Dad, Army Recruiter, aspiring historian, poet, #irregularwarfare, #poetry. #cats #LetsGoPens 🐧 #library #milsky #zettelkasten #militaryhistory
![duties as the general may direct. The lines as held are not to be changed without orders, the skirmishers being simply advanced, according to instructions given, to find and report the position and lines of the enemy" s Meade had to find a way to exploit the major victory on the battlefield his generalship obtained for the Army of the Potomac. The question was not as easily answered as one might expect. Before he could even contemplate a pursuit of Lee's army, he had to make sure it was, in fact, retreating rather than lying in wait along Seminary Ridge, luring Meade to attack.
Meade had studied military strategy and tactics under Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point. Mahan was a disciple of Clausewitz. Meade, a lin-quist as well as a scholar of strategy and tactics - and as a former student of Dennis Hart Mahan — was well acquainted with Clausewitz's teachines, including those relating to the pursuit of a defeated enemy. Meade was well equipped to meet the challenge after Gettysburg.
Both of the contending armies, Clausewitz writes,
, "are already physi-
cally tired when they go into battle, since the movements directly preceding an engagement are usually of a strenuous kind. A prototypical struggle on the battlefield," he continues,
"calls for exertions that complete the ex-
haustion." Meade and his army were living those words. Clausewitz then notes: "Moreover, the winning side is in almost as much disorder and confusion as the losers, and will, therefore, have to pause so that order can be restored, stragglers collected, and ammunition distributed." He continues:
Each of the thousands [of] men under [the general's] command needs food and rest and longs for nothing so much as a few hours free of danger and fatigue. The voices of those thousands of men] is what is heard in the general's council; it is conducted up a channel of senior officers who urge these human needs on the general's sympathy. The generals own energies have been sapped by mental and physical exhausti…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4jsnuuhlf5vi42sqlltmfivj/bafkreihvxs4tlpf27oyo7xgb4cls6fo36rojcutyb5xsvoqetw7nn3ps24)
Dad, Army Recruiter, aspiring historian, poet, #irregularwarfare, #poetry. #cats #LetsGoPens 🐧 #library #milsky #zettelkasten #militaryhistory