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360 chapter sixteen The Last Campaign On October 22, McClellan ¤nally committed to moving “upon the line indicated by the Presdt in his letter of the 13th.” The General did so in part out of a desire to placate Washington at a time when he was keenly aware of the precariousness of his position as commander of the Army of the Potomac —and to gain the larger number of reinforcements Lincoln promised would be available if he operated between Washington and the Blue Ridge. McClellan was also con¤dent that by early November potential problems associated with abandoning the Upper Potomac would be suf¤ciently mitigated so that the Army of the Potomac could securely operate east of the Blue Ridge. McClellan especially hoped the change of season would produce suf¤cient rains to cause the Potomac to rise enough to eliminate any threat of the rebels attempting to reenter Maryland in force. This would also enable McClellan to diminish the forces protecting the river and free up cavalry to support operations in Virginia. “Have accordingly taken steps to execute the movement,” McClellan assured Halleck. “I will inform you from time to time of the occupation of Leesburg, Hillsboro, Snickersville & c. I shall need all the cavalry & other reinforcements you can send.” Halleck wrote back the following day to advise McClellan that the twenty thousand reinforcements promised would consist of Franz Sigel’s Eleventh and Samuel Heintzelman’s Third Corps, which would march from Washington to Thoroughfare Gap and link up with the Army of the Potomac when it reached the Manassas Gap Railroad.1 Although McClellan had ¤nally agreed to operate in the Loudoun Valley between the Blue Ridge and Bull Run-Catoctin Mountains, it is unlikely that he or anyone else expected decisive results to be achieved before winter. First, if Lincoln could see that an advance into the Loudoun Valley offered the oppor- the last campaign 361 tunity to cut Lee off from Richmond, certainly it would not be unreasonable to assume Lee did as well and would be prepared to counter such a move. Second, providing logistical support to a Union army operating west of the Bull Run Mountains would not be easy. Between the Potomac and the Manassas Gap Railroad the only decent links to Washington were the Loudoun & Hampshire Railroad and the Little River Turnpike. So much of the former, however, had been wrecked that Haupt did not think it could be put into working order before winter, and even in the best of times neither the railroad nor the turnpike had the carrying capacity to supply a large army.2 Nonetheless, McClellan decided that he could work with this. His plan was to cross the Potomac at Harpers Ferry and Berlin and move south parallel to the Blue Ridge, with the objective of reaching the area between Washington, Virginia , and Culpeper Court House. Supplies would be drawn from Harpers Ferry and Berlin until the army reached the Manassas Gap Railroad thirty miles south of the Potomac. From there, the army would push south and east toward Warrenton and Culpeper, where it could draw supplies from the O & A. As the army advanced south strong detachments would seize the gaps in the Blue Ridge to prevent the rebels from blocking the march southward or attacking the Army of the Potomac’s rear to interdict its line of communications.3 The best that could be hoped for was that McClellan could move quickly enough to seize passes in the Blue Ridge, push through them before Lee could respond effectively, and force Lee to ¤ght at a disadvantage for his line of communications up the Shenandoah Valley. To pull this off, however, the army would need effective cavalry to screen its movements and seize the passes, the ability to move thousands of men through the Blue Ridge quickly enough to preclude Lee’s springing an ambush, and the willingness to accept battle with only narrow roads through the Blue Ridge connecting it with its supply bases. Given the serious operational problems associated with this scenario, McClellan reasonably discounted the possibility that he would receive suf¤cient cooperation from Lee to pull it off. McClellan considered it most likely that Lee would respond to a Union army crossing east of the Blue Ridge by falling back on his communications to a point between Culpeper and Gordonsville. This would leave McClellan in the operational situation Pope was in at the beginning of the Second Manassas Campaign . McClellan, of course, was even more convinced...

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