Lee didn’t have a Navy to bail him out. Grant would still be trying to take Vicksburg without one. If Lee wins at Gettysburg, the AoP retreats to either Pipe Creek or the Washington defenses. The re-armed and provisioned ANV then decides which city to destroy first, Harrisburg or Baltimore. Those are actually somewhere places in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and they’re in the rear of the Federal army. You think the NYC draft riots were bad that summer? In that scenario one could see a peace plan on the table despite what happened in Vicksburg or nowhere Tullahoma, Tennessee.Grant ordered the most effective cavalry raid of the ear, ran the gauntlet of the Vicksburg batteries, established a bridgehead, cut off communications, fought three successful battles, captured an enemy capital, encircled & successfully besieged a fortress, captured an entire army, opened the Mississippi River & effectively cut the CSA in half. I am having a little trouble seeing how anything Lee might have done is the equivalent of Grant’s operations.
In his letters to Davis, Lee stated that the intent of his PA incursion was to inflict a blow that would break Union civilian morale & bring about a negotiated peace. I know of no historians or even Lost Cause theorists that believe that some kind of tactical victory in nowhere PA could have achieved that goal.
The triple hammer blows of Vicksburg, Tullahoma & Gettysburg were strategic victories that set the stage for the ultimate CSA defeat. Going 40 miles into nowhere PA & loosing a meeting engagement is a textbook example of a disastrous strategic mistake.
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