Early’s Assault: The Confederacy’s Last Gasp?

Mark H. Walker | March 22, 2004  | 0 comments  | Print  | E-mail

Player notes for Lee at Gettysburg : The Battle for Cemetery Ridge

There is a small wooded knoll on Cemetery Ridge. Indistinct in form, yet momentous in the chronology of the Civil War. It was on this knoll, a knoll defended by the Union regiment of General Webb, that a handful of men from General Picket’s division briefly breached the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Many historians mark this breach, and its subsequent repulse, as the high water mark of the Confederacy. The last, best gasp, of the rebelling states.

In fact, that gasp came two days before, when the Confederates were unable (or unwilling) to dislodge the Union troops from their recently occupied positions on Cemetery Ridge. Picket’s charge would not have been needed if Ewell and Hill’s Corps had routed the remnants of Reynold’s and Howard’s formations on the first day of battle. The key to Gettysburg was not the desperate charge of Picket’s division, but the fighting of July 1st. It is this premise prompted not only this article, but this issue’s game.

The Antwerp Option

Historians argue that if Adolph Hitler had limited the objectives for his Ardennes offensive in 1944, he might have been able to alter the course of the Second World War. Instead of the lesser objective of capturing Antwerp and disrupting the Allied supply lines, Hitler hoped to trap all the Allied Armies east of the Meuse , and destroy them. Jeff Davis and the Confederate leadership had no such dilutions.

Make no mistake, Davis hoped Lee’s invasion would do great things. General U.S. Grant had bottled up the army of Confederate General John Pemberton in Vicksburg , and it didn’t take a military historian to understand the dire consequences of Vicksburg ’s imminent capture. Perhaps Davis hoped that Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania would relieve the pressure on Vicksburg . Or possibly a Confederate Army marching through Pennsylvania would be the straw that broke the back of the Norther’s will to fight. Maybe Great Britain would recognize the rebel states and send much needed munitions, materials, and even their mighty Navy.

The words sound good, but the facts fail to bear them out. Grant had shut up Pemberton on May 17th. Lee’s didn’t move north until late June ?a period of six weeks; too much time to give a man like Grant. Furthermore, President Lincoln had other reserves he could throw into Lee’s path without pulling men from Grant’s Army.

Certainly the North was weary of the war, but in retrospect it seems unlikely anything short of the destruction of The Army of the Potomac would have prompted Lincoln to sue for peace. And the British? For two years they witnessed Lee, and the Army of Northern Virginia, beat a procession of Union generals like a drum, but still the British sat on the fence. It seems unlikely that one more victory would sway them. Despite President Davis’s hopes, Lee’s army may have moved north with a simpler goal in mind ?the Army of Northern Virginia would have to fight somewhere in the summer of 1863, why not take the carnage, destruction, and pillaging that attended the clash of armies to the north? That, possibly more than any other reason, may be why Lee headed north in 1863. Headed north to a rendezvous of chance, and a battle that would decide the Civil War.

A Battle of Chance

No one chose to fight at Gettysburg . At least not at first. Lee’s army moved north, its corps separated by time and some distance. J.E.B. Stuart, who was ordered to screen Lee’s right flank (i.e. the flank facing the Army of the Potomac), found the Potomac river crossing he hoped to use occupied by Union soldiers. Stuart was forced to cross much further east than he wished, and instead of rapidly linking up with the eastern flank of Lee’s army, he remained out of contact for the better part of a week. Lee understood no news to be good news and believed the Hooker’s men to be south of the Potomac .

He was wrong. The Army of the Potomac , now under the leadership of General George Gordon Meade, had crossed the Potomac and was looking to give battle to the Confederates. When Lee learned of Meade’s crossing he ordered his dispersed corps to concentrate near the sleepy little town of Gettysburg , Pennsylvania . There was nothing special about Gettysburg , except that it sprouted roads that led to each of the Confederate corps.

Help Armchair General by bookmarking to

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.