No, but, his plan for the Invasion of Pa. was a waste of precious resources and time for the confederacy, at the very time both were most needed in the West. In that respect, I believe he hindered the csa's chances of revitalizing the war in the West, rather than furthering them.
Hi,
In answer to the thread's question, Reagan was wrong at the time and 20/20 hindsight still proves him wrong.
Even though I have written about this in detail and at length within the pages of
Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign and elsewhere, a very brief summary may be appropriate on this thread.
First, while Lee was having his meeting with Davis and the other cabinet members in mid-May, 1863, word came in from "Retreatin' Joe" Johnston that he had abandoned Jackson and with it, the
vital rail hub of the region. That single act alone sealed Vicksburg fate and Lee and most of the others then meeting in Richmond knew it. Why? Logistics, to start with. The Confederates in the Jackson region did not have the logistical lift capacity (the sufficient number of wagons and mules/horses) to move off a rail line by more than two days and, if stretching it to the max, three days. Whereas Lee had a substantially larger logistical lift capacity with his army, those Confederates near Jackson, Mississippi, did not. So even if troops from anywhere are railed in to northern Mississippi, they would arrive absent the logistical capability to move off the rails and mount a relief attempt because of Jackson's rail hub having been removed from the equation.
Second, and this is a military truism as old as the ages...you simply do not reinforce failure when you have the option to reinforce success. Sending Southern troops to northern Mississippi at this time in light of the logistical restraints and continued defeat and retreat (failure) would have been foolish. Alternatively, Lee's proposal to move north
with all the veteran brigades of the army
returned to him (remember that five veteran brigades totaling more than 11,000 combatants had been detached from the mobile army) was the correct move to reinforce Confederate success in the East, the result of which further continued Confederate success would be simply incalculable. When in late June, Davis finally refused to fully commit to reinforcing Lee as the army commander had ask for and deserved to be reinforced did it become fully evident to Lee (a growing frustration that had begun a long time before) that Davis had failed to grasp the essence of the lessons of the Great Captains and what Dennis Hart Mahan had tried to teach at West Point. In other words, there was only one successful Confederate army commander and he and his army demanded support and reinforcements to the hilt.
While there's many more points, perhaps the two above will help.
regards,