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EPISODE 1.20 -
April 1, 2005
Battlefield Historian
Guest: Donald Pfanz
Donald C. Pfanz, author of Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier's Life, talks about his role as historian at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
Blake's Review:
Not surprisingly, the conversation starts with a chat about Harry Pfanz, Donald's father, who authored some of the more complete histories on the Battle of Gettysburg. They have a discussion about to what degree history can become microhistory and whether diving into the miniscule details of a battle is really overkill or proper history. Pfanz argues, and Gerry agrees, that so long as people show interest in every small detail of a battle then historians are justified in dissecting a battle minute-by-minute whenever possible.
They then turn to the main subject of Richard Ewell and his story. Why has Ewell been so largely forgotten by historians? "I'm not really sure, except that he didn't have the success that Jackson or Lee or Stuart did and didn't have quite that dashing aura of a Stuart. He was one of the most important Confederate leaders, served during the entire war, with the exception of the period when he was out injured. And he's a very fascinating character." They discuss Ewell's personal history some but, inevitably, return to Ewell's role in the war. Pfanz states that Ewell actually fights very well in the war but that people fixate today on the role he played in the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gerry then asks about Ewell's role at Gettysburg and what happened there. Couldn't Ewell have just attacked Cemetery Hill on July 1 and won the battle? Pfanz says that theory, "ignores the realities on the battlefield that day." He continues, "What it tends to ignore is the strength of the Federal position and the difficulties that Ewell was facing within his own corps. The Federals had a very strong position. They had 40 cannons, a massive amount of cannons up on that hill. They had clear fields of fire so the cannons could mow down anything that was coming at them. They didn't have a huge amount of infantry support, but they had at least one intact infantry brigade there. You take that together with the fragments of the other brigades that are now rallying up on that hill. You may have had as many as 10,000 to 12,000 Federals there protected by stone walls." Pfanz goes on to point out that Ewell's Corps had already marched a full day and two of his three divisions (all then currently available) had already been fighting for hours. Another of his brigades, Smith's, was out on the extreme flank where an enemy force was rumored to be moving around the Confederate flank (a false rumor). Rodes's Division had suffered heavy losses and Early's Division was shuffling 5,000 prisoners towards the rear.
"When you start looking at what Ewell actually had to attack that extremely formidable hill, he has perhaps 5,000 effective troops to attack a hill that is extremely strong, that has 40 cannon and maybe 10,000 to 12,000 troops defending it. It's easy to look back and say, well, they were riding the crest of success, they should have gone forward. But had he done so, I think most serious students of Gettysburg today agree that it would have been a massacre."
What of Trimble's report that he could have taken it even with a few hundred men? "That wasn't practical," says Pfanz, "the hill was heavily defended by artillery and infantry. And keep in mind that Ewell could see what was on the hill but he couldn't see what was behind it. Today we know where the rest of the Union army was, but those hills hid where the rest of the army was. And if you are Ewell you can assume that if you've seen two corps, and there are seven, that the others are not too far away. And as far as he knows he may run into a lot more troops that he bargained for."
Pfanz also questions why, if Lee had wished the hill to be taken, he did not order an attack or reinforce Ewell with Anderson's Division which was arriving fresh on the battlefield in the afternoon. Further, Lee continued to advise Ewell to avoid a general engagement (even after all the fighting so far on the 1st). For all these reasons, Ewell opts not to attack Cemetery Hill. "But Ewell comes up with actually a pretty clever solution. Over to the left of Cemetery Hill is another hill called Culp's Hill. If the Confederates can take that hill they can maneuver the Federals off the other hill without a fight. So it will accomplish what Lee wants to accomplish without bringing on a general engagement. So Ewell starts making preparations to do that. The only problem is that for a variety of reasons, he is not able to attempt that move until the Federals are already able to occupy it and so that plan goes awry. But it is a good plan and if it had been carried out more effectively it would have accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish."
Gerry questions whether or not, even if Cemetery Hill falls on July 1, the Federals would have been defeated. He simply says they would have fallen back to the next hill and the battle would have gone on. Pfanz agrees with this and says Ewell succeeding wouldn't have necessarily meant a stunning Union defeat but rather just a shift for Meade's army to a different line.
They then have a long and interesting discussion about Pfanz's role in the National Park Service and his job at the Wilderness/Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania/Chancellorsville battlefields. Pfanz discusses the problems of battlefield preservation and urban sprawl then occurring (2005) and how in the next 20 years (meaning today in 2025) there would be nothing left of the battlefields which isn't preserved immediately. I daresay he was correct in that.
In the third segment they discuss the interpretation of the Civil War at the battlefields. This is a very interesting chat as the NPS changed the way they interpreted battlefields in an attempt to bring light on the issues not often discussed at these places: slavery, women's issues, and the civilian impact. Pfanz and Gerry both agree that these are important issues which deserve to be discussed but Pfanz doubts the necessity of discussing them out of context at battlefields. He talks about Fredericksburg's plantations and the opportunity to talk about slavery there as being appropriate. But trying to talk about it in the context of the Battle of the Wilderness makes less sense and seems forced. He also states that the vast majority of people visiting battlefields are there to learn about the battle and not about deeper issues of what caused the war. There are whole museums dedicated to those issues but you can only experience the battlefield by visiting them (in other words you can't go to a museum in Richmond and experience what it was like on Cemetery Hill). He seems to question the wisdom of wasting valuable space at visitors center to try to force a narrative which is repeated at every battlefield site which visitors of multiple battlefields will find redundant and repetitive. Isn't it better to just concentrate on the battle itself and its immediate impact on the specific area (including women, slaves and the locals when relevant)? He brings up very solid points.
Overall a good interview with Pfanz which touches on numerous Civil War topics from the war and the preservation of battlefields today.
_________________ Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012
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