Don’t Bring On a General Engagement

By Richard Rosenfeldt

An historical look at the Gettysburg Campaign from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543920239

Book preview

Book Title: Don’t Bring On a General Engagement

Richard Rosenfeldt

Contributor: Garry Rosenfeldt

Print ISBN: 978-1-54392-022-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54392-023-9

© 2018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One War Is a Dirty Business

Chapter Two Lee Prepares for an Invasion of the North

Chapter Three A New Confederate Army Is Born

Chapter Four Road Trip Southern Style

Chapter Five Blood Is Drawn

Chapter Six Dance, Charge, and Cannon Roar

Chapter Seven Union Cavalry Ignites the Battle

Chapter Eight Confederates Move to Capture Winchester

Chapter Nine Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville

Chapter Ten The Keystone State

Chapter Eleven The Invasion of Pennsylvania

Illustrations

Chapter Twelve Stuart’s Ride to Nowhere

Chapter Thirteen Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Chapter Fourteen Meade Takes Over

Chapter Fifteen Robert E. Lee

Chapter Sixteen The Armies Engage

Chapter Seventeen Both Armies Arrive

Chapter Eighteen Double O Arrives on the Field

Chapter Nineteen Decisions That Go Nowhere

Chapter Twenty A Serious Discussion of Missed Opportunities and Blunders

Chapter Twenty-One The Confederates Fail to Take Cemetery Hill

Order of Battle, Army of the Potomac, Gettysburg Operations

NOTES

Preface

As I began to write the preface and introduction to Don’t Bring on a General Engagement , a critical question crossed my mind. Was I bringing to the table a fresh look at the Gettysburg Campaign? After all, there have been literally thousands of books and articles written since the battle and war ended. Was I going to contribute anything to the study of Gettysburg? Then the lights went on. Yes, there have been thousands of books written about the Battle of Gettysburg . . . but none by me.

The resources I used were not available for many of the Gettysburg authors. I didn’t have to go to Washington, D.C., to read the official records. I simply went on the internet, and there they were. I found that without some understanding of the records, one could never write a credible account of the Civil War.

Speaking of the internet, it’s a tool that I used extensively to build my knowledge of the subject and to constantly verify my facts. It also opened up avenues to great reference websites and different aspects of the Gettysburg Campaign. These days, anyone can take online courses about thousands of subjects that are free or at low cost, and many of these classes are taught by professors with a long list of achievements to their credit.

So, why did I pick one of the most documented battles in the Civil War to write about? I think from my perspective it had everything that makes for a great read. Intrigue, personalities, human fragility, good and bad decisions, tactics, a gripping story, and a president that needed a victory to stay in office.

Each aspect of the campaign can be studied and written about. The categories are almost endless. The first day of fighting set the stage for the future of the battle. However, I think that May of 1863 held the key to this vivid story of two presidents both wanting peace, but at what cost. . . .

The campaign spread over a month from actual movement in June to the culmination on July 4, 1863. Men died or were wounded on both sides. Prisoners were paroled only to rejoin their units. Some didn’t fare so well and wound up in Libby Prison, Andersonville, and Chicago’s Camp Douglas. The prisoners of the Civil War is a subject more than worth learning about.

These are but a few of the reasons I felt compelled to write about the campaign. I also was encouraged to write this book because I am retired and honestly needed something to do. Since I thrive on American history, what better way to stay engaged and keep my mind on a path of learning?

I have a wife who is quite understanding of my passion for studying the Civil War. Carol is my rock, who, I must admit, understands me and why I took the journey of writing this book.

I have three great sons, and four grand kiddos, plus two daughters-in-law. I think it’s a damn good family. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, I chose to write this book. Maybe it will wind up on someone’s bookshelf, and maybe it won’t. At any rate, I think I have contributed something that I can be proud of and that adds a little to the study of the Civil War.

Richard Rosenfeldt

Introduction

War is a very nasty business. In the end, winners are also losers. When one looks at the figures, the loss of life is staggering. The wounded many times can’t be brought back to their original state of physical health. Distortions of the human body and mind of the survivors of war are sometimes irreparable. What has the winner actually won?

The American Civil War was no different. Arguably the most significant battle of that war, the Battle of Gettysburg epitomizes the losses on both sides from which we can tease out lessons about the Civil War as a whole, and about war in general. For the North, the victory at Gettysburg laid the groundwork for two more years of fighting. More lives lost, and the maimed continued to roam the streets and byways of our country.

The battle at Gettysburg was inevitable given Lee’s decision to invade the North. By then, Virginia was almost a wasteland from years of fighting. The Confederate government had been torn between attending to two major fronts. The Mississippi in the west and the Eastern theater were more than they could reasonably handle. Likewise, in World War II, Germany had been fighting a two-front war between the Allies in the west and Russia in the east, and the Germans were doomed to ultimate failure. They just couldn’t bring the full weight of their army to bear on either front. It is a poor position for any army.

Lee saw the writing on the wall. To remain static in and around Fredericksburg was going to choke his army to death. According to Lee, the only option was an invasion to the north for a second time.

It would relieve Virginia from further action on its soil, and allow for renewed growth of much-needed crops. If Lee was successful with his invasion, England and France might have good reasons for recognizing the new country, achieving status among the nations of the world. However, due to the issue of slavery, the South may still not have been recognized by the world’s nations, regardless of victory against the North.

Lee believed invasions of principal cities in the North would force President Lincoln to sue for peace. Which sounded great on paper. However, major problems existed at the birth of this grand strategy.

Stonewall Jackson had been mortally wounded at Chancellorsville and died days later. This man of many faces was no longer able to ride side by side with Lee. The effect on the Army of Northern Virginia was profound and felt for the rest of the war.

On the other side of the coin, stresses within the Federal army left General Halleck and President Lincoln with a problem called Major General Joseph Hooker. Even his own officers plotted against the general. His actions at Chancellorsville might be called cowardly, even under the duress of combat. I wouldn’t go that far, but the concussion of a shell hitting a column he was leaning on might explain his jumbled thought processes.

Lee had a problem he needed to solve right away. The organization of his army was paramount for the invasion of the North to have a chance of success. This was accomplished while the troops were still at Fredericksburg. But this reorganized army, the new corps plus a reconstituted third corps, had never been tested prior to the move north.

For two years prior to Gettysburg, fighting had gone on with well-established and reported victories for the Confederacy. When George McClellan was turned back five miles from Richmond, everyone knew the war was going to drag on for years. I just wonder if the population in the North really comprehended the length the war might take. That lack of understanding was one of the aces in Lee’s hand. If the Northern populace became weary of the fighting, the Democrats in Congress could be swayed into peace negotiations with the South. It was under these unproven theories that Lee and his generals marched out of Fredericksburg on June 3, 1863, with high hopes and banners flying.

As if to intentionally thicken the plot, the guard in the North was about to be changed. Hooker would be relieved by Major General George Gordon Meade. Unbeknownst to Meade, he would be in a fight for the salvation of President Lincoln, and in a position to deliver a blow to the Confederacy within three days of his new command.

The beginnings of the Gettysburg Campaign started in earnest at Brandy Station and continued on to Gettysburg. The Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart convinced himself as well as General Lee that a ride around the Union Army would produce favorable results for the Confederate Army.

He was as wrong as wrong could be. Nothing of value was obtained. The strain on Lee was visible to all those around him. Gone for several days, Lee questioned anyone who may have heard where Stuart was. In short, Lee felt like he lost the eyes and ears of his army.

The Union Army, now under Meade, was moving to connect with Lee as soon as possible. Where did they end up meeting? The town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I can tell you with twenty-twenty vision that this location was not a random accident. The topography, including the array of roads and pikes, made this meeting place a forgone conclusion.

What started with videttes of Union Brigadier General John Buford in and around Gettysburg soon led to the meeting of the Confederate and Union forces at Gettysburg, exacerbated by the overbearing appearance of Confederate General Henry Heth.

From the morning of the first day to the withdrawal of Lee toward Virginia, the fate of the whole country was at stake. Or, was it? The selection of Cemetery Hill and Ridge, Culp’s Hill, and the Round Tops all contributed to the Union Army’s victory and the avoidable loss of the Confederacy. The interior lines of communication were established early on to the detriment of the Confederate forces.

It wasn’t that the Army of the Potomac had better artillery, weapons, or training, but the command structure offered by Lee to his officers is suspect, to say the least. Determined to prove himself right, Lee was blinded by his ego and assumption that the Union soldier was inferior to his troops. He remained in the offensive school of strategy, which in the end, due to extreme loss of life, doomed him to failure.

What unfolded at Gettysburg was three days of fighting that drained the Confederacy of its manpower. At the end of the first day’s fighting, Lee’s strategy still might have worked, if guided by Longstreet’s suggestion to move left and get between Meade and Washington. It would have taken intricate maneuvers to move the whole Confederate Army, but would have been worth the effort as long as the flanks of Lee’s army were protected. Which meant General Stuart needed to be present. That is not the story we have to tell.

Chapter One

War Is a Dirty Business

To make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the south begs for mercy.

—William Tecumseh Sherman

War is never pretty. It can and does bring out the worst in man. Unlike animals who hunt and kill for food to stay alive, man hunts for sport and in war kills to preserve the beliefs of his country. To disobey is treason and dealt with accordingly.

In the 19th century both the Union and Confederate armies fought on the battlefields of the western and eastern landmasses. At the start of the war, upon the bombing of Fort Sumter, neither side had a large standing army.¹ In fact, the Union had an army of around 16,000 men, mostly stationed on the western frontier.

Americans on both sides were a rather independent lot. From the East Coast to the western lands, people were often very opinionated. They didn’t take to higher authority, which was at the core of the founding fathers’ declarations for this new country. This was a free land, and one could speak his or her mind without any retribution from the government. That attitude prevailed in both armies. The chain of events within that attitude led to officers speaking their minds on a number of subjects, and sometimes to outright insubordination.

An efficient army runs on a chain of command. The route orders go through from top to bottom. To speak out against a commanding officer, or any officer for that matter, creates a situation that hinders the flow of positive ideas.

Instead of chain, we could use the word intrigue to describe the officer corps as it pertained to General Joseph Hooker.² By definition, intrigue means a secret or underhanded plot or scheme. The break in the chain became quite noticeable after the battle at Chancellorsville.³ Plots usually are based upon individuals trying to subvert other individuals who for whatever reason oppose them. One such person was Major General Joseph Fighting Joe Hooker.⁴

At the battle of Chancellorsville, for reasons lost to history, General Hooker suffered a vanished confidence in his ability to defeat General Robert E. Lee. That circumstance produced a shroud of doubt among Hooker’s officer corps. Instead of victory, Hooker managed to turn it into defeat. Humiliation is an apt word to describe Hooker and the Army of the Potomac after Chancellorsville. The only saving grace was that Lee’s army was not powerful enough to totally destroy the Union Army. General Hooker had been appointed by President Lincoln to bring victories, not more defeats.⁵

As the army was bivouacked around Falmouth, Virginia, Hooker was considering a new plan to take on the offensive. Lincoln, on the other hand, sent Hooker a letter telling him to put aside any thoughts about taking the offensive. Also in this straight-to-the-point letter, Lincoln wrote, I must tell you that I have some painful intimations that some of your corps and division commanders are not giving you their entire confidence. This would be ruinous if true.⁶

Washington City was abuzz with rumors regarding General Hooker. None were in his favor. Both President Abraham Lincoln and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck decided to travel to Falmouth, Virginia, and see for themselves what was going on. They arrived on the 6th of May, 1863. General-in-Chief Halleck had no use for General Hooker. This stemmed from a previous incident when they were both stationed in the West. Hooker was Superintendent of Military Roads in Oregon, and Halleck was a Brigadier General.⁷ Animosity developed between the two, though it is unknown as to what started the rift. Halleck was looking for any excuse to oust Hooker.

Halleck wasted no time in gathering the corps commanders into a meeting to express their views on the performance of Hooker. Major General Darius Couch didn’t mince words. Halleck was advised of A great dissatisfaction among the higher officers at the management of Chancellorsville.⁸

Major General Henry Warner Slocum went so far as to conspire with other corps commanders to create a coup.⁹ They would advise Lincoln to dismiss Hooker and appoint Major General George Gordon Meade. They wanted to accomplish this by way of a written and signed petition. This was a very dangerous course of action for the officers. Lincoln had the authority to arrest the cabal of officers for high treason for such an act.

It is unclear if Slocum and Couch were working together or not. In either case, they needed the full cooperation of General Meade. Meade, however, declined any involvement in the coup against General Hooker. For the time being, the situation was put on the back burner.

General Hooker, instead of going silent on the efforts to remove him, opened his big mouth and exacerbated the situation. He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The result was that he tried to cover up the Chancellorsville loss with bombastic language, which only made it worse for him.

Hooker chose to address his whole command, complimenting the soldiers for their splendid action at Chancellorsville. However, nobody understood why they had to retreat back across the river. The question on everyone’s mind was, how did we lose in the first place?

Another major blunder that Hooker made was openly criticizing his officer corps by name—Generals Oliver Howard, John Sedgwick, and George Stoneman. Was Hooker right in calling out these generals? Privately would have been the proper course to take.

Hooker sought to distance himself from the brouhaha by leaking to the press the misdeeds of his generals. This way, the blame for Chancellorsville fell on his corps commanders, not on Hooker. Because of this cowardly approach to the situation, Hooker was despised by his subordinate officers.

One incident in particular may have contributed to the withdrawal of the Union forces and influenced the officer corps in a negative manner. While leaning against a pillar of the Chancellor House, a cannon shell hit and splintered the pillar Hooker was leaning against. Hooker was thrown to the ground and concussed by the impact of the shell. Hooker reeled about and was left incapable of making any sort of decision. Unfortunately, this was a critical time of day in the battle. The final result was a loss at Chancellorsville.

During a visit to Falmouth, war correspondent George Smalley of the New York Tribune was sitting at the dinner table of General Couch and asked what was their opinion of General Hooker. Everyone seated at the table said he had no confidence in Hooker. The lone exception was General Sickles.

With all this dissension brewing at Falmouth, one might think that a change in command was in order. However, the man of the hour, George Gordon Meade, was not on board. For the time being, he soft-pedaled any idea of becoming commanding officer.

The encampment was becoming a revolving door. Of special note were three senators that visited Falmouth in May. Benjamin Wade, Zachariah Chandler, and Henry Wilson all made their presence known to Hooker. Wilson headed the powerful Senate Committee on Military

Affairs, and the other two senators were members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.¹⁰

Why were the senators there in the first place? They wanted to shed the best light they could on their favorite son, General Hooker. A determination was made that Hooker was not at fault for Chancellorsville, but his subordinate officers were. Soon their confidential findings were leaked to the press. The officers opposed to Hooker decided that the Army of the Potomac was riddled with political subterfuge.

Hooker, who happened to be in Washington City, got wind of the people involved in the plot against him. It seems Governor Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania loved