Gettysburg: the Ultimate "what if"...

[Saphroneth]

I suspect the pursuit after the collapse of the Petersburg line qualifies as an example of Grant closely following Lee all the way toAppomattox.

I suppose the Appomattox pursuit does count, though even for a lot of that Grant was following a more southerly route that was intended to get ahead of Lee instead of following behind him. So it's basically just what Meade did after Gettysburg, trying to get around ahead of Lee and block his escape.

Grant didn't have to follow Lee because Lee was following him.

It's probably worth thinking about the implications of that, though, for the idea that Grant hounded Lee and that that's what Meade should have done. I think "the enemy is following you" is an odd definition of hounding the enemy, after all!

Now, I will certainly agree that a way to fight the AoNV is to get it in a situation where it can't refuse battle and then attack it. However, this is extremely costly (Grant had nearly 3:1 odds at Spotsylvania* and it wasn't what he considered enough to keep attacking at Spotsylvania indefinitely) and if Meade had tried and had got the same results he'd have crippled his army in very short order.+


*Confederate forces at the start of the campaign: 66,140 PFD. (Young.)
Union forces at the start of the campaign: 142,744 PFD. (ORs with some digging to find a regulation PFD value)
Union reinforcements by the end of Spotsylvania: 33,255 PFD. (Statement of reinforcements.)
Confederate casualties at the Wilderness: 11,033. (Wikipedia.)
Union casualties at the Wilderness: 17,666. (Wikipedia.)
Union forces at Spotsylvania: ~158,000 PFD.
Confederate forces at Spotsylvania: ~55,000 PFD.

+ Union Effectives at Gettysburg (Livermore): 83,289
Confederate Effectives at Gettysburg (Livermore): 75,054
Functionally Gettysburg is not far off an even battle, and the laurels were about even casualty-wise when Lee was attacking.

 

[CowCavalry]

Functionally Gettysburg is not far off an even battle, and the laurels were about even casualty-wise when Lee was attacking.

Good point, the ANV was the aggressor the entire three days, the AOP merely reacted and as you state, the casualties are very close. I do not see Gettysburg as the signal victory that it has been made out to be; yes, Lee retired from the battlefield (in good order) and returned back to his base without the crushing victory he desired and was not able to mount an offensive into enemy soil again. This was bound to happen and Lee knew it better than anyone, hence his aggressive gamble.

 

[Saphroneth]

Good point, the ANV was the aggressor the entire three days, the AOP merely reacted and as you state, the casualties are very close. I do not see Gettysburg as the signal victory that it has been made out to be; yes, Lee retired from the battlefield (in good order) and returned back to his base without the crushing victory he desired and was not able to mount an offensive into enemy soil again. This was bound to happen and Lee knew it better than anyone, hence his aggressive gamble.

Interestingly the only thing that really makes the casualties even is Pickett's Charge. If you erase that, Lee inflicted something not unlike 50% more casualties than he suffered during his attack sequence, and that's despite several errors of coordination on Day Two.

Of course, if he hadn't made Pickett's Charge, he'd have been lambasted for not doing so - much the same way as people do criticize McClellan at Antietam for not assaulting with his last 25%, and indeed the same way as people would have criticized Napoleon if he hadn't sent in the Guard at the end of Waterloo. (Instead, Lee and Napoleon are criticized for sending them in.)


Myself, I think the outcome of the fighting on the first two days indicates that an attempt to win a crippling victory against the AotP was a worthy gamble, and even historically the AotP took months to properly recover. It's possible to see ways Lee's operational sequence could have been improved, and his tactical battle conduct was quite good and includes at least two serious attempts at Napoleonic battle tactics (day two echelon, day three break through the centre). Meade's main errors at Gettysburg appear to relate to the handling of his reserves, because on both day two and day three he did what Lee "wanted him to do" in committing his reserves early and not to the sectors Lee had planned as the point of decision in the respective battles.

(It's interesting to contemplate what this tendency would mean for the Pipe Creek line, which is about two days' march across and doesn't have good interior lines.)

 

[CowCavalry]

Of course, if he hadn't made Pickett's Charge, he'd have been lambasted for not doing so - much the same way as people do criticize McClellan at Antietam for not assaulting with his last 25%, and indeed the same way as people would have criticized Napoleon if he hadn't sent in the Guard at the end of Waterloo. (Instead, Lee and Napoleon are criticized for sending them in.)

Admittedly, I am an amateur and have struggled with what other options Lee had on day three other than the attack on the center. Having the luxury of hindsight, we can find multiple options on day one and two, but things playing out the way they did, what do you suppose Lee could have done differently on day three? I do not subscribe to Longstreet's thirty something year later advice about the move around the round tops as being either serious or factual, I think thirty years of scorn produced this fantasy. To put it another way; give Longstreet the benefit of the doubt and concede that he had serious misgivings about the assault on day three, what other option is there?

 

[Saphroneth]

Admittedly, I am an amateur and have struggled with what other options Lee had on day three other than the attack on the center. Having the luxury of hindsight, we can find multiple options on day one and two, but things playing out the way they did, what do you suppose Lee could have done differently on day three? I do not subscribe to Longstreet's thirty something year later advice about the move around the round tops as being either serious or factual, I think thirty years of scorn produced this fantasy. To put it another way; give Longstreet the benefit of the doubt and concede that he had serious misgivings about the assault on day three, what other option is there?

Honestly, one serious idea is to conduct the Day Two echelon attack again (but properly this time) - possibly starting from the other side of the fish hook. Or indeed to spend Day Three recuperating and open combat on Day Four.

Another possible approach would be to break contact and use Pickett's div. as the freshest element of the force for a new manoeuvre scheme.

It is kind of intriguing though to wonder how long Lee could remain concentrated at Gettysburg (because Meade had cut away from his supply trains to concentrate so fast). Maybe there's mileage in Lee just waiting on July 3 and July 4 and essentially daring Meade to attack - Meade can't wait forever, though nor can Lee. (Might fall afoul of the rain though.)

 

[John S. Carter]

What were all those men & horses going to eat? An army eats out all the forage in an area very quickly. Lee only had enough wagons to haul his wounded. (Gen Imboden) In order to make the kind of moves you are proposing, which would have win or loose involve a longer campaign in Pennsylvania, would you have Lee abandon his wound or use the wagons to support an advance? It really was an either or proposition. In his report about his command of the wagon train filled with wounded, Imboden emphatically makes this point. Imboden's greatest anxiety was that a force large enough to cut off the wagons would strike the route. In his educated opinion, there was absolutely no way that loss could ever have been made up.

What were all those men & horses going to eat? An army eats out all the forage in an area very quickly. Lee only had enough wagons to haul his wounded. (Gen Imboden) In order to make the kind of moves you are proposing, which would have win or loose involve a longer campaign in Pennsylvania, would you have Lee abandon his wound or use the wagons to support an advance? It really was an either or proposition. In his report about his command of the wagon train filled with wounded, Imboden emphatically makes this point. Imboden's greatest anxiety was that a force large enough to cut off the wagons would strike the route. In his educated opinion, there was absolutely no way that loss could ever have been made up.

The statement had to do with the fact that Lee failed to maintain communication with his armies,thus setting into motion that Meade was able to take advantage of this and take the better high ground.The" what if "is that is Lee could have had knowledge of their positions that first day then perhaps he could have moved in and taken Culp's Hill and Round Top.The fact that he would not take Longstreet's advice into consideration is a real 'what if'.Could you explain about the wagons?Was not the purpose of the march to force Meade into concentration on him and force him from Virginia , and if fortune was with with the ANV then to threaten the Capital and thus persuade the Northern people to sue for either a halt in the fighting or even peace?.There are "What If"s in war ,the fact is history can not be alter on the bases of that >

 

[John S. Carter]

As of the middle of the third day, Meade has committed all his reserves; at that point, surprisingly, Lee still has an unused reserve (it's Pickett's brigades).

Thank you for the correction.May I ask ,since Pickett and those divisions in the front lines could they not had been used in a more wiser military move as I have stated ? It brings one to think of eighteen century/Napoleon style of movement .A "WHAT IF" is Alexander's artillery failed to achieve any benefit for the CHARGE.Would that had made any difference in the result of the Third Day overall? I thought that Meade used a reserve division to seal the gap that the Confederates achieved in opening.Can one imagine a calvary charge following this ,now that would have been the right place and time for Stewart instead of whatever he was attempting to accomplish.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The statement had to do with the fact that Lee failed to maintain communication with his armies,thus setting into motion that Meade was able to take advantage of this and take the better high ground.The" what if "is that is Lee could have had knowledge of their positions that first day then perhaps he could have moved in and taken Culp's Hill and Round Top.The fact that he would not take Longstreet's advice into consideration is a real 'what if'.Could you explain about the wagons?Was not the purpose of the march to force Meade into concentration on him and force him from Virginia , and if fortune was with with the ANV then to threaten the Capital and thus persuade the Northern people to sue for either a halt in the fighting or even peace?.There are "What If"s in war ,the fact is history can not be alter on the bases of that >

How does Lee havIng the key to the aunion Signal codes figure into your theory? True fact.

 

[Saphroneth]

Thank you for the correction.May I ask ,since Pickett and those divisions in the front lines could they not had been used in a more wiser military move as I have stated ? It brings one to think of eighteen century/Napoleon style of movement .A "WHAT IF" is Alexander's artillery failed to achieve any benefit for the CHARGE.Would that had made any difference in the result of the Third Day overall? I thought that Meade used a reserve division to seal the gap that the Confederates achieved in opening.Can one imagine a calvary charge following this ,now that would have been the right place and time for Stewart instead of whatever he was attempting to accomplish.

American cavalry was fundamentally incapable of shock action until it had been properly trained, which shouldn't be surprising - that's why armies train. The Union achieved this in 1864.

Absent that, Stuart should have been either doing proper recce work or actually taking out the Union supply lines, though having a regiment available when one of the Union regiments "swung out like a barn door" would have broken the Union line quite nicely.

As for Napoleonic style of movement, again there's a lack of depth of understanding in America about Impulse Warfare and so the combat is mostly linear. Lee's moves on the third day of Gettysburg however are fairly good in terms of exploiting an opportunity, and it was found during the Wars of the Revolution that a supporting line too close to the front line often gets collapsed by the breach of the front line - so whatever units had been undeployed, moved over and deployed again could have suffered.


Arguably (like Day Two) if Day Three had been executed as expected by Lee's commanders then it would have had a lot more chance of success. The bombardment was meant to be a quick thing (~30 minutes, 2 rounds per minute) but instead it was a slow one (at a quarter of the rate of fire). It did disable most of the Union guns though so there's that.
One of the commanders also seems to have held back the "second echelon" who were meant to lend mass to the attack, which might or might not have turned the trick.


Assuming I get all the forces Lee had but am forbidden from doing either an echelon attack on Day Three or an attempt to break through the middle, the next move in the Napoleonic toolkit is fixing-and-turning. Shift the lines, dig in two thirds of the army and get the other third (Longstreet?) to undeploy, march south along the Emmitsburg Road and once you're well south of the Union positions go for Taneytown.

Meade has to react; he can't ignore it because otherwise Longstreet's corps is coming marching up his line of communication and hits him in the rear, collapsing his army.
Does it work? Don't know, but it uses the fresh troops for something other than a frontal attack and no matter how Meade reacts Lee can exploit it somehow; Meade doesn't have the reserves to fend off a Confederate corps coming from the south (because he doesn't have reserves at all) and has to strip his existing line, and even if he does form a new line he's down to one road for supply.
Which is a fine opportunity for Stuart to get involved.

 

[CowCavalry]

American cavalry was fundamentally incapable of shock action until it had been properly trained, which shouldn't be surprising - that's why armies train. The Union achieved this in 1864.

Absent that, Stuart should have been either doing proper recce work or actually taking out the Union supply lines, though having a regiment available when one of the Union regiments "swung out like a barn door" would have broken the Union line quite nicely.

As for Napoleonic style of movement, again there's a lack of depth of understanding in America about Impulse Warfare and so the combat is mostly linear. Lee's moves on the third day of Gettysburg however are fairly good in terms of exploiting an opportunity, and it was found during the Wars of the Revolution that a supporting line too close to the front line often gets collapsed by the breach of the front line - so whatever units had been undeployed, moved over and deployed again could have suffered.


Arguably (like Day Two) if Day Three had been executed as expected by Lee's commanders then it would have had a lot more chance of success. The bombardment was meant to be a quick thing (~30 minutes, 2 rounds per minute) but instead it was a slow one (at a quarter of the rate of fire). It did disable most of the Union guns though so there's that.
One of the commanders also seems to have held back the "second echelon" who were meant to lend mass to the attack, which might or might not have turned the trick.


Assuming I get all the forces Lee had but am forbidden from doing either an echelon attack on Day Three or an attempt to break through the middle, the next move in the Napoleonic toolkit is fixing-and-turning. Shift the lines, dig in two thirds of the army and get the other third (Longstreet?) to undeploy, march south along the Emmitsburg Road and once you're well south of the Union positions go for Taneytown.

Meade has to react; he can't ignore it because otherwise Longstreet's corps is coming marching up his line of communication and hits him in the rear, collapsing his army.
Does it work? Don't know, but it uses the fresh troops for something other than a frontal attack and no matter how Meade reacts Lee can exploit it somehow; Meade doesn't have the reserves to fend off a Confederate corps coming from the south (because he doesn't have reserves at all) and has to strip his existing line, and even if he does form a new line he's down to one road for supply.
Which is a fine opportunity for Stuart to get involved.

And then there is the fog of war..............
On a different note; I am sure (almost) that in his memoirs, P. Alexander stated that the cannonade lasted some 25-30 minutes tops. Everywhere else you will read that it's durations was upwards of two hours. I would think Alexander would be in a position to know.
As an aside, here is a link to an interesting interview with Alexander regarding Gettysburg -

E. P. Alexander at Gettysburg

E. P. Alexander's account of the Battle of Gettysburg

www.battlefields.org

 

[CowCavalry]

And I just read in that same article I linked that Alexander said the two signal guns went off around 1 pm to begin the cannonade and that at 1:30 he sent the note off to Pickett to come quick.

 

[Saphroneth]

On a different note; I am sure (almost) that in his memoirs, P. Alexander stated that the cannonade lasted some 25-30 minutes tops. Everywhere else you will read that it's durations was upwards of two hours. I would think Alexander would be in a position to know.

Alexander would be in a position to know, but he'd also be in a position to want to claim something different to the truth, if he'd actually ordered two hours of slow fire instead of the 30 minutes of quick fire he was supposed to.
Whether it was "thirty minutes of quick fire that ran out over an hour before the attack went in" or "two hours of slow fire until the attack was launched", though, the result is the same - the firing wasn't concentrated sufficiently in time with the attack.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The statement had to do with the fact that Lee failed to maintain communication with his armies,thus setting into motion that Meade was able to take advantage of this and take the better high ground.The" what if "is that is Lee could have had knowledge of their positions that first day then perhaps he could have moved in and taken Culp's Hill and Round Top.The fact that he would not take Longstreet's advice into consideration is a real 'what if'.Could you explain about the wagons?Was not the purpose of the march to force Meade into concentration on him and force him from Virginia , and if fortune was with with the ANV then to threaten the Capital and thus persuade the Northern people to sue for either a halt in the fighting or even peace?.There are "What If"s in war ,the fact is history can not be alter on the bases of that >

The problem Lee had was the lack of logistical capability. Bragg, in Tennessee, had the same problem. Neither one of them had enough wagons or draft animals to pull them. To answer your question, I will have to establish some rules. These rules can't be violated without disabling the horses.
The railhead or landing where rations & fodder are distributed from has to be no more than 10 mile from the distribution point. You can only work horses 20 miles a day for an extended period. One load costs 26 pounds of fodder. Grant was a fanatic about the ten mile rule.
If your railhead is 20 miles away, you can only deliver one load every two dats. It costs you 52 pounds of fodder.
If, like general Bragg, your army has a fifty mile wide front & your fodder has to come from 70 miles away, disaster is only a matter of time. Each 1,000 pound load of fodder looses six days ration times four horses... That is why, in June, Bragg was thousands of draft animals & wagons short of minimum.
Compared with Rosecrans, Lee had about the same number of wagons, but he had no railhead or landing. The Army of the Cumberland had the Nashville & Chattanoonga RR & the Tennessee River. When they were cut off in Chattanooga w/o access to either, they lost approximately 10,000 mules carrying supplies over the mountains. As a result, almost all the draft animals in Chattanooga died. Rosecrans could not ship enough fodder, Total loss was twenty something thousand animals.
Even in Gettysburg, about 45 miles from the Potomac, a single wagon could only deliver one load every two days minus four day's ration of 26 pounds time four. Even that modest distance was beyond Lee's capacity. That is why his horses were starting to fail & his army was out of ammunition. That is why Lee had to fall back into Virginia however the Battle of Gettysburg came out.
Welcome to how the Civil War was actually fought. Thought provoking ¿no?

 

[Saphroneth]

Even in Gettysburg, about 45 miles from the Potomac, a single wagon could only deliver one load every two days minus four day's ration of 26 pounds time four. Even that modest distance was beyond Lee's capacity. That is why his horses were starting to fail & his army was out of ammunition. That is why Lee had to fall back into Virginia however the Battle of Gettysburg came out.

There is forage, though, which was what Lee did historically and which was sort of one of the points of going into Pennsylvania in the first place. It means he can't stay in one place for a long time but it also explains why the campaign is logistically possible.

It's the same sort of thing Sherman did on his March To The Sea, though differed in the details.

We could probably model Lee's situation as reasonable while the army was moving and not fighting (because food can be gotten from the countryside and towns, and while it's moving you can spread out into multiple corps columns that individually can supplement their supply) but that the army only had the ammunition for one serious fight in it. Of course "serious fight" in this case is on the scale of Gettysburg - the biggest fight in the Civil War - and if e.g. Stuart had come down on Westminster July 2nd and burned Meade's wagon trains then Meade would have been compelled to withdraw because his supply situation would be worse than Lee's at that point. (Lee at least has the contents of his trains.)

It's an aside, but the same sort of thing explains the actions of the Union army in the Seven Days - the Union army can operate fine while it has a supply line, but once that's lost priority one has to be to reopen it.



The GCACW Gettysburg campaign's advanced rules handles it quite well, in that the CS army can regain "victuals" from levying towns but the only way it can regain ammunition is by Confederate ammunition supply trains coming up from the Potomac.

 

[Rhea Cole]

There is forage, though, which was what Lee did historically and which was sort of one of the points of going into Pennsylvania in the first place. It means he can't stay in one place for a long time but it also explains why the campaign is logistically possible.

It's the same sort of thing Sherman did on his March To The Sea, though differed in the details.

We could probably model Lee's situation as reasonable while the army was moving and not fighting (because food can be gotten from the countryside and towns, and while it's moving you can spread out into multiple corps columns that individually can supplement their supply) but that the army only had the ammunition for one serious fight in it. Of course "serious fight" in this case is on the scale of Gettysburg - the biggest fight in the Civil War - and if e.g. Stuart had come down on Westminster July 2nd and burned Meade's wagon trains then Meade would have been compelled to withdraw because his supply situation would be worse than Lee's at that point. (Lee at least has the contents of his trains.)

It's an aside, but the same sort of thing explains the actions of the Union army in the Seven Days - the Union army can operate fine while it has a supply line, but once that's lost priority one has to be to reopen it.



The GCACW Gettysburg campaign's advanced rules handles it quite well, in that the CS army can regain "victuals" from levying towns but the only way it can regain ammunition is by Confederate ammunition supply trains coming up from the Potomac.

Once again, there is a problem with the horses. It was July, Pennsylvania farmers had not cut dried & stacked any hay. It takes about eight hours for a horse to graze the 80 pounds of green stuff it takes to sustain them for a day. In relatively short order Lee, & every other army commander who ever lived off the land, would have been forced to keep moving or starve his animals.
Sherman planed his march to the sea using a map prepared for him by the census bureau. It showed a county by county breakdown of agricultural production in Georgia.

Here is a segment of that map.

This is an example of the information given for each county. Sherman planned his movements in order to both adequately supply his army & to inflict the maximum damage on the food production that Lee's army depended on. Sherman also made every effort to not get pinned in one place fighting a battle while his bummers cleaned out the surrounding area as Lee did.

The simple answer is that Lee did not have Sherman's comprehensive knowledge of the foodstuffs available in Pennsylvania. Also, General Hood had marched north with the Army of Tennessee. There were only scattered militia & cavalry nipping around the edges, not the Army of the Potomac & other Union forces gravitating to his position like Lee did. You can forage or fight, there is no way to do both.

 

[Saphroneth]

Once again, there is a problem with the horses. It was July, Pennsylvania farmers had not cut dried & stacked any hay. It takes about eight hours for a horse to graze the 80 pounds of green stuff it takes to sustain them for a day. In relatively short order Lee, & every other army commander who ever lived off the land, would have been forced to keep moving or starve his animals.

Well, yes, I did say the bit about keep moving.

Though my understanding is that you can feed horses with grain if you need to.

Post-war studies in Hagerman found that the numbers for a force of 100,000 men were:

Circuit supply (wagons go to the army, then back to the depot, and continue)
For an army of 100,000 (500 tons per day) operating M days march from the depot, W wagons are required:

M W
2 1440
3 2260
4 3140
5 4105
6 5150
7 6280
8 7500
9 8815
10 10230


Self contained supply (flying column)

The relationship here is more complex, and in Hagerman is simulated based on certain assumptions (one of them a wagon size a little over the typical, at 3,000 lbs per wagon instead of 2,000-2,500, and another that half the animal feed can be found by forage). The results are below, again for an army of 100,000 men:

Days march/ Wagons remaining/ Wagons detached
4.5/ 1300/ 1255
9.5/ 2920/ 2500
14.3/ 4980/ 4080
19/ 7780/ 5740
23.8/ 11670/ 7570

Interestingly in Hagerman the numbers used are "20 pounds per animal per day" with half of that being supplied by foraging and half carried with the army. So these are for carrying all the human food with you along with half the animal food (in the form of grain).

If Lee was doing a little better at finding food than the assumptions in Hagerman then he'd obviously do better than those numbers. For example if he can source 25% of his human food in Pennsylvania and his men can get by on 75% rations, he halves the food requirements for his wagons (as he needs half as much human food provided by his wagons, and so he can get by with half as many wagons which obviously drops the animal food requirements).


These calculations assume "typical American" density of forage; a European density of forage suffices to feed an army on campaign more or less indefinitely so long as it can keep moving. (Ed: this is readily apparent from pretty much the entire history of warfare up to that time and particularly the Napoleonic Wars.)

 

[CowCavalry]

Alexander would be in a position to know, but he'd also be in a position to want to claim something different to the truth, if he'd actually ordered two hours of slow fire instead of the 30 minutes of quick fire he was supposed to.
Whether it was "thirty minutes of quick fire that ran out over an hour before the attack went in" or "two hours of slow fire until the attack was launched", though, the result is the same - the firing wasn't concentrated sufficiently in time with the attack.

In the article I linked, Alexander states that an artillery duel started prior to his cannonade of the Union center and that was later confused as to be the beginning of his bombardment. His orders from Longstreet, who by most interpretations, effectively transferred the responsibility of the assault to Alexander, were to judge when his cannonade had had the most effect and order Pickett up.

 

[CowCavalry]

Again, from Alexander's viewpoint (italics and bold are mine):

" Second question. I fully agree as to the necessity to General Lee of defeating the Federal army, and perhaps that army would fight better on its own soil than in Virginia, and would, therefore, be easier to defeat in Virginia; but bear in mind that the great condition to assure its defeat was to force it to attack General Lee. Moreover, he did maneuver in Virginia inviting an attack, but in vain -- at least he gave Hooker opportunities which were not availed of, and no disposition shown to act on them during the few days they remained open. It is also very certain that General Lee could never have established his army in Pennsylvania with his communications open so as to get supplies, even of ammunition; but yet I think he could easily have so manoeuvred as to force Meade to attack him. A position covering Fairfield would have given him the Valley to support himself on, and would have been so threatening to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Harrisburg that public clamor would have forced Meade to try and dislodge him. We had ammunition enough for one good fight, and in a victory would capture enough for the next. "

 

[Saphroneth]

In the article I linked, Alexander states that an artillery duel started prior to his cannonade of the Union center and that was later confused as to be the beginning of his bombardment. His orders from Longstreet, who by most interpretations, effectively transferred the responsibility of the assault to Alexander, were to judge when his cannonade had had the most effect and order Pickett up.

Interesting. I wonder if we could try and test that by looking at when Meade's HQ was hit by "overs". When did Meade shift from the Leister House?

A position covering Fairfield would have given him the Valley to support himself on, and would have been so threatening to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Harrisburg that public clamor would have forced Meade to try and dislodge him.

This would perhaps be best occasioned by burning the capital of Pennsylvania, which was a pretty close run thing historically.

 

[CowCavalry]

This is an example of the information given for each county. Sherman planned his movements in order to both adequately supply his army & to inflict the maximum damage on the food production that Lee's army depended on. Sherman also made every effort to not get pinned in one place fighting a battle while his bummers cleaned out the surrounding area as Lee did.

Sherman did not order anything like Lee's gn order no. 72.........