This is the second in a five-part series about the Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1–3, 1863. Gettysburg was a—arguably, the—pivotal battle in the American Civil War. In reading this series, bear in mind what should always be remembered when reading history: people taking part in these events didn’t know how they would turn out. The choices that they made, the decisions that they took—in the face of what they knew, what they thought they knew but was not true, and what they didn’t know—shaped the outcome.  

On June 30, 1863, two armies stood on the brink of a great battle, perhaps the great battle of the American Civil War. The leaders of these great armies undoubtedly had an inkling that something of vast importance was about to happen. The men, veterans of many a tough fight and still licking their wounds from a bloody clash just weeks before, probably sensed it, too. After all, they were marching north, not south. That was unusual in this two-year-old war. For the Confederate soldiers, marching north meant they were taking the offensive. For the Union blue, they would soon be defending their homes. 

On June 30, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac were scattered across central Pennsylvania. Soon, they would converge in one spot—a quiet crossroads town named Gettysburg.  How did those armies reach this point? Why had the Confederates moved north?

The author of the plan was General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and already revered as a hero of titanic proportions to people across the South.  Why did he make that decision? What goals did he have? 

At this point, the Civil War was more than two years old. The Confederacy had survived for two years, but it had not attained its goal of independence. And the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln had offered tentatively in the fall of 1862 and formally proclaimed on the first day of 1863 suggested that the war was not just about the question of Southern independence. If the North should win, and the end of slavery become a  reality, a social revolution would sweep across the South.

Lee had led his army to several brilliant victories over a succession of Union commanders, creating the impression that he and his forces were invincible. In the middle of 1863, however, the Confederate position was not a good one. In recent months, Union armies west of the Appalachians had won several victories. The Confederate army in Tennessee was threatened. Worse, a Union army under General Ulysses Grant was threatening the stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Should the Union win that vital city, it would control almost all of the Mississippi River—and it would effectively split Arkansas, Texas, and much of Louisiana from the rest of the South. 

The South faced other problems. It had failed to win badly needed support for its independence from Great Britain and France.  Its few factories strained to produce enough supplies for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the field. Cotton rotted on Southern docks, dashing the hope that “King Cotton” could be sold at high prices to earn the gold needed to supplement manufactures with purchases of supplies. An effective Union blockade of the Southern coast made it difficult to receive those supplies that blockade runners could obtain from other countries. Further, the blockade runners’ small, fast ships could not carry the large amounts of material needed to mount a major war effort. (And profit-minded runners often filled their holds with luxury goods, eyeing the main chance rather than the national cause.) 

The South’s situation was sobering.  Confederate President Jefferson Davis met with his Cabinet in mid-May to debate what to do. Grant’s noose around Vicksburg was tightening. The leaders considered detaching two of the nine divisions in Lee’s army and temporarily sending them west, either to Tennessee, to relieve the pressure there, or all the way to Vicksburg, to stave off disaster there.

Lee had other ideas, and he laid them out before the Cabinet. Lee pointed out that the Confederate railroad system was not efficient enough to move troops quickly over a long distance, thus dismissing the notion that the troops would reach Vicksburg in time to save that city. He pointed out that the Army of the Potomac would undoubtedly go on the offensive again, and soon. Once again, only his army would stand between the Union troops and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. He expressed doubts over his army’s ability to withstand another assault if it lost more than a fifth of its men.  

If moving troops west would not help the cause, what would? “To my mind,” Lee later wrote, “it resolved itself into a choice of one of two things: either to retire to Richmond and stand a siege, which must ultimately have ended in surrender, or to invade Pennsylvania.” 

He dangled the bait. Why not, Lee said, go on the offensive. Invade the North. He could move his army quickly into central Pennsylvania, win a decisive victory, and realize several advantages.  

Marching out of Virginia would shift the theater of operations out of a state that had suffered greatly in two years of war. Why not fight on the other side’s ground for a change? Weary Virginians would no doubt be pleased, and the good citizens of Richmond (including the Cabinet he was addressing) would, at least for a while, rest easy. 

In addition, Lee’s army could feed off the farms of Maryland and Pennsylvania for a while, enjoying sustenance at the enemy’s expense—and preserving the produce of Virginia’s farmers for later in the year. The North would learn the cost of war, as the South had so bitterly learned.

A Confederate victory might well give a boost to the Northern critics of the war, particularly the wing of the Democratic Party, called the Copperheads, that had made some political gains as the casualties had mounted. Visions of Democratic election victories, and perhaps an eventual peace settlement, danced in the Cabinet’s heads. 

A successful invasion might relieve pressure on Vicksburg, too. The North might react with panic, telling Grant to withdraw from Vicksburg to regroup its forces on the defensive. 

Finally, success might persuade Britain and France to back the Confederacy after all. There was certainly precedent: It was the Patriots victory at Saratoga that Benjamin Franklin used to convince the French to openly support the rebellious colonists and declare war on Great Britain back during the Revolution.  

Lee was no bureaucrat, but he clearly understood the importance of controlling the agenda. He was also well aware of his reputation as the Great Man, the Washington of the Confederacy. Given the choice between inevitable surrender and potential victory, given all the potential advantages of moving north, and given that the plan being advanced came from the mouth of the hero of so many battles, what could the Cabinet possibly do? 

Only one Cabinet member dissented. The other five, and President Jefferson Davis, all endorsed Lee’s plan. 

That Lee should propose such a daring venture is not surprising. He was a gambler. He had already at least twice divided his smaller army in the face of an overwhelming enemy (military no-no number one) and attacked that enemy. Because he had concentrated his forces at the enemy’s weakest point, these gambles had worked.  He had already gambled once in invading the North, the previous fall. True, that move had led to his army’s defeat at the Battle of Antietam—the only defeat the Army of Northern Virginia had suffered thus far in the war—but Lee could easily believe that Antietam was an aberration. Next time, the outcome would be different. Though outmanned and outgunned, though his troops were not as well equipped or well supplied as the men of the Army of the Potomac, which faced them, Lee decided to take the offensive. He was bold, but he also had confidence in his men: “There never were such men in an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led.”  

Lee faced several serious obstacles in his bold plan. His victory at Chancellorsville just a few weeks before had come at a high price. Lee’s “right hand,” General Stonewall Jackson, had been killed in that battle, shot, accidentally, by his own troops as he returned from scouting enemy lines. Lee and Jackson had worked perfectly together. “I never troubled myself to give him detailed instructions,” Lee said of Jackson. “The most general suggestions were all that he needed.” Jackson would be sorely missed.

A second problem with Lee’s invasion arose in early June. Union cavalry had swept down to attack the Confederate cavalry under General J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart, a swashbuckler of an officer. While the Confederates had driven the Union riders off, they had been badly mauled. His pride stung, Stuart wanted to restore his troopers’ luster with some boldness of his own. He won Lee’s permission to ride off north and east of the Confederate infantry to harass Union supply lines and generally raise hell. Stuart left on his adventure late in June. Because he was gone, and unable to observe and report on Union troop movements, Lee did not know exactly where his enemy was. Several times in the days preceding the battle, Lee plaintively asked his aides “Can you tell me where General Stuart is?”  

Another problem came in the form of the man at the top of the opposing army. When Lee began marching north, the Army of the Potomac was commanded by General Joseph Hooker. Lee had thoroughly trounced Hooker at Chancellorsville, leaving his Union counterpart dazed and confused. He had full confidence that he could best Hooker again. But on June 28, the bombastic Hooker had been relieved of command. General George Gordon Meade, stolid, but solid, had been handed the Army of the Potomac. Lee learned of this change later that same Sunday night. He knew Meade from the days of the regular army before the Civil War. He warned others not to be too happy about his sudden change: “General Meade will commit no blunder on my front, and if I make one he will make haste to take advantage of it.” 

Both commanders, then, faced serious challenges coming into Gettysburg. Meade’s worries had increased four- or fivefold, in terms of the number of men he commanded, and exponentially in terms of the myriad issue for which he was now responsible. While he had proven himself in battle, he was untested as overall commander. Lee was groping in the dark about his enemy, trying to reassemble his widely placed divisions to prevent each being shattered in turn by overwhelming force. Having won victory after victory, he faced his next battle without the general he could most count on. 

Uncertain, feeling their way through the unknown, two mighty armies led by two hampered commanders found their feet directed toward a little town in Pennsylvania. What would happen? How would those armies and their commanders respond? 

Words © 2009 AtHome Pilgrim

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