Was Gettysburg THAT pivotal to the war?

If Lee can't burn down a city then winning a war becomes difficult. Lee would have to totally destroy the AoP and hope that is enough to throughly demoralize Union public opinion.
That would be a very tall order.
Leftyhunter
Winning was a tall order no doubt, I just don't think Lee was going to lead an army of pillage and looting, his gn orders #72 issued upon entering enemy soil substantiate that. There are incidents of Northerners appealing to him after flour and supplies had been requisitioned by his army and the suffering it would cause in the locality and him backing off on the amount requested, I can find it if need be.

I also think burning down cities would have the effect you mentioned; incensing the population. I do think another demoralizing victory or two over the AOP might just have been enough for the North to say to hell with it, let them leave.
 
One of Lee’s main objectives was to draw Union soldiers from Vicksburg or at the very least stop troops from reinforcing Grant. If the Union were defeated at Gettysburg all Lee would have had to do is faint towards Washington. Lincoln would have been forced to draw troops from the Vicksburg to defend the capitol. That was the objective. Lee never intended to stay north of the Potomac any longer then he needed to. Public opinion in the north was becoming a major concern. Very soon the draft riots in New York would force the Union to send men there to put down the upraising. A victory would have forced Union forces to be draw from the west to deal with Lee and New York. Land in Pennsylvania is plush compared to Virginia. Lee certainly could have sustained his army off the land on livestock and grain silo alone. A victory at Gettysburg certainly puts a very dangerous man (Lee) in the drivers seat. There’s only speculation whether or not a Confederate victory would have been costly for the Union. As Lefty mentioned we have the hind site of 150 years. Lee could not have possibly known Vicksburg would fall the day after his own defeat. Lee was out to cause trouble and force Washington to deal with him on the loose in Union territory.
 
As long as General Lee and his army were in Pennsylvania, and the Confederacy was not shuttling troops to Jackson, MS, the US was willing to be defeated in Pennsylvania, as long it wasn't too bad. Since the US had rail connections to Gettysburg, the US army was going to recover much faster than Lee's army could, no matter what disaster occurred.
What happens to that rail connection if the AOP is routed or shattered?
 
What happens to that rail connection if the AOP is routed or shattered?
There aren't going to be any trains arriving for General Lee's army. The worst case scenario for the Army of the Potomac was that it would have to retreat towards Philadelphia.
General Lee's army suffered terrible casualties. It was low on ammunition and had thousands of wounded men that it was attempting to evacuate. And it was without railroad connections, using horses and mules to move. And yet it crossed the Potomac and sent a detachment to Tennessee two months later.
Very few Civil War battles achieved a decisive result. Those that did achieve a result usually involved either an army that was trapped against a river, with no river support, or the attacker having a huge advantage in numbers. The Confederates actually achieved several victories. But almost always lacked the reserves to create a decisive result.
 
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After June 17, 1863, Grant could have detached towards the east and still held Pemberton's army in siege. After June 17, Grant relieved McClernand, because he knew it was just a matter of days until Vicksburg fell. Also, Halleck issued more or less move or get fired orders to Rosecrans. The imminent fall of Vicksburg was even expected in London.
Hooker was advised to avoid battle as long as he could. The switch was made to General Meade when Lee was too far north to detach towards Tennessee or Mississippi.
 
If General Lee is more successful in Pennsylvania, Grant accelerates the war. Ord is detached to cooperate with Farragut to take Mobile. Sherman holds Vicksburg. Grant and McPherson go east and cut Richmond's connections to the south. In other words, the US implements the August 1864 operations immediately.
 
Easy; by inflicting yet another humiliating defeat on the AOP, this time, on their home soil after supplying his army off the fat of the enemy's land for a change, and strengthening the peace party in the North as well as influencing the 1864 elections. Lee most likely knew better than anyone that he wasn't going to stay north of the Potomac indefinitely. As E. P. Alexander stated in his memoirs, and he would know; they had enough ammunition and supply for one big battle and a victory would have given them enough for another.
Well, when the AoP takes it on the nose again at the same time Vicksburg & Chattanooga fall into Union hands, the Mississippi River was opened to commerce & all supplies coming from the Trans-Mississippi cut off, the war in Virginia is exposed as the peripheral side show that it was. The entire operating area of the AoP & AoNV is the size of a postage stamp on a map of the Western Theater.
 
Easy; by inflicting yet another humiliating defeat on the AOP, this time, on their home soil after supplying his army off the fat of the enemy's land for a change, and strengthening the peace party in the North as well as influencing the 1864 elections. Lee most likely knew better than anyone that he wasn't going to stay north of the Potomac indefinitely. As E. P. Alexander stated in his memoirs, and he would know; they had enough ammunition and supply for one big battle and a victory would have given them enough for another.
Compared with the victories at Vicksburg & Chattanooga, Gettysburg is just more of the same AoP screw up. I realize that the Virginia-centric Lost Cause version of the war makes all things AoNV earth shaking, but objectively it wasn't all that big a deal compare to the Western Theater.
 
It was? By who? Certainly not by Meade, who realized what a mauling his army took and how close a thing the result was.
All you have to do is read the Southern newspapers & legislators to know how the Gettysburg debacle was depicted at the time. Lee, quite rightly, offered to resign. I don't feel the need to argue with Lee's evaluation, so the answer to your Who? question is Robert E. Lee. It was only when Jubal Early & the Lost Cause myth makers of the Southern Historic Society started rewriting the history of the war that Gettysburg became the "high tide" led by Virginian demi-gods that the campaign moved from reality to myth. I am an iconoclast & don't substitute myth making for objective analysis.

Lee had no business diverting resources away from vital defense of Chattanooga & Vicksburg to go on a raid. It is a prime example of a dispersal of effort at a critical phase of the war. It is a textbook example of a strategic error.
 
they had enough ammunition and supply for one big battle and a victory would have given them enough for another.
How?
Only if they routed the AoP to such an extent that it left behind large numbers of artillery ammo wagons would they regain the ability to fight another battle. And that was really not likely.
 
You all forget that the revolutionary War was fought against the strongest Nation on Earth with a massive amount of resources. But yet the Patriots won. The situation was similar with the civil War, only the outcome was different.
No the situation was very very different.
The UK was already pressed to keep their armies around the world up to strength. The had to hire small armies from different "German" princes because they didn't have the ability to raise the troops them self.
Their supply lines was across the Atlantic ocean.

And finally they got into wars with two other great powers France and Spain. resulting in the war in north american being of secondary importance.. at best.

So two completely different situations.
 
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In addition to the numerous railways that created invasion routes from the US into the Confederacy, every state that permitted slavery, and every Confederate state, was adjacent to the Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The US navy and the US army did not have to cross an ocean to attack the Confederacy. All it had to do was sail down the coast and turn west.
On the rivers, the US had Pittsburgh, Cincinnati/Covington, Louisville and St. Louis. They built as many gunboats and ironclads as they needed, and had fleets of transports to support them.
 
If General Lee was going to seriously challenge the Republican administration, he was going to have to get to Harrisburg, and then Philadelphia. There is no evidence that he was going to get there without an enormous battle.
 
It really was not going to make any difference. Once David Porter had warships above and below Vicksburg, and David Farragut had the Hartford patrolling the confluence of the Red River and the Mississippi, and Grant had wrecked the railroad at Jackson, MI, the Confederacy was conclusively cut off from Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. The issues in the west were settled. There was never going to be slavery anywhere in the west, and the US was going to abolish slavery in Missouri by whatever means were required.
 
If you gave the British steam frigates, and the ability to build steam ironclads in Canada, both in the maritimes and on the Great Lakes, and a rapidly developing railroad industry in Canada, with thousands or experienced railroad workers already in Canada, then the British would be in a situation somewhat comparable to the US in the Civil War.
 
Well, when the AoP takes it on the nose again at the same time Vicksburg & Chattanooga fall into Union hands, the Mississippi River was opened to commerce & all supplies coming from the Trans-Mississippi cut off, the war in Virginia is exposed as the peripheral side show that it was. The entire operating area of the AoP & AoNV is the size of a postage stamp on a map of the Western Theater.
I can't speak for @CowCavalry but the point he and others including myself are arguing is that the only hope for Confederate independence by the summer of 1863 is to decisively defeating the AoP in Pennsylvania ( " in a ground of my own choosing" as Lee himself stated) and hope and pray that causes the Union public to demand an end to the ACW.
Leftyhunter
 
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I can't speak for @CowCavalry but the point he and others including myself are arguing is that the only hope for Confederate independence by the summer of 1863 is to decisively defeating the AoP in Pennsylvania ( " in a ground of my own choosing" as Lee himself stayed) and hope and pray that causes the Union public to demand an end to the ACW.
Leftyhunter
I am in agreement with your assessment 👍
 
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