More on the shoes.
If you read Stephen Sear's book
Gettysburg...the shoe story is NOT a myth...well ,at least it is based on the
real desire and need of the Confederates to requisistion shoes as well as other supplies.
In the paperback version of the book see pages 136 to around 140. The footnote sites Heth's official report of the battle who mentions the shoes. Hardly time enough for a myth to be started.(A cynic could say well Henry was just trying to cover his ***). Maybe,but I don't think so.
The tale of the storied barefoot Confederate soldier is true for at least some of the war.
(Not so much of a problem for the ANV when the war went to static lines in '64.)
A couple days before the battle Alleghenny Johnson,made a bunch of paroled Pennsylvania militia,give up their shoes,telling those who objected that his boys still had work to do,while the militia were almost home!
Point is the Southerners did want and need shoes.
The shoe story sometimes says something about a shoe factory,but there was no such thing mentioned in official records.
Gettysburg did have 22 shoemakers,(at least according to the 1860 census,) not a factory,but in this unspoiled land of plenty a little was a lot to the Southern soldiers.
Conclusion:The battle WAS touched off,by a search for shoes and other property owned by the good people of Pennsylvania.
Read Sears' book it is Superb.
VS..etc