PROPERTY FROM A CALIFORNIA ESTATE
[CIVIL WAR]. SICKLES, Daniel J. (1825-1914), Major General. Autograph letter signed ("D. Sickles") to unidentified recipient, n.d. 2 pages, 4to, on Lawyer's Club stationery, inlaid.
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[CIVIL WAR]. SICKLES, Daniel J. (1825-1914), Major General. Autograph letter signed ("D. Sickles") to unidentified recipient, n.d. 2 pages, 4to, on Lawyer's Club stationery, inlaid.
SICKLES AND LONGSTREET DISCUSS GETTYSBURG: "HE AGREED...THAT GETTYSBURG WAS FOUGHT & WON ON JULY 2D" AND THAT PICKETT'S CHARGE WAS "HOPELESS AND IMPOSSIBLE."
A fine postwar letter written to a fellow officer ("Dear General"). Sickles comments on a legal referral to Coudert Brothers then turns to "the Gettysburg meeting" which was "a signal success. Longstreet and I discussed all the tactical questions relating to the battle and he agreed with me that Gettysburg was fought & won on July 2d and that the assault on the 3rd was a hopeless and impossible attempt to retrieve the fortunes of a lost battle. He said to me that if Meade had pushed Lee on the 4th, he would have surrendered before reaching to Potomac." Longstreet's heart had never been in the doomed assault--Pickett's Charge--which Lee ordered against the Union center on July 3rd, and he had urged Lee not to make it. Whether Lee would have capitulated after a fourth day of battle is speculative. Lincoln certainly thought so at the time and chastised Meade for letting Lee slip back across the Potomac into Dixie. Sickles, whose wrong moves on the 2d cost him a leg and nearly cost the Union the battle, was a leading figure in organizing Gettysburg reunions and commemorations in the postwar years.
SICKLES AND LONGSTREET DISCUSS GETTYSBURG: "HE AGREED...THAT GETTYSBURG WAS FOUGHT & WON ON JULY 2D" AND THAT PICKETT'S CHARGE WAS "HOPELESS AND IMPOSSIBLE."
A fine postwar letter written to a fellow officer ("Dear General"). Sickles comments on a legal referral to Coudert Brothers then turns to "the Gettysburg meeting" which was "a signal success. Longstreet and I discussed all the tactical questions relating to the battle and he agreed with me that Gettysburg was fought & won on July 2d and that the assault on the 3rd was a hopeless and impossible attempt to retrieve the fortunes of a lost battle. He said to me that if Meade had pushed Lee on the 4th, he would have surrendered before reaching to Potomac." Longstreet's heart had never been in the doomed assault--Pickett's Charge--which Lee ordered against the Union center on July 3rd, and he had urged Lee not to make it. Whether Lee would have capitulated after a fourth day of battle is speculative. Lincoln certainly thought so at the time and chastised Meade for letting Lee slip back across the Potomac into Dixie. Sickles, whose wrong moves on the 2d cost him a leg and nearly cost the Union the battle, was a leading figure in organizing Gettysburg reunions and commemorations in the postwar years.