attention. (188)
Then Catton doesn't deliver. I don't know what Catton meant by "was played so magnificently" and "the way it was tried commands attention" and the obvious point is that I don't know what Catton meant because Catton doesn't say what he meant. He had just gotten finished trashing the very idea of Pickett's Charge as Longstreet and every single historian, any rational person, George Picket himself, has. And it was trash, an irrational "forlorn hope." It was not magnificently played. “It was simply murder.” (as a Pennsylvanian said of the similar slaughter against strikingly similar odds at Fredericksburg.). Lee’s non pareil bombardment shattered eardrums but not U.S. emplacements (his cannoneers shot too high). Catton writes that Pickett's men,
perfected their alignment, finally, and when the line began to roll forward it looked irresistible. It was not irresistible. In point of fact it was doomed. (190)
As they made their march they had no gunnery that could even reach the Federals. It was not until they crossed the Emmitsburg Road that they could shoot back! Pause: They. Could. Not. Shoot. Back. Unpause. They had marched hundreds of yards with no, zero, means of defending themselves, no cover, nothing. And half of them never made it back alive. It was not magnificent, it was simply murder.
