I am new to this forum and perhaps by way of introduction and presenting my credentials should say that I am an officer in the Royal Irish Regiment and have for some years now been an avid student of the Irish in America’s Civil War. Along the way I have studied Gettysburg from a strategic and tactical view. I am intrigued by the views that have been posted here.
The 21 months of hard fighting that followed July 1863 is compelling evidence that neither Vicksburg nor Gettysburg was the key event in the eventual defeat of the Confederacy’s bid for independence. Contemporary reports suggest that in the late summer of 1863 the South regarded Vicksburg as a disaster, while the escape of Lee’s army after his repulse in Pennsylvania took much of the sting out of defeat at Gettysburg. However, I am inclined to believe that Gettysburg was of greater significance to the ultimate demise of the Confederacy than the opening of the Mississippi by Grant.
From the very outset, a Southern strategy that sought to hold everything could not hope to succeed. On the other hand, as long as the South could keep an army in the field, the ‘rebellion’ would remain undefeated – even if this came at the cost of giving up vast swathes of territory. Davis recognised this (As did Lincoln) but he was tethered by the desire and demands of the independent Southern states to protect their territorial integrity. In May 1863 after calls for the ANV to be cannibalised in order to reinforce efforts to relieve Vicksburg, Lee argued that while the war might well be lost on the Mississippi, it would just as surely be lost in Virginia if his army were depleted. He rightly viewed Chancellorsville as the latest in a long line of strategically hollow victories and yet he also saw it as a spring board from which to strike against northern public opinion, public opinion that was fuelled by a Northern press fixated on the Eastern theatre. This was probably the North’s only vulnerability in the early summer of 1863 and if he could deliver a comprehensive beating to the AoP within marching distance of Washington, Baltimore or Philadelphia it might just tip the political balance in favour of the Peace Democrats.
Bragg could not hope to have the same impact with a victory in Tennessee, which would at best, merely balance out Northern success at Vicksburg. Given Joe Johnson’s record, I think it highly unlikely that he – even if reinforced with Longstreet’s corps – would have managed to generate a viable relieving counter-stroke against Grant. Therefore Lee represented the Confederacy’s best chance to ‘win’ independence and consequently, his failure to secure victory at Gettysburg was, in my opinion, more significant than the fall of Vicksburg.
The loss of the trans-Mississippi and all of its resources was not as critical to the Confederacy’s ability to continue the fight as some Westerners would argue. The South did, after all, manage to fight on for another 2 years. The decisive point occurred when Lee finally lost the ability to manoeuvre as a consequence of the campaigns of 1864, which finally bottled the ANV up in the Richmond defences. (It is no accident that Lee’s surrender at Appomatox is afforded greater significance in most people’s understanding of the war, than Johnson’s at Bentonville.) That Grant was the architect of this campaign is not in question and it is clear that he was called to the highest command as a consequence of his victories in the west, including Vicksburg.
But this begs the question, if Meade had managed to successfully engage Lee before he had re-crossed in to Virginia in July 1863, would there have been a need for the Overland Campaign at all? And if Lee had escaped with only a mauled fraction of his army, might it have been Meade, rather than Grant who was elevated to command its final destruction?