Echelon Form Examples: Fill & Download for Free

"Best" is a very subjective term. The Lincoln Country process of Maple Charcoal Filtering imparts a smoothness and Sweetness to a whiskey that would otherwise technically be a bourbon, so if you prefer a dark caramel-ly sweetness as opposed to the oily, sometimes sour notes a traditional bourbon might have, then go for a tenessee style- the higher-echelon examples of Tenessee whiskey make for great sipping drinks.Happy Drinking!

Thanks for the A2A, as unanswerable as it is!As others have said, taking nothing away from game 6 of the 75 WS, it is not the best ever. Certainly an upper echelon example of the sport. Fisk gave us an iconic moment that will last as long as the sport.Here’s a few that might rank as high or higher, in my lifetime:1978 AL East Playoff game1986 NLCS game 61988 WS Game 11991 WS game 7Roy Halladay’s playoff no hitter (forget the details)

Absolutely the Confederates could have won at Gettysburg. They had won the 1st day’s fight pretty convincingly but failed to take the heights south of town (a subject deserving its own post) which necessitated a 2nd day of fighting. It was during the 2nd day of fighting that the Confederates were well on their way to victory but for a series of events which ultimately caused the Confederate attack to come unraveled at the critical most period of the fighting. As a result the Union caught a break and was quickly able to recover and consolidate its positions. It was after the 2nd day’s fighting that Lee should have packed it all up and made for Virginia, but having been at the precipice of victory which was denied him due to circumstances I’ll talk about later, he was wont to try it again on the 3rd day. Below I’ll provide Robert E. Lee’s plans for Day 2 and what ultimately went wrong.DAY 2:Lee’s Objective: Cemetery HillWhile I realize that Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels novel or the movie Gettysburg has practically redefined Little Round Top as the true objective that Lee sought on Day 2 let me dispel that myth right now. It was Cemetery Hill to the north that Lee desired. Cemetery Hill was the lynchpin of Meade’s entire defensive disposition at Gettysburg. He knew that if he could dislodge the Union from the hill and capture it the rest of Meade’s line would become untenable forcing him to withdraw.Lee’s Plan:Ironically Lee’s plan to take Cemetery Hill would begin at the opposite end of the Union line in the south. Lee had Longstreet set up his divisions of Hood and McLaws in Biesecker’s Woods along South Seminary Ridge (a.k.a. Warfield Ridge) extending the Confederate line such that it actually overlapped the Union line at the southern end of the field. His plan was to open a hard hitting assault against the Union line in the south followed by successive attacks from Confederate brigades aligned further up Seminary/Warfield Ridge opposite Union dispositions found at Devil’s Den, Sherfy’s Peach Orchard, Emmitsburg Road, Cemetery Ridge and finally Cemetery Hill.In tactical military parlance this is known as attack-in-echelon whereby the leading units going forward to attack enemy positions is followed by the unit to his immediate left (or right depending on the situation) after a predetermined amount of time had elapsed. Then once that brigade or brigades have gone forward into the attack the brigade to their left advances forward after a period of time has elapsed and so on all the way up the Confederate line in a south-to-north fashion finally reaching Cemetery Hill. Attack-in-echelon is designed to accomplish several things, one of which is to exert a sort of unnerving incremental pressure exerted against the enemy causing a loss of command and control to some degree depending on its severity and the skills of the enemy’s leadership.BELOW: Attack-in-echelon example. The bottom infantry unit begins the attack against the opposite enemy line which is followed by the unit it his left by 15 minutes and so on.The Big Picture on Day 2:The bigger picture that is rarely if ever picked up on by historians today is what Lee HOPED Meade would do in reaction to the opening attack by Hood & McLaw’s Divisions in the south. As Lee anticipated, Meade reacted to the assault by literally snatching up brigade after brigade from the north half of the battlefield and sent them to the south end of the field in the direction of the cacophonous sound of fighting that soon engulfed the area. This was exactly what Lee wanted to see happen because for every brigade not at the north end of the battlefield was one less brigade that could stand in the way of Lee’s planned assault on Cemetery Hill set to begin as soon as the attack-in-echelon had worked its way north ending with Pender’s division opposite Cemetery Hill to the west of Emmitsburg road before it led into town. Once Pender’s four brigades were fully committed into the fight the coup de grâce against Cemetery Hill would be delivered by Rodes and Early’s divisions attacking from two different directions on either side of the town of Gettysburg in a sort of “double whammy” punch if-you-will. In addition to this Ewell was to begin an assault against Culp’s Hill at a time that seemed most opportune but not necessarily in conjunction with the larger Confederate attack.BELOW: This map illustrates the general idea of Lee’s game plan for July 2nd. The Confederate Attack-In-Echelon begins in the south and works its way north ending with Pender’s Division. The attack opened in the south and was designed to force Meade to pull large numbers of infantry from the north end of the battlefield and redeploy them south to stop the Confederate attack there which would gradually roll north ending with a two pronged assault against the Cemetery Hill salient.BELOW: Rodes & Early’s Division delivering the coup de grâce against Cemetery Hill’s defenders. Ideally this wouldn’t occur until Ewell had Culp’s Hill under assault with Johnson’s Division. While this “double whammy” assault ultimately failed to materialize Johnson’s attack on Culp’s Hill necessitated its defenders to urgently request a brigade (Amberg) from Cemetery Hill that was stationed at the hill’s northern-most point, making its capture all the more probable had it occurred.As the assault grew in intensity, slowly gravitating north Meade continued pulling his brigades stationed in the north to be sent south to arrest the massive assault coming from that direction. In doing so vulnerable gaps in the Union line began to appear, exactly as Lee had hoped. As the attack-in-echelon began moving to the north these gaps were ripe for exploitation for the next successive brigades scheduled to advance across the Emmitsburg road. The plan was working beautifully.BELOW: Initial dispositions at 4:00 PM on July 2, 1863 just before the fighting started.BELOW: Longstreet begins his assault in the south at 4:00 PM. By this time Meade already has Syke’s V Corps moving towards the south and as the heat is turned up against the Union line in the south he sends Caldwell’s Division towards the Wheatfield. Cemetery Hill is now considerably less secure.Confederate Attack-in-Echelon becomes DERAILED:By around 6:30 or 7:00 PM both Hood and McLaw’s 4 brigade divisions were fully engaged in fierce fighting at the southern end of the field. The failure of those Texas and Alabama regiments belonging to Law and Roberton’s Brigades to capture Little Round Top mattered very little as it was the ferocity of their attacks as well as those from the other brigades that was causing Meade to continuously feed greater numbers of his brigades deployed in the north to be sent south which potentially threatened the security of Cemetery Hill, Lee’s true objective. Indeed Hood and McLaws divisions dealt the Army of the Potomac a crippling blow virtually obliterating Sickle’s III Corps, badly mauling Caldwell’s Division belonging to Hancock’s II Corps, and badly battering half the 8 brigades belonging to Syke’s V Corps.And yet more was to come. Next on the program of attack from the Confederates was Anderson’s 5 fresh brigades followed by Pender’s 4 brigades. After the last brigade of McLaw’s division advanced across Emmitsburg Road at the Peach Orchard the first of Anderson’s brigades picked up the pace with Wilcox’s brigade advancing forward followed 15 minutes later by Lang’s small brigade of Floridians followed by Wright’s brigade of Georgians in another 15 minutes. The attack-in-echelon was doing its job as chaos and confusion seized the Union lines. However to the frustration of General Wright he was to soon learn his brigade which stood at the threshold of victory with very little resistance ahead of him at his section of Cemetery Ridge was to be the high water mark for the Confederates that day. What happened? To find out we need to rewind the clock to around late morning time that day and focus on events around the large farm belonging to the Bliss family.BELOW: The attack-in-echelon rolls north fully committing Hood and McLaws divisions but runs into problems after the first 3 of Anderson’s 5 brigades advanced across Emmitsburg Road toward the Union line. General Carnot Posey has lost control of his brigade in protracted fighting that has engulfed the Bliss Farm.Battle of Bliss FarmSometime in the late morning time of July 2nd companies of soldiers belonging to Willard’s Union brigade of Hay’s Division of Hancock’s II Corps had infiltrated the Bliss Farm complex located between the Confederate and Union lines. These Union skirmishers began taking pot shots at Posey’s brigade of Alabamians opposite their position. Instead of nipping the problem in the bud with a resolute response of a full regiment or two he slowly began feeding company sized groups of soldiers into the fight which was met with more companies from the Union eventually growing into regiments from each side. The fighting had steadily protracted in size throughout the afternoon and evening such that when it was Posey’s turn to advance forward as part of the attack-in-echelon he had lost effective control of his brigade and was unable to participate. Making matters worse was the outright insubordination of General Mahone who inexplicably refused to advance against the Union line! (General Mahone’s behavior that evening is deserving of its own Quora post). Sensing the momentum of the Confederate assault was in danger of failing at such a critical point in the attack General Pender resolved to lead his 4 brigades into the fight early without the support of these two brigades on his right but at that very moment he sustained what would eventually be a fatal wound when shrapnel from a Union shell hit him as he was on his mount about to lead the advance forward.BELOW: A closer look at Bliss Farm in relation to the surrounding area. Fighting began in the late morning July 2nd when companies and then regiments belonging to Willard’s Union brigade took up positions in the farm and began skirmishing with Posey’s brigade. The fight escalated throughout the day causing General Posey to lose control of his brigade, failing to support the attack-in-echelon when it reached his position on Seminary Ridge.So if you’re counting, within a 20 minute span of time 6 Confederate brigades had effectively been removed from the attack-in-echelon assault (Posey & Mahone of Anderson’s Div. + Perrin, Thomas, Scales, and Lane of Pender’s Division). This in turn caused the cancelation of Rode’s 5 brigades that would have formed the western half of the planned “double whammy” two pronged attack along with Early’s Division to the east of town. So doing some more math we take our 6 brigades just tallied and add Rode’s 5 brigades and now we’re up to 11 Confederate brigades that within a blink of an eye are removed from the fight for Cemetery Hill. To his credit Early went forward with his half of the coup de grâce and managed to briefly capture East Cemetery Hill but of course all that was doomed to failure being too small a force to effect the sort of breach Lee had planned to successfully dislodge the Union. However, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say had the assault run its course without the problems it ran into that evening the hill would have probably been in Rebel hands going into the 3rd day.BELOW: This map illustrated some 11 Confederate brigades that was scheduled to advance against Union lines (Yellow Arrows) but failed to materialize through a comedy of errors beginning with General Posey’s brigade of Anderson’s Division. To the east Ewell tasks Johnson’s Division with capturing Culp’s Hill.And there you have it ladies and gentlemen! That’s the real story of Day 2 which for some reason remains largely unknown to most people to this day despite how well known the battle has become to the nation’s history. Little Round Top was largely inconsequential to the Confederate design of victory that day…it was all about the hill at the other end of the line!BELOW: Another tactical map I’ve drawn up showing all the moving parts of Lee’s failed attack-in-echelon of Day 2. Lee’s attack-in-echelon rolls northward but is ultimately derailed at Posey’s brigade.