I have never heard this. If true, I have learned something else I didn’t know.
How did Grant not supplant Meade? Was Grant not brought in soon after the Vicksburg campaign after Meade failed to stop Lee from making it across the Potomac and thereby keep the war going?
I am going to look into this, because even though I believe you, I never knew that Grant didn’t supplant Meade. Did Meade call the shots with the Army of the Potomac, or did Grant? And where was Meade at the surrender at ACH?.
Anyway, in reading this book, I have come to understand why Meade didn’t pursue Lee. And I am now very sympathetic to his reasons. What a mess his army was after the battle. Logistics, supplies, bodies and wounded soldiers all over the place. Lees retreat was probably the most impressive thing he did in the entire war. As far as strategy, I’ll put it right up there with Jackson’s Shenandoah campaign.
Meade really had no choice. To move forward and attack Lee would have hurt the Union army, perhaps even giving the edge back to Lee and the rebels. His men were starving, many needed shoes, and they were up for three straight days fending off the confederate attacks, they were exhausted. I always thought Meade dropped the ball after Gettysburg, but not after reading this book.
Historians still differ as to whether Meade was aggressive enough in pursuing Lee after the Battle of Gettysburg. Even the experts don’t agree: James McPherson thought he was; Shelby Foote thought he wasn’t. Personally, I’m with Foote. It’s hard to imagine Grant, Sherman, Sheridan or Hancock, for instance, failing to pursue Lee’s retreating army more aggressively.
From what I’ve been able to understand so far, the Army of the Potomac was in no shape to go on a large offensive after Day 3 at Gettysburg. Yes, they repelled Lee’s frontal assault (one of the strangest things Lee did in his entire career, pretty much doomed from the outset and it seemed that Longstreet did everything he could to stop Lee from moving ahead with it except disobey the order to carry out the attack).
You have to put yourself on the battlefield after day 3. Both sides sufferer end horrific losses. Dead people and animals were laying all over the place along a 6-mile front. There were even more wounded, who were filling the air with moans and screams from amputations for three days, and hospitals were all over the place.
The Rebels had basically stripped the entire area of anything to be used by an army, so while Meade won the battle, he didn’t have all that much left in the way of food, ammo, shoes, or the will to fight anymore. The time to press an attack would have been as soon as Pickett’s charge was in full retreat, and yet the Yankees did not pursue them. I think the entirety of the days events and the catastrophic loss of life on both sides was just too much for everyone.
The smell from the battlefield was something we cannot even come close to imagining, but I’ve read from personal accounts that men were throwing up and gagging from the smell of dead and bloated bodies. Some guys had laid out on the field in the sun for days, and their bodies literally blew open with all of the gas formed by decomposition. If you have been unfortunate enough to smell something that has been dead for a few days, maybe the size of a dog, you know how disgusting it can be. Just imagine the horses, cattle, sheep, rabbits, dogs, birds, cats, donkeys, mules, chickens and humans, laying out in the open by the tens of thousands. It had to be a horrific scene…
If Meade would have tried to press ahead, I think he would have been beaten back and he would have lost the psychological edge gained from The victory at Gettysburg.
I know we can’t answer these questions now, and maybe Meade did make a terrible mistake. Based on my recent readings, however, I don’t think he did. And before I read this book, I always thought Meade blew it too. This author paints such a graphic picture of the battlefield conditions, not to mention the conditions of both armies, that I now feel that Meade had little choice but to follow at a distance.
Lee was not stupid. His men dug in and built heavy breast works every night when.they got into a defensive position that would be hard for the union to attack anyway. Lee’s retreat was a masterful campaign.