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Chapter Seven: Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee, June–July 1863
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95 Chapter Seven Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee June—July 1863 The Army of the Potomac The battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville raised the confidence of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to such a height as to cause its subordinate officers and soldiers to believe that, as opposed to the Army of the Potomac , they were equal to any demand that could be made upon them. Their belief in the superiority of the Southerner to the Northerner as a fighter was no longer, as at the beginning of the war, a more provincial concept, for it was now supported by signal successes in the field. On each of these two occasions the Army of the Potomac had been recently reorganized under a new general, presumably abler than his predecessor and possessing the confidence of the War Department, and the results were crowning victories for the Confederates. —Brevet Major General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac Robert E. Lee gained considerable credibility and stature after Fredericksburg , and this admiration was burnished by his performance at Chancellorsville . Despite Lee’s significant loss of men (including the redoubtable Jackson), he was credited with a victory at Chancellorsville by Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon and President Jefferson Davis. Lee tapped this reservoir of credibility when in May 1863 he scotched the idea of sending two divisions under James Longstreet to either Middle Tennessee or Mississippi. 96 Your Brother in Arms Grant’s relentless Vicksburg campaign—not to mention Davis’s loyalty to his home state—made a compelling case for sending Longstreet and his divisions to Mississippi to help Generals Johnston and Pemberton whip U. S. Grant, but Lee was not in favor of redeploying key troops needed in Virginia (his home state). Reluctantly, Davis and Seddon agreed with Lee. Rather than let a negative opinion linger, Lee came back to Davis with a positive, aggressive proposal: invade Pennsylvania and chalk up another victory in the Confederate column, this time in the Yankees’ backyard. Whatever misgivings Davis and Seddon had about not sending Longstreet’s divisions to Middle Tennessee or Mississippi were quickly swept away by Lee’s audacious plan. Even Longstreet, who had proposed the redeployment of his divisions to support Johnston and Pemberton, was impressed by the boldness of Lee’s plan and how it put the Confederates on the offensive. Lee cited the strategic and tactical benefits of his plan. From a strategic point of view, the invasion could help reignite European interest in recognizing and supporting the Confederacy as well as fuel the ambitions of the northern Peace Party advocates (the “Copperheads”) in their attempts to gain political control and end the war. Tactically speaking, an invasion through the Cumberland Valley and Pennsylvania’s rich farmlands would provide a necessary and continuing source of supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia, thereby eliminating the logistical problems of transporting large amounts of rations for the men and forage for the animals. An army that lived off the larders of surrounding farmers was an army that was more agile than one bogged down in commissary transportation. Lee’s Union counterpart, Fighting Joe Hooker, enjoyed little confidence from his civilian superiors in Washington. After the battle of Chancellorsville , he met President Lincoln face-to-face, and Lincoln simply handed him a letter in which he expressed tepid confidence in his field general: “If possible , I would be very glad of another movement early enough to give us some benefit from the fact of the enemies communication being broken, but neither for this reason or any other, do I wish anything done in desperation or rashness.” In private conversations with his advisors in Washington, Lincoln fretted that Hooker would again be “out-generaled” by General Lee. Hooker’s relationship with general in chief Henry W. Halleck was just short of rancorous. Like his predecessor McClellan, Hooker complained of having too few men to face Lee. In Hooker’s defense, this complaint was not entirely without merit. The Army of the Potomac had been losing large numbers of men as nine-month and two-year enlistments expired. Hooker looked to Halleck to strengthen the Army of the Potomac by reassigning troops from other commands . Specifically, Hooker looked to the garrison at Harper’s Ferry under [54.166.234.171] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 13:15 GMT) Gettysburg and Pursuit of Lee, June—July 1863 97 General William French as a source of additional troop strength. Much like...