New Battle of Gettysburg

Like any proper British officer, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of El Alamein has a passing tactical knowledge of the Battle of Gettysburg. But for West Pointer Dwight Eisenhower, the Confederacy's high-water mark holds more than passing fascination. Ike first refought Gettysburg 40 years ago while stationed at nearby Camp Colt as a tank-corps captain. He has fought it since from his farm close by the field where the Confederates made their final desperate charge. Last week, carrying out a three-year promise, he took Old Comrade in Arms Montgomery out to fight it again.

At Culp's Hill, a key point of the Union defenses, Monty led Ike 70 feet up an observation tower (puffed Ike's physician, Major General Howard Snyder, who trailed them: "They're giving my patient a workout. He'll probably be criticized by the doctors"). Together the old soldiers studied rolling terrain to the northeast where Confederate Cavalryman Jeb Stuart maneuvered (on the way down from Carlisle) ineffectually while the battle raged. "Lee was let down by Stuart," said Ike in disapproval. "What beat Stuart was his love of headlines." Montgomery was visibly unimpressed by Confederate attempts to crack the Union right at the hill. "I shouldn't have fought the battle that way myself," he said. Grinned his World War II commander: "If you had, I'd have sacked you."

"Monstrous, Monstrous." Quick to notice detail, Montgomery commented that Union General George Sears Greene had been immortalized in stone wearing his spurs upside down, was relieved to discover that Union Commander George G. Meade wore his spurs correctly. But Meade came in for sharper criticism. "He was not very sure of what he was doing," said Monty. "He was not sure of himself." Ike explained that Meade assumed command only two days before the battle. "He didn't know the plans."

Standing on Little Round Top, a hill that anchored the southern end of the Union line, Ike and Monty agreed that Pickett's famous charge across nearly a mile of open fields exposed to Union guns had been illadvised. "Gosh, look at that, just look at that," said the President, as he studied a map. "Why you'd go across that, I don't know. I just don't know." Said Monty crisply: "Monstrous thing. It was an absolutely monstrous thing." Said Ike of Robert E. Lee, who ordered the charge: "You can't imagine what was on his mind."

Political Pressure. By battle's end, Montgomery of Alamein had some sharp words for both Civil War generals (the day before, at a luncheon speech in Baltimore, he announced that he would have fired them both). His estimate of the North's Meade: "He let that guy get away." As for Lee: "Lee did the worst job of command on that day." But the President, who firmly believes that Lee fought the Battle of Gettysburg because of political pressure from Richmond, was willing to forgive. "Looking at us," he said, "they might have criticized the way we fought our battles."

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