Would Grant Have Pursued Lee At Gettysburg

[Samuel.Sohm]

What set Grant apart from most senior Union commanders, was he acted and planned as though he had the bigger army.

I have to agree with you here. I dont think Grant believed the Lee "hype" that everyone else did (possible exception is Meade as well). Grant was methodical in everything he did. He was also good at doing the math to see what the likely outcomes were going to be. And also he was a fighter, he wanted to fight Lee and not to avoid him as so many other tried to do. Grants strategies sometimes get a bad rap but in my opinion the simplest machine with the fewest moving parts breaks the least and I think that's what Grant was going for during the ACW. Hit Lee, make him move and keep on him. Grant could rotate units out if need be, Lee could not. I have nothing saying that he would not have used that same philosophy at gettysburg.

 

[damYankee]

I defer to Gen. Longstreet;
"That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war."
Lt. General James Longstreet speaking of Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant upon learning of his appointment as General-in-Chief of the Union Armies.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Long thread.

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=143&subjectID=2
"- leading Mr. Lincoln to exclaim: "Drive the invaders from our soil! My God! Is that all?"2 President Lincoln ordered General Meade, as Robert Todd Lincoln later recalled the order: "You will follow up and attack General [Robert E.] Lee as soon as possible before he can cross the river. If you fail, this dispatch will clear you from all responsibility and if you succeed you may destroy it."3

General Henry W. Halleck, who was then Union general-in-chief, wrote Meade: "You are strong enough to attack and defeat the enemy before he can effect a crossing. Act upon your own judgment and make your generals execute your order. Call no council of war".

It seems to me that orders from the top to attack immediately were quite clear, and that it was just as clear that Meade disobeyed a direct order by calling a council of war.

I think Grant would have grasped the concept, were he in General Meade's boots, and he would have attacked without delay.

Possible outcomes
1) Lee is forced to make a hasty retreat even hastier, abandoning his artillery and medical detachments in the mud, and losing additional brigades in delaying actions. It shortens the war by months.

2) Longstreet recalls Hannibal Barca or Lexington and Concorde, and orders volunteers to prepare a long roadside ambush against the unorganized piecemeal Union army pursuit as it rushes down the road. Causing thousands of additional Union casualties, it becomes known as "Picket's Revenge". For the rest of the war neither side will do more than a cautious advance after a victory, prolonging the process of the inevitable outcome.

 

[1SGDan]

He may not have had to. It is entirely possible given Grant's make up that he would have counter-attacked with every available resource on the 3rd. What that would have led to is another what if.

 

[wilber6150]

He may not have had to. It is entirely possible given Grant's make up that he would have counter-attacked with every available resource on the 3rd. What that would have led to is another what if.

I agree, I think shortly after the repulse of the Confederates on the 3rd he would have launched a counter attack, lets not forget though, Meade was planning an assault on the third, but the Lee beat him to the punch...

 

[OpnCoronet]

I agree, I think shortly after the repulse of the Confederates on the 3rd he would have launched a counter attack, lets not forget though, Meade was planning an assault on the third, but the Lee beat him to the punch...

I think the best that can be said, is that Meade thought about an assault on the 3d day, but after his 'council of war?' that is as far as it ever went.(he was not prepared to attack on day 4 either)

 

[whitworth]

The Army of the Potomac didn't just let Lee retreat. Unfortunately, since Lee got so badly mauled at Gettysburg, historians never truly covered the pell mell retreat of Lee's, known now in historical retrospective. The Union would have considered it a bad wound, but still a dangerous army. Would he retreat and lay a trap? It was Lee in 1863; not Lee in 1865.

Meade would have known Lee was damaged, but how damaged and where was Lee retreating?

Meade kept ready contact using his cavalry. How was Meade to know Lee went on a virtual death march, with his wounded, right up to the Potomac River, only stopping because of high water. A fact, not publicized by historians, because it was Lee. It took three days after Gettysburg, for Meade to find out what Lee did - a rapid retreat.

HAGERSTOWN AND SHARPSBURG PIKE,
Midway between the two places, July 7, [1863]
(Received 11.45 p. in.)
GENERAL: I attempted to take Williamsport yesterday, but found
too large a force of infantry and artillery. After a long fight, I with-
drew to this place. Heavy forces were coming into Williamsport
all night. There are a good many wagons at Williamsport. There
is no bridge there. Troops and wagons are being ferried across in
two flat-boats very slowly. I can do nothing with the enemy save
observe him. There is nothing at Sharpsburg.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JNO. BUFORD,
Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Comdg. First Division.
Major-General FRENCH.

 

[OpnCoronet]

Lee's retreat was well organized and rapid as most of his movements usually were; it was pell mell only incomparison with Meade's pursuit.
If Grant had been in pursuit, Then Lee's retreat really would have been pell mell, if he were to save his army and almost certainly could have become a death march for the ANV to get back across the Potomac.

 

[Carronade]

One other thought occurs to me; this thread presumes that the AofP would execute whatever Grant demanded of it. That was not always the case when Grant did try to exercise control over the army in the Overland campaign the following year. We can't fault the AofP's courage or devotion to duty, but it proved to be a bit of a blunt instrument when Grant tried the sort of rapid maneuver he had used in the west. The Overland was intended to be a campaign of maneuver; each phase began with Grant trying to get around Lee's flank and engage in favorable circumstances, but the AofP and its attachments like Burnsides' IX Corps were never able to move quite fast enough. The ANV consistently beat them to the crucial positions, sometimes just barely; that's what led to head-on confrontations like Spotsylvania or Cold Harbor.

Early in the campaign, Grant put his finger on another problem, telling his officers (approximately) "You're always thinking about what Bobby Lee is going to do to you, not what we can do to him." On several occasions the AofP commanders reacted defensively and ceded the initiative to the Confederates - and this was a year after the victory at Gettysburg.

I assume our hypothesis here is Grant taking command shortly before Gettysburg, as Meade did historically? It would be difficult to change the army's mindset in a short period. Nor would Grant at that moment have the personal prestige that he had after Vicksburg and Chattanooga.

 

[OpnCoronet]

Few on this board, would claim that Grant's pursuit would be effective or result in victory, merely that from the historical record of both men, it is almost certain that Grant would have attempted the pursuit in order to prevent the escape of the ANV across the Potomac, not to clear them out of Pa.