Even if Lee succeeded and beat “those people” like Chancellorsville and 2nd Manassas, would it mean the destruction of the Army of the Potomac? Would Lee really have enough strength to pursue Meade if he retreated and destroy the army or cause a surrender? One battle=total victory rarely happened before 1865, perhaps Nashville being the only exception. Even if Lee did carry the field, why would the outcome be different than the other previous battles? After all, Meade won, but the war continued.
Granted, I’m primarily concerned with a military answer and I realize other factors come into play like Northern war-weariness, public reaction to loss in US territory, Britain & France, but also offset by Vicksburg and territorial gains in the western theater.
Still, would causing the Army of the Potomac to retreat again (like Lee did in all his previous battles except Sharpsburg) be all that decisive? Could Lee have realistically finished off Meade?
It’s possible. On the other hand, a defeat at Gettysburg would have been just one more in a string of defeats. Why would Gettysburg absolutely, necessarily have been the straw that broke the camel’s back?
Either way, it is highly unlikely that Washington itself could have been taken; at the time it was the most fortified city in the history of the world. Lee would eventually have had to withdraw from Pennsylvania. The North’s sheer numbers and the arrival of Grant would have reversed their fortunes… if Lincoln had convinced them to keep fighting.
Lee could not have physically destroyed the federal army. He had to convince the North it was beaten, and he came close, but I’m not sure he came that close.
Had Lee squeaked out a victory after three days, not a chance. He’d have held the field but would still have had his ass sticking out in the middle of Pa with a severely crippled and demoralized army. Even with some of the boneheaded (in retrospect) stunts Lee was pullling, he would have realized that pursuing Meade wouldn’t have been an option with what he had left. Wouldn’t have ended the war.
If, OTOH, Lee had scored a major and decisive victory on Day 1, turning Gettysburg into little more than a footnote, I think he might well have been able to continue his drive and force the war-ending confrontation he sought. Had Gettysburg been an immediate and thorough victory for the South, I think there’s a decent chance the North would have sued for peace within a year.
Winning Gettysburg wouldn’t have won the war. Cutting off Washington afterward might have, though - and it wouldn’t have to be captured directly. Place the Army of Northern Virginia across the tracks south of (or in) Baltimore, in Confederacy-friendly Maryland, and Lincoln’s in deep trouble.
Lee’s goal, when he invaded the north, was to persuade the politicians in the north to surrender. He knew he could never destroy the Union army, but beating them at Gettysburg would cause the Northern populace to panic and then they would pressure the Northern government to come to terms of surrender.
Harry Turtledove, the master of alternative history, wrote a great series about this (The Great War and sequal series American Empire). Basically (if I recall the early plot correctly), with a victory of the South at Gettysburg, the South become legitimate to the European powers who have been sitting on the fence up to that time. Specifically Britan and France force the Union to the negotiating table by threatening to support the South. This forces Lincon to a cease fire and eventual peace, with a separate confederacy/union. Ironically, in the series Lincon then forms a new political socialist party (with Upton Sinclair as the eventual president), the republican party and democratic party merge under the eventual presidency of Teddy Roosevelt (becoming very conservative and war like).
I found the series facinating, and in fact its still going on (in the series latest book The Center Cannot Hold its post WWI building to a new North/South conflict).
From my understanding of civil war history, it wasn’t the ultimate intention for the South to ‘win’ in the sense of defeating the North. Their intention was to make it so costly on the North that the Union would eventually sue for peace and allow the South to form their own separate country. It was sort of like Japans strategy in WWII. Looking at it that way, a victory at Gettysburg, depending on the magnitude, would certainly have been a step closer to fulfilling this strategy, even without the hypothetical intervention of the European powers.
On a related note: my understanding is that the Union started winning important victories in the summer of 1864, just in time to save Lincoln’s bacon in the presidential election. Before that, Lincoln’s poll numbers has slid considerably.
My question: if the South had held out a few more months (could they?), could McClellan (who Lincoln had pulled from command for not being agressive enough) have defeated Lincoln for the presidency? If so, would the Union have negotiated for peace, allowing the Confederacy to survive?
Ya know . . . it’s really impossible to divorce the “purely military” from things like war weariness, foreign involvement, and the like. Those things are part and parcel of military action. Wars aren’t won or lost by the casuality list, but in the mind and in the heart.
If you are like counterfactual history, I recomend you read What if?. It’s a compilation of essay from Stephen e. Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCullough, James M. McPherson, and others. It’s very interesting. They don’t just look at the Civil War, but others. Also What If? 2 is a very good read. But in that one, they look at other events other than military, such as, what if Jesus wasn’t crusified?
Andros makes an excellent point - when does Lee win Gettysburg? If he wins the first day, all he does is drive Reynolds out of town and postpone a general engagement - the rest of Army of the Potomac was still a day’s march away. If he wins the last day, it’s a Pyrrhic victory - one would presume that victory on Day 3 would mean Pickett’s Charge was successful, but it still would have cost the Army of Northern Virginia the cream of it’s officer corps. Jackson was already dead, Hood lost an arm and a leg on Day 2, Pickett, Early, Armistead, and a bunch of others I can’t recall were all either wounded, killed outright, or had their spirit broken by heavy casualties.
To be honest, I think the Gettysburg campaign could have realistically been a losing proposition for A of N Va. no matter what the outcome of Gettysburg. End result, win or lose, is Lee is at the furthest reasonable extension of his supply lines in the middle of Pennsylvania without his cavalry (until night of Day 2, that is). Even without Army of the Potomac, the Union had numerically superior forces in the Shenandoah and Washington that would have been rushed to the eastern theatre to cut Lee off if he continued to campaign in the North.
To corroborate this assessment, we have only to look at the Antietam campaign, Lee’s previous and only other “invasion” of the North worthy of the name (without exception, every other significant engagement by the Army of Northern Virginia actually took place on Virginia soil) resulted in a bloody stalemate with the proportional casualty rates decidedly in favor of the Union (i.e. Union could afford proportional losses more easily).
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, Grant’s victory at Vicksburg occurred the day before Gettysburg’s conclusion. I think this shoots the whole “Lee wins - war’s over” thing down. Britain and France do NOT recognize the South - Lee always wins, so what difference does it make now, and now the loss of Vicksburg, and hence the entire Mississippi watershed, is more devestating to the Confederacy economically than Gettysburg militarily. Northern voters are NOT demoralized by a Gettysburg loss because again, a Lee victory is nothing more than what they’ve come to expect, and here’s this fellow Grant who knows how to win battles and who would almost certainly have been shipped East immediately.
Yes, Rand, I love that book! I find the Mongol chapter especially chilling.
As far as McClellan in 1864, I thought he decided he’d continue fighting the South. It was like a last-minute pronouncement, since the soldiers had fought so hard to just give up.
I know you cannot simply say “only military”, but I’ve always seemed to read that if Lee won at Gettysburg, the war would be over. While it may have been demoralizing to lose one battle in the North, would it really have offset triumphs at Vicksburg and other areas? Would England and France have ignored slavery to recognize and perhaps aid militarily a country that had lost nearly half of its territory once the Mississippi was closed?
Lee knew Vicksburg was invested, and had to have at least considered the possiblity that Pemberton would get his ass handed to him by Grant. With a 1st day victory at Gettysburg, Lee would have had a largely intact AofNoVa raring to go. Would that have allowed him the resources to send west to oust the Army of the Tennesee? Would he have been able to rotate the AofNoVa back into Virginia and leapfrog enough soldiers into Mississippi?
Or, Lee could have listened to Longstreet and just not ordered Pickett’s Charge in the first place. Maybe he could just let the Yanks keep mangy old Gettysburg, and go around 'em.
I think Vicksburg is the key! It was the last straw that gave the North total control of the Mississippi. Also, after Vburg, Grant was installed as Supreme Commander (or whatever he was called…) I think Grant was the only northern (near) equivalent of Lee. Like Lincoln said, “I like this man, he fights.” Unlike Meade, who could have decimated Lee’s retreating forces, but sat, after the actual Gettysburg.
I live about 1/2 an hour from Gettysburg, and this is always a popular topic.
The barroom consensus is almost always something like this:
Put Jeb Stuart where he’s supposed to be and the Confederates take Cemetary Hill on the first day. All of a sudden it’s now Gettysburg backwards with Lee holding the high ground that the Union must take from him.
A clear and decisive victory here allows Lee to turn his victorious army on Washington, where the very threat of siege is probably enough to force if not a surrender, than a capitulation giving the Confederacy independance.
What is more likely is a very bad and bloody day two and three at Gettysburg. Even with captured guns the Union still has more and better artillery with which to shellack the Confederate positions.
Remember, Pickett’s charge was not such a stupid move. That area had been softened up and Lee was not aware how strongly it had been reinforced overnight.
The Confederates while arguably better in the field, lacked the manpower to fortify Gettysburg the way the Union did. It is by no means a given the Lee would have been able to hold his positions even after the best possible first day scenario.
Assuming that this is the most likely path to Confederate victory at Gettysburg, a one-sided victory is difficult to posit. They’ll take some serious lumps winning Gettysburg, and probably won’t be in very good shape to do much afterwards.
Does Lee take his battered but victorious army and march on Washington? Probably not.
Only thing I have to add is that in that great series of books about the Civil War by Shelby Foote, he notes that the Fourth of July wasn’t celebrated in Vicksburg for something like 80 years, which would mean it wasn’t celebrated there until WWII. Pretty amazing.
If Reynolds-Hancock-Howard were not able to hold the Cemetery Hill-Culps Hill position on the first day then Meade would have done as he had planned–take up a defensive position in Northern Maryland along the Pipe Creek position. Lee being at the end of his supply line and living off the land would have had to either withdraw back into Virginia or do as he did at Gettysburg, attack. Probably with the same result.
On the second day, had Longstreet attacked earlier in the day as Lee expected the attack would have struck empty air and would have presented a flank to the Union Third Corps and Second Corps as it swept up the Emmittsburg Road. It was only Sykles taking up an unauthorized forward position along the Devils Den-Peach Orchard-Emmittsburg line that exposed the Round Tops and gave Longstreet’s people someone to fight as it advanced with its left flank anchored to the Emmittsburg Road.
I cannot understand why people insist that Picket’s Charge was a cagy maneuver while at the same time insisting that Grant’s great assault at Cold Harbor was idiocy. You can’t have it both ways.
The resiliency of Civil War armies was such that it was nearly impossible to destroy one as a fighting force unless it could be boxed into a besieged position. Lee-Jackson were unable to finish off Pope’s army at Second Bull Run. Lee-Jackson were unable to finish off Hooker’s army at Chancelorsville. If a field army could not be destroyed in those two resounding victories then it could not be done.
By the fall of 1863, Union dominance in the Western Theater was pretty well established. It was only in the Virginia Theater that the Confederacy was holding its own. It was the capture of Atlanta in the summer of 1864, while Grand was bear hugging the Army of Northern Virginia and taking staggering losses while keeping Lee on the defensive, that gave the North assurance of final victory, the suppression of the rebellion, and gave Lincoln a clear win in the 1864 election.
