Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Lytle Hill

The view from Lytle Hill. Brotherton Field is directly through the trees in the center of the photo. Snodgrass Hill is out of view to the left. Lytle Hill would have been the new Union right under the previously discussed counter factual.
Looking up at Lytle Hill. The group in the previous picture was standing at the corner of the treeline on the left third of the photo.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Lytle Hill would have been the new Union right under the previously discussed counter factual."

So how do you deal with Manigault and Anderson's attacks south of Lytle that would envelop it if unopposed?

This seems to ignore Hindman's frontage.

Dave Powell

Nick said...

I believe when I originally wrote this I used the maps (Cozzens and the one from the park, might be Betts) to see how far south the Confederates lined up. From those maps they didn't seem to extend too far south. Plus during the battle they could have hit Lytle hill from the flank but no one seemed to make an attack on Wilder's position to get at that flank. So I'm just assuming that Wilder might have been able to secure the flank in this scenario.

Anonymous said...

>I believe when I originally wrote this I used the maps (Cozzens and the one from the park, might be Betts) to see how far south the Confederates lined up. From those maps they didn't seem to extend too far south.

Even Cozzens' map - which is not really to scale, each brigade the same size block, no matter how large or small - shows Hindman almost entirely beyond Davis' flank south of Brotherton. See the 11 am Map you posted. The Betts maps (those are the doublesided troop movement maps you get at the park) do show Hindman extending much farther south.

Davis is going to be outflanked. There are no Federals anywhere near that can stop it.

>plus during the battle they could have hit Lytle hill from the flank but no one seemed to make an attack on Wilder's position to get at that flank. So I'm just assuming that Wilder might have been able to secure the flank in this scenario.

Wilder's men are good, with solid firepower. I am less confident that they can stop an entire division, however.

However, note my previous comment. Look at how long that line is in your photographs. The basic yardstick of civil war frontage is 1 man per foot of ground to form a line. How many men do you think this line would take? You are talking Harker's Knoll to Lytle Hill.

And finally, this ignores whatever Longtreet decides to do with Preston.

Dave Powell

Nick said...

I'm busy tonight (this presentation) but sometime in the next few days I'll try to scan and edit a map that shows what may have been possible. I'm not doubting that the right flank would have been a trouble spot, but I think its not a foregone conclusion that its gonna fall apart.