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All true enough Ole, but even if Lee had won at Gettysburg; Then What? Threaten the Capital, Phila., Balt., Harrisburg, etc.? Coul Lee have, realistically, taken any of those objectives?.
Defeating the AoP, was no panacea for southern lack of viable strategic options. Lee had defeated the AoP commanders ever since he assumed command of the ANV; but to what end?
This board has discussed the fact that the one of the constants of the CW, was the near impossibility of destroying opposing armies, by either side. So after retreating, does Meade withdraw to his original Pipe Creek position or to the Washington Defenses some other defensible position in between?
Strictly in war terms, Harrisburg was the beststrategic target because of its RR Net., but with no bridging train, a sudden rain storm could trap Lee North of the Susquehana (they had a real gulley-washer, just after Gettysburg. I think that was why the Potomac rose and almost trapped Lee) and If Meade only retreated to Pipe Creek, could Lee really move 'further' North with the AoP 'still' in his rear?
The point being, was Pa. the 'best' place for the southj (as opposed to va.) to try for a strategic victory that 'might' revitalize it's chances for survival?
P.S. IF, Lee's plan had it's 'main' objective of causing Lincoln to withdraw troops for Grant and/or Rosecrans, I could accept such a goal as worthy (barely) of justifying invading Pa., but not if it was only one among many.
Believe we've covered this same acreage several times now, Opn. And at least we agree that the plan, for whatever reason, depended entirely too much upon Dame Fortune.
However, defeating the AotP again, in a northern state, would certainly have given northern resolve a heavy blow. The Peace Democrats and other antis would have gotten an enormous boost. So I'm not sure that the risk wasn't worth taking. What else was he to do?
He couldn't very well have remained in place and waited for the next attack. He had to keep the initiative.
Maybe we're overly complicating something much less complex? Like he wanted both armies out of Virginia during the harvest season?
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I follow on from my earlier post on the Vicksburg vs Gettysburg thread. Again, I find the debate most illuminating.
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were undoubted tactical triumphs for the ANV, but Lee quite rightly judged both as strategically hollow. In both cases the Federal army had been able to withdraw and recuperate by drawing on the North’s massive superiority in demographic, economic and material resources. Neither battle gained the Confederacy an inch of ground and yet Chancellorsville had cost the Army of Northern Virginia over a fifth of its strength, manpower that the South simply could not replace. Neither battle relieved the pressure on Richmond since in both cases the AoP remained a potent threat. By nature aggressive, Lee was convinced that the strategic defensive would doom the infant Confederacy to an agonising demise through the inevitable mathematical consequences of a prolonged war of attrition. Simply stated, he now believed that the South’s material capacity to continue the struggle might well be exhausted before Northern willpower. There is a long standing military maxim (Much loved by the Russians in the Second World War) that you never reinforce failure. Long before Chancellorsville Lee had begun to argue that he must be reinforced, rather than dispersed to shore up continuing failure in the west. In February he had written to his son that they “must try and defeat it [The Federal Army of the Potomac]. To do this, will require our regiments to be filled up.” (Letter from Robert E Lee to Custis Lee dated 28th February 1863). Lee was an avid reader of the northern press and was well aware that public support for the war was by no means universal. The failure to subjugate his army had given political voice to northern Peace Democrats. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamations had alienated many moderates in the North, with the resulting backlash giving rise to substantial Democrat gains in the Congressional elections of 1862. To this was added wide-spread civil disturbance following the introduction of Federal draft laws. If the North’s material and demographic potential to wage war appeared almost without limit, public support for the Republican regime most certainly did not. Lee recognised that Northern public opinion was the centre of gravity at which he must strike and believed that a victory, which decisively crippled the Federal army in the east could afford the Democrats such a substantial fillip and coerce Washington into a negotiated settlement based on separation. The Northern press also informed Lee of the imminent exodus of the 2 year and 9 month volunteers, which made up some 30% of the AoP’s strength. If he could strike before these men were replaced by new volunteers or conscripts he might, for the first time, be able to engage the enemy on something approaching numerical parity. However, such an elusive, decisive victory demanded that Lee seized and maintained the initiative. He would need to draw his enemy out onto ground on which he could finally fix and destroy it. The best way to ensure this was to go North and thereafter, in his own words, ‘assail’ it. The destruction of the AoP was therefore his aim – not some point on the map.
This also leads in to the controversy surrounding his decision to assault the AoP on the 2nd and 3rd days of the battle. I do not hold with Longstreet’s view that there was ever an understanding that the strategic offensive would be underpinned by a tactical defensive battle. Such a game-plan is not consistent with Lee’s overall intent since a tactical defensive affords the opponent the opportunity to withdraw before his destruction is complete. I believe that it was always Lee’s intent to find, fix and then destroy the AoP through an offensive battle. Gettysburg, while perhaps sprung upon him, presented him with the chance to conduct just such a battle. On the 1st day, the Union I and XI Corps were trapped between the converging wings of Lee’s Army who were able to use the roads converging on the town to achieve a rapid concentration. The damage done to the AoP that day was sufficient to justify his assault on the 2nd day. Of course the benefit of hind-sight allows us to know that his decision to continue the attack in to a 3rd day was ultimately disastrous – but having placed all of his eggs in to that one basket, can anyone deny his courage for trying?
I can agree that, of his 'stated' reasons, moving the seat of war out of Va. probably weighed more importantly to Lee than all his other reasons, put together; Except, perhaps, his unstated reason.
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I am curious about something. Let us say that Lee prevails on the third day at Gettysburg. The AoP retreats (I agree with many on the board that the outright destruction of any army short of capturing it was a near impossibility). What was Lee's logistical situation at that point? Did he have the ammunition for a sustained campaign in the North? Even if he destroyed the AoP, wold he have had the men or ammunition necessary for an attack on Baltimore or Washington?
Alternatively, if he had concentrated at Harriburg, why could the AoP not simply bottle him up there and wait for his supplies to run out?The ANV in PA strikes me as a shark - it had to keep moving in order to survive. If it stayed too long in a particular area, it did not have the supply capacity to keep it fed, let alone fully supplied.
It has always seemed to me that with the problems the ANV had with transportation capacity (never enough wagons), Lee's invasion north of the Potomac was going to be problematical, at best. Sure, he could live off the land for a while, but have I not read that if you were not the lead corps, the picking got pretty slim?
I have always viewed Lee's invasion as a tremendous roll of the dice, simply from a logstical perspective. I do not think that he could move any further north than Harrisburg and still maintain his supply lines, even without the AoP blocking them. My guess is that he intended to get in, him 'em hard enough to get foreign recognition (the illusory panacea of the Confederacy, but that's another topic) or a peace proposal from the North, and then beat a hasty retreat back to Old Virginia. No way he has the logistical capacity for a sustained campaign in the North.
I don't think that there is any doubt - Lee did not have the ammunition for a sustained campaign in the North. There are enough contemporary accounts to say for certain that on the morning of 3 July, Lee had enough artillery ammunition left for 1 assault. But I don't believe it was ever his intention to remain there any longer than it took to deliver a decisive blow to the AoP. With is LsOC stretched and vulnerable, he would risk losing the Army's gains through the intervention of a small cavalry column.
And the question of 'destruction' is a difficult one to pin down. What is 'destruction'? It does not need to be literal. In 1991 when the Iraqi Republican Guard was retreating from Kuwait the allies set about its physical destruction on the road to Basra - and were forced to stop because of public opinion at home. Even though it continued to physically exist, the IRG had nonetheless been destroyed in terms of its combat capability.
I do not believe that there was a need for Lee to kill or capture all or even most of Meade's Army to effect its destruction. If Lee had managed to push Meade off Cemetery Ridge on the 3rd day, would that have been sufficient to convince the northern public that the AoP had been decisively defeated? I suspect it would have been, no matter how many fragments of his command Meade managed to collect behind Pipe Creek.
No way he has the logistical capacity for a sustained campaign in the North.
Most certainly agreed, Timewalker. And Lee had to have known that, but he did it anyway. Does this sound desperate?
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I do not believe that there was a need for Lee to kill or capture all or even most of Meade's Army to effect its destruction. If Lee had managed to push Meade off Cemetery Ridge on the 3rd day, would that have been sufficient to convince the northern public that the AoP had been decisively defeated? I suspect it would have been, no matter how many fragments of his command Meade managed to collect behind Pipe Creek.
Destroyed is an elusive term. What would Lee have to do to gain a "destroyed"? What would Meade have had to do to gain a "destroyed"?
Lee got back to Virginia with a truncated, but undestroyed army. Hood flung his army against some rather disastrous odds at Franklin and Nashville, and there were some left to fight in North Carolina. Was the AoT destroyed? Diminished? Riding on the last survivor rails? Those conferate sum*****es didn't know how to hang it up and go home. Many of them did, but as many took up another cinch in the belt and went on with it. Magnificent!
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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Lee's--Aimlessly enters Pa.? 
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