Shoes, Myth or Fact at Gettysburg

[whitworth]

It was summer. Gettysburg was a small town compared to a large army, like Lee's army. with a much smaller demand. There were modern sewing machines that stitched the tops of shoes to leather soles. Farmers would have more likely replaced their shoes for the spring planting. The railroads made it obsolete for any merchant keeping a large stock of shoes on hand. Early's division had visited Gettysburg days before Hill headed to Gettysburg. What shoes?


The reason why the shoe myth lasted so long is an historian could abstain from mentioning that the Confederate army made a mistake. Lee might have thought that he could get his two corps near to Gettysburg, before the Army of the Potomac came up to Gettysburg. He was wrong.

Tactically, the Confederates had to move up the Chambersburg-Gettysburg pike from Cashtown and go to Gettysburg. Once Hill got to Cashtown, there was no turning back to Chambersburg or defending with Lee's corps, backed up to South Mountain. The fact there was only one major ingress-egress from Cashtown to Chambersburg seems a fact missed by many historians. Lee was too good a general to attempt to defend with his back to that mountain. Lee did err, not because he was moving his army to Gettysburg, he erred because he underestimated the Army of the Potomac and its arrival at Gettysburg.

[ole]

Thanks for the post, Whitworth,

it makes sense. Lee's plan was mysterious. It's been explained and explained again, but some parts of the actions taken anteGettysburg don't add up. Thanks for your contribution. Every bit helps.
Ole

[samgrant]

Whitworth, you seem to imply that Lee meant to engage at Gettyburg (or I may be mistaken as to what you imply). But if he meant to concentrate at/near Gettysburg, why would he have allowed his various corps to be so widely dispersed?

I guess I'd like clarification of your theory of Lee's intentions in this area.

Thank you.

[MobileBoy]

Samgrant those are the same questions I was having.

[whitworth]

The shoes story is a type of coverup, to avoid the fact Lee had probably made a bad decision, as it turned out, in going to Gettysburg.
Lee had two corps, Hill's and Longstreet's, west of South Mountain, in the Chambersburg area, when he found out the AoP had crossed the Potomac River.
Lee decided to not stay in Chambersburg, and defend there. So he decides to cross his two corps over one narrow road and a gap, the Chambersburg-Gettysburg Pike. It was also raining often that week. It was a crossing that took days.

Why did Lee leave Chambersburg with his two corps and pass them over the only main road to Gettysburg? Fear, not for the two corps in Chambersburg, but fear I believe for Early's division strung out all the way out in the York-Wrightsville area. Did Lee think the AoP might intercept Early before he came under the protection of Hill's and Longstreet's Corps? At first, Lee had ordered Ewell, who was in the Carlisle-Susquehanna River area, to come to Chambersburg. He changed the order, telling Ewell to move south towards Cashtown or Gettysburg.

Lee was forced to do the same tactical error he made in 1862, separate his army in the movement to Pennsylvania. His army nearly did not get together at Antietam, before total tragedy struck. Perhaps when he thought of Early's location, far off to the east, he might have thought what almost happened at Antietam, a greater destruction of his army.

So Lee, in his quest to protect Early, wants to move towards Early, and shorten the time of separation. From this vantage point, Lee moving to Gettysburg makes sense.

Once Lee moved to Cashtown, he was forced to move to Gettysburg. Lee did not have topographical maps. It may have been after his arrival at Cashtown, he realized that the army had to move further east. At his back was a good mountain range and only one major road, over which his army was still attempting to traverse. Lee could not and would not fight at Cashtown. Gettysburg also had more egress roads back to Virginia.

One wonders what would have happened if Lee had held fast and waited for Early and Ewell to join him in Chambersburg? Lee had major logistical problems and enough ammunition for one good fight. Army of the Potomac would have had more travel time to get its ammunition further west. Perhaps in defeat, some Confederates would wonder if the Corps had remained in Chambersburg, instead of moving to Gettysburg and eventual defeat?

[samgrant]

Whitworth,

Nice theory, better than most, where did you come up with it?

Sam

[whitworth]

Good question, samgrant!

First, I'm not an historian, who needs to protect any previous work or any historian living or dead. Personality wise, I'd make a very poor member of a Civil War roundtable.

I started restudying the Civil War about two years ago, after decades away from the subject. I wanted to learn, why the Confederacy really lost the war, rather than take positions how the Confederacy could have won.
When I started on Gettysburg, I did not read any accounts on the battle. I looked at things other than battles such as logistics and intelligence information. I started to read information from the OR's on what happened in the weeks before July 1, at Gettysburg.

I was amazed that I had never read such information, twenty, thirty and more years ago. I have some military training, so I studied the topographical map of the area between Chambersburg and Gettysburg. I wonder how many historians ever studied the topographical maps of that area? I would believe but a few.
Thousands and thousand of books were written about the Battle of Gettysburg, but I suspect no real good analysis was ever made of why Lee decided to send two corps through that gap. If there is too little historical record, it is the history of gaps during the Civil War. Gaps greatly affected the Battle of Gettysburg.

Many will infer that Stuart was at fault at Gettysburg, but never read his OR? How many historians read Hill's OR and just put it in a file with no comment? How many historians totally failed to give any meaning to Lt. Freeman McGilvery's OR and where he was on July 3rd? How many just ignored the artillery at Gettysburg, Confederate and the Army of the Potomac? Two years ago, I spoke to a Confederate artillery reenactor. I remembering telling him that I knew little about artillery in that war, except to have pictures taken of them at a battlefield.

Lee had separated his army before, on an invasion, and it nearly ended in greater tragedy at Antietam. Invading Pennsylvania, Lee was forced by logistics shortages to separate his army again. Here we have Lee getting information that the Army of the Potomac has crossed their namesake river. How far are they from Pennsylvania? And one small division is somewhere near York, PA and the Susquehanna River, more than a day's march to Chambersburg.

Has anyone ever questioned if Lee had walked into one mistake and moved the two corps near Chambersburg into another?
Of course, if one contends that Lee never made a "mistake" or "error", then one can say his army just stumbled into Gettysburg or was looking for "shoes."

[johan_steele]

Bounced to the top of the que upon request... hope it's the right thread.

[M E Wolf]

Dear List Members,

Personally, I think farmers were more likely to make shoes for winter wear. My mother is a farmer's daughter from Maryland and in summer the weather wasn't as terrible for feet in the summer but, winter--that is when hard earned savings was spent on buying new sturdy shoes to last a year or more.

That said, a foot soldiers have to walk on different kinds of ground. Not always plowed rows in fields. Might be nails, splinters, rocks and debri of mental of battles past. I also seem to recall that boots were taken off their comrades who fell dead on the battle fields and used. So, though it wasn't the best 'refitting' of shoes--rotation of clothing and shoes by death--regardless if Union or Confederate, the soldier often died and buried without much garments left on them. That said, if there were hard to fit feet--and if there were cobblers in Gettysburg, I venture to say that would make sense, as to be fitted for shoes if these people's feet were hard to fit.

Forging for supplies, food for man and beast alike, extra horses and the such; I would think the Confederates would have taken maps of the area which had the accurate scales of topography of Gettysburg and the area.
Railroad maps I would think would have grade maps and the ground's characteristics. Certainly, I would think Lee would have obtained maps of the ground through his spies and scouts. e.g. Harrison gaining Yankee papers announcing Meade's promotion, Stuart's little raid caused a little fuss and nothing else. Maps for wagon-masters, shipping goods, survay maps--I have a hard time believing Lee didn't have topography maps. He seemed to have had one by time he made battle plans.

I personally believe that Lee's Generals were too full of confidence and egos were in charge instead of good sense. With Stuart not giving Lee information of ground, conditions, force strength of enemies, position and military strategy--that didn't help either. However, if blind--you use other sensory skills to compensate. Where were Lee's vedettes? pickets?
scouts? flank guards?

Just some thoughts.

Submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf

[samgrant]

Heth was at Cashtown, and the sign said "No Shoes, No Service". The rest is history.


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