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former moved out, the Prussians of Blicher were seen on the heights of St. Lambert; and the Sixth French Corps, instead of supporting the operations of the First Corps, as had been intended, was taken away and employed in resisting their progress.
The troops ordered to support General Pickett lay on their arms waiting orders from a corps commander charged with the assault, which were never given.
The formation of Count d'erlon's corps for the charge in 1815, and that of Pickett in 1863, is an apt illustration of tactical mutability.
D'Erlon's attack was made in four columns in echelon, the left in advance; the first or left column was composed of two brigades, each brigade of four battalions, one behind the other; each battalion was in three ranks, and the distance between the battalions five paces; the next column had nine battalions, and the other two eight each-twentynine battalions in all. Sixteen thousand men in twentynine battalions would give approximately six hundred men to the battalion; and when in three ranks a front of two hundred men for each one of the four charging columns.
If the front of each column had been on the same line, instead of in echelon, eight hundred men would have been in the front rank.
It was intended that this force should break through by impact, for only the few men in front could fire.
Pickett, with nearly as many troops,1 had nine brigades in two ranks, in two long lines-six brigades in the first and three in the second.
The front line had some ten thousand men, which in two ranks would give a front of five thousand men instead of eight hundred!
The dense masses of D'Erlon's corps would have been butchered by the concentrated, converging, rapid fire of modern breech-loading guns, big and small, before their banners could have been shaken to the breeze.
We say, therefore, it is not easy to compare Lee with the great soldiers of former ages, except as a strategist.
In strategy it is certain Lee stands in the front rank of the great warriors of the world.
He was a greater soldier than Sir Henry Havelock, and equally as devout
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