# What should Lee have done in the Summer of 1863? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2014, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025 "2014-04-26T05:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/41 "2014-04-29T19:17:33Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Lee was attempting to bring the war to the northern states. That might pressure the northern states to look for a peaceful end to the war. I still think it was never a workable strategy regardless of its tactical execution. This wasn’t like an offensive into Kentucky or Maryland where the Confederates could hope to find local support and maybe cause a local uprising. Nobody had any illusions that Pennsylvania was anything but enemy territory. Now an attack on enemy territory can work. But it needs to be backed up with a credible threat that it can be repeated. The basic plan is telling the enemy to give up or we’ll keep on doing this. But I don’t think anyone saw that as a realistic threat in 1863. The Pennsylvania campaign was pretty much a one-shot. And as a result, it angered the northerners without scaring them. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/42 "2014-04-29T20:33:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still think it was never a workable strategy regardless of its tactical execution. This wasn’t like an offensive into Kentucky or Maryland where the Confederates could hope to find local support and maybe cause a local uprising. Nobody had any illusions that Pennsylvania was anything but enemy territory. Maryland was pretty much a lost cause in that regard; Lee’s army was met with cold contempt or open hostility from the local population much to his surprise in his 1862 campaign while the Union army was often cheered in towns it marched through. From [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Campaign#Reactions_to_invasion): > [@](#): > > Upon entering Maryland, the Confederates found little support; rather, they were met with reactions that ranged from a cool lack of enthusiasm, to, in most cases, open hostility. Robert E. Lee was disappointed at the state’s resistance, a condition that he had not anticipated. Although Maryland was a slaveholding state, Confederate sympathies were considerably less pronounced among the civilian population, which generally supported the Union cause, than among the pro-secession Maryland legislature. Furthermore, many of the fiercely pro-Southern Marylanders had already traveled south at the beginning of the war to join the Confederate Army in Virginia. Only a “few score” of men joined Lee’s columns in Maryland.[21] > [@](#): > > McClellan moved out of Washington starting on September 7 with his 87,000-man army in a lethargic pursuit.[26] He was a naturally cautious general and assumed he would be facing over 120,000 Confederates. He also was maintaining running arguments with the government in Washington, demanding that the forces defending the capital city report to him.[27] The army started with relatively low morale, a consequence of its defeats on the Peninsula and at Second Bull Run, but upon crossing into Maryland, their spirits were boosted by the “friendly, almost tumultuous welcome” that they received from the citizens of the state.[28] ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/43 "2014-04-29T23:45:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still think it was never a workable strategy regardless of its tactical execution. This wasn’t like an offensive into Kentucky or Maryland where the Confederates could hope to find local support and maybe cause a local uprising. Nobody had any illusions that Pennsylvania was anything but enemy territory. > > Now an attack on enemy territory can work. But it needs to be backed up with a credible threat that it can be repeated. The basic plan is telling the enemy to give up or we’ll keep on doing this. But I don’t think anyone saw that as a realistic threat in 1863. The Pennsylvania campaign was pretty much a one-shot. And as a result, it angered the northerners without scaring them. _You never know how fast you can go until you fall down. -unknown motorcycle racer_ It turned out to be an unworkable strategy based on the results. It probably sounded like a grand plan when it was initially undertaken. If Lee had left the Gettysburg’s area after day 1 or 2, and headed deeper into northern territory, there would have been more of a chance that McClellan could have been the 17th President. At one point in time, the shelling of Ft Sumter seemed like a good idea. Live and learn. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/44 "2014-04-29T23:49:30Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Maryland was pretty much a lost cause in that regard; Lee’s army was met with cold contempt or open hostility from the local population much to his surprise in his 1862 campaign while the Union army was often cheered in towns it marched through. Kentucky didn’t welcome the Confederates with open arms either (nor did West Virginia). But in those cases the Confederates at least believed they were entering territory where they would be welcomed by a significant number of the locals. There was certainly no expectation like that in Pennsylvania. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/45 "2014-04-30T01:11:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still think it was never a workable strategy regardless of its tactical execution. This wasn’t like an offensive into Kentucky or Maryland where the Confederates could hope to find local support and maybe cause a local uprising. Nobody had any illusions that Pennsylvania was anything but enemy territory. > . There’s also the geography to contend with as central Pennsylvania is a series of hills and small mountains which has only really been accessed since the road building projects of the 1920s and 1930s. Lee’s forces would have had a lengthy slog mostly uphill had the gone in any directions other than South (where they came from) and east (towards Philadelphia). Gettysburg only made strategic sense if Lee could have won, secured the area before winter, wheeled to the east and threatened Philly. The Union would have then had to draw forces away from D.C. and other areas to prevent the Union itself from being bisected. Had he had the troops and logistics to do this, then the war would have still be won by the Union but the Confederacy could have perhaps gained a peace treaty on more amenable terms. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/46 "2014-04-30T01:50:55Z")
Lee was the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he was not the General in Chief of the Confederate Army until 1865, so it was not his place to decide to move his force west. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/47 "2014-04-30T02:44:07Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Lee was the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he was not the General in Chief of the Confederate Army until 1865, so it was not his place to decide to move his force west. This is technically true. But it’s not like somebody else held the position in 1863. Lee was officially named to the newly created position of General-in-Chief in 1865 but he had been the unofficial top general before that. (Samuel Cooper was officially the senior general in the CSA but he acted solely in an administrative capacity. Albert Sidney Johnston had been the next in seniority but he was killed in action at Shiloh. Therefore Lee was the senior general leading troops by 1863.) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/48 "2014-05-04T12:27:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If your topic weren’t, “What should Lee have done in the Summer of 1863?” but instead were, “What actions could Lee have taken in 1863 in order to loyally serve the rapists, murderers, kidnappers, and traitors who were his masters?” you’d be on-point. However, if we’re asking what he should have done, we ought to treat the question seriously. > > But let’s not pretend I’m taking the popular position here. The popular position is that it’s gauche to apply moral standards to historical figures and that people who do so are provincial and unable to be serious students of history. I’m attacking that popular notion in this specific instance, because I think that when we study history divorced from an understanding of morality, we make its study bloodless and often irrelevant to our lives. > > That said, I think that my rephrasing of your OP is what you intended to ask, having no interest in what he actually should have done, so unless I’m wrong, I’ll bow out. You’re wrong. The thread is 'What should Lee…" not 'What do you think that the ethical thing for Lee would have been." Lee should have done what was good for Lee, not for the slaves. This is axiomatic. Also, you knew effing well what the point was, and any caviling is just for effect, not clarity. Everybody knew what the point was, and your post just made a discordant sound. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/49 "2014-05-04T12:33:56Z")
In re the OP: How about this: Lee could have made a siege of DC for about 3 weeks. Had this occurred, Lincoln’s narrow margin of victory in 64 would have dissolved, MacLellan (sp?) would have won the election, and the North sued for peace. IIRC, Lincoln barely squeaked the 64 election. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/50 "2014-05-04T12:37:06Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > You’re wrong. > The thread is 'What should Lee…" not 'What do you think that the ethical thing for Lee would have been." Lee should have done what was good for Lee, not for the slaves. This is axiomatic. Also, you knew effing well what the point was, and any caviling is just for effect, not clarity. Everybody knew what the point was, and your post just made a discordant sound. Sorry, posted before I finished reading all of the thread, and the ensuing rebukes. This is redundant. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025/51 "2014-05-05T18:58:59Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > In re the OP: How about this: Lee could have made a siege of DC for about 3 weeks. Had this occurred, Lincoln’s narrow margin of victory in 64 would have dissolved, MacLellan (sp?) would have won the election, and the North sued for peace. > > IIRC, Lincoln barely squeaked the 64 election. The problem with a political goal like that was there was no election in November 1863. Lee might have been able to influence the election if he had actively been in the field at the time. But by the time the election was held, fifteen months had passed and the war had moved on. (And Lincoln’s victory wasn’t narrow. He beat McClellan by 405,581 votes out of a total of 4,031,195 votes cast.) A more likely result if Lee had tried to take Washington is what’s already been mentioned. He would have ended up caught between Washington’s fortified garrison and Meade’s army. The result would have been near total annihilation. The Union army would have then marched through Virginia and into the Carolinas by election time and the Democrats probably wouldn’t have even bothered to run a candidate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-lee-have-done-in-the-summer-of-1863/687025.md?page=2)