"Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken": Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4–14, 1863

By Thomas J. Ryan, Richard R. Schaus and Ted Alexander

This award-winning Civil War history examines Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg and the vital importance of Civil War military intelligence.
 
While countless books have examined the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate Army’s retreat to the Potomac River remains largely untold. This comprehensive study tells the full story, including how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac to pursue Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
The long and bloody battle exhausted both armies, and both faced difficult tasks ahead. Lee had to conduct an orderly withdrawal from the field. Meade had to assess whether his army had sufficient strength to pursue a still-dangerous enemy. Central to the respective commanders’ decisions was the intelligence they received about one another’s movements, intentions, and capability. The eleven-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received. Prepare for some surprising revelations.
 
The authors utilized a host of primary sources to craft this study, including letters, memoirs, diaries, official reports, newspapers, and telegrams. The immediacy of this material shines through in a fast-paced narrative that sheds significant new light on one of the Civil War’s most consequential episodes. 
 
Winner, Edwin C. Bearss Scholarly Research Award
 
Winner, 2019, Hugh G. Earnhart Civil War Scholarship Award, Mahoning Valley Civil War Round Table

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781611214604

Book preview

Chapter 1

July 4, 1863: The Union Army’s Task is Not Yet Accomplished

A retreat … always gives an advantage to the pursuing army; and this is particularly the case after a defeat and when the source of supplies and reinforcements is at a great distance; for a retreat then becomes more difficult … in proportion to the skill exhibited by the enemy in conducting the pursuit. — Baron De Jomini

In a lost battle the power of an Army is broken, the moral to a greater degree than the physical. A second battle unless fresh favorable circumstances come into play, would lead to a complete defeat, perhaps, to destruction. — Carl Von Clausewitz

The bloody three-day Battle of Gettysburg ended in a decisive tactical Union victory on July 3, 1863. General Robert E. Lee’s offensive attacks on July 1 crushed and routed two enemy infantry corps and captured large numbers of Union soldiers and supplies. Success, however, proved elusive over the next two days and especially on the last afternoon, when Lee’s attack against Major General George G. Meade’s center was repulsed. Lee’s heavy losses made a strategic retreat both necessary and extremely dangerous.

Lee conferred with his corps commanders on the evening of July 3 and issued general orders to begin a strategic withdrawal. The army will vacate its position this evening … the commanding general earnestly exhorts each corps commander to see that every officer exerts the utmost vigilance, steadiness and boldness during the whole march, read part of the order. The reversal of fortune left Lee with only two feasible escape routes from Gettysburg: Chambersburg Pike and Hagerstown (Fairfield) Road. Lieutenant General A. P. Hill’s Third Corps commenced the movement, followed by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s First Corps. Lee’s second corps under Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell brought up the rear. Lee assigned Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown Jeb Stuart’s cavalry division to precede the army and guard its flanks and rear. The Army of Northern Virginia would march through Fairfield over the mountains into Waynesboro, continue through Hagerstown, and finally cross the Potomac River near Williamsport, Maryland. Lee knew that crossing over onto the much safer and friendlier Southern side would offer more protection and better supply line capabilities.

Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, commander, Army of the Potomac

Edwin Forbes drawing, equestrian, Meade at Gettysburg

The detailed instructions Lee provided to Stuart, particularly where to place the bulk of his cavalry, indicates that he expected the greatest enemy threat to come against his army’s exposed left and rear. Lee expected the new Army of the Potomac (AOP) commander to move southwestward, following the Virginia army on a roughly parallel route toward the Potomac River. Lee was aware Meade had limited options available to him because the defense of Washington had to also be factored in due to well known anxiety of the Northern government for the safety of its capital. Once he took command of the AOP, the initial orders sent to General Meade from General in Chief Henry W. Halleck assigned dual missions: the covering army of Washington as well as the army of operation against the invading forces of the rebels.³

Lee also ordered a lengthy wagon train to be sent toward the Potomac under the command of Brig. Gen. John Imboden and his roughneck brigade of 1,300 horsemen. The 17-mile long serpentine procession included assorted vehicles jammed with thousands of wounded troops as well as critical quartermaster, subsistence, and ordnance supplies. The cavalcade of misery began around 4 p.m. that afternoon.⁴

One conveyance transporting wounded Rebels was a single horse-drawn buggy with Col. Eppa Hunton and Lt. Col. Norbonne Berkeley. Both officers from Brig. Gen. Richard Garnett’s brigade were wounded on July 3 during Pickett’s Charge. Hunton was struck advancing toward the Codori Barn, and Berkeley went down once he had reached it. The injured colonels described their perilous trip to the Potomac as tedious and agonizing, particularly since neither had any food except wax cherries plucked from a tree along the route.⁵ Other officers in the procession included Capt. George Clark of Company B, 11th Alabama, who shared a wagon fitted up as a kind of ambulance with Col. John C. Saunders and Maj. R. J. Fletcher. Despite Union cavalry attempting to cut down some ambulances along the route, the bulk of the wagon train survived its journey to the Williamsport crossing.⁶

Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander, Army of Northern Virginia

Library of Congress

Lee ordered his retreating army to travel along a different route in order to cross the Potomac at Williamsport and Falling Waters, four miles farther south. Lee had left a pontoon bridge at the latter place after his army crossed during its trip north. 1st New York Cavalry under Col. Andrew T. McReynolds notified Maj. Gen. William H. French at Frederick, Maryland, on July 3 that the Rebel force in the vicinity of Williamsport was small and 150 cavalrymen could destroy the bridge. Its destruction was especially important since the bridge was the only reliance of the Rebels for a retreat for their infantry, artillery and wagons in that direction. French, who was told by Meade to annoy Lee as much as possible and sever his communications, readily agreed to send a detachment of 300 horsemen from Maj. Shadrack Foley’s 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry to perform the task. According to French, his orders were issued immediately upon hearing cannon fire at Gettysburg on July 3. If true, the directive from Meade was an extremely alert and assertive decision on the part of a general with a reputation for being cautious and slow to react.⁷

Lee knew a vigilant and orderly retreat across the Potomac was needed if they hoped to arrive safely on the other side of the river without suffering additional losses. Traveling with the Rebel army, Savannah Republican correspondent Peter Wellington Alexander wrote a dispatch describing the scene on July 4. Today all has been quiet along the lines. Gen. Lee has endeavored to provoke the enemy to make an assault upon his position by throwing his skirmishers forward, explained Alexander, but Gen. Meade, who has displayed much skill and judgement, is too well aware of the strength of his own position and the madness of attacking Lee.⁸

A graduate of the University of Georgia, Alexander had worked as an attorney and newspaper editor before choosing a career as a war correspondent. Though a loyal Southerner, he never hesitated to criticize perceived failures by the government or by the military. For example, he ventured into the precarious waters of assessing Lee’s command performance on July 3 by expressing his belief it would have been better if the attack had been delayed by a day. He believed the delay would have allowed time for a careful reconnaissance, extra time for troops to rest and prepare rations, and even time for Lee to get his army into proper position insuring a systematic, combined and simultaneous attack from all parts of his lines. Some of Lee’s officers—especially Longstreet, who had only reluctantly accepted command of the assault force on July 3—may have agreed. So too might have officials in Richmond once they read the dispatch that was finally published on July 20.⁹

Conversely, criticism of Meade’s generalship on the third day of battle was echoed by Col. Edward Porter Alexander, a perceptive artillery officer in Longstreet’s Corps who after the war argued Meade had made a colossal mistake by not organizing a counterattack as soon as the Confederate assault had been repulsed. He also compared Meade’s failure to counterattack to that of Gen. George B. McClellan, who is often accused of failing to launch a final decisive late-day attack against Lee’s army at Sharpsburg in September 1862. Alexander contended that low levels of ammunition and diminished Confederate forces unwisely dispersed along an extended line meant that an advance by a fresh corps (such as the VI Corps) could have cut Lee’s army in two. He also suggested Meade should have realized he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by attacking.¹⁰

However, rather than launching a counteroffensive Meade was more concerned whether Lee might attempt yet another assault. Therefore, while maintaining a defensive posture, the commanding Union general rode to Cemetery Hill to check the situation there. Earlier that morning, chief engineer Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and XI Corps commander Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard had informed Meade that they believed Rebel movements indicated an intent to attempt to pierce our center. Meade, in turn, requested Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick to deploy his VI Corps reserve brigades to that area.¹¹

When he returned from Cemetery Hill, Meade rode south along Cemetery Ridge toward the two Round Tops. The long ride amounted to a victory lap, given the unusual spectacle of an AOP commander riding past his troops following a successful encounter with Lee. The cheers and huzzahs along the line were so loud they caught Lee’s attention on the far side of the field and he wondered whether it signified a counterattack. The crowning moment of the entire demonstration was when the band located on Little Round Top played an energetic rendition of Hail to the Chief to celebrate. In less than one week, the new commanding general had already led the men to a major victory. It would not be the last time Hail to the Chief was played for Meade, nor the last time someone would link his success on the battlefield to the possibility of a Meade presidency.¹²

Savannah Republican reporter Alexander also noted that Lee had put his army into motion that very evening, but added, No [enemy] pursuit has been attempted, or any demonstration made by either party. Longstreet later recalled, Orders for retreat were issued before noon of the 4th and trains of wounded and other impedimenta were put in motion by the Chambersburg and Fairfield routes, the army to march after night by the latter … the Second Corps as rear-guard, the First to follow the Third and push on to secure the crossing of the Potomac at Williamsport and Falling Waters.¹³

The Town Awakens Joyfully

According to 19-year-old resident Daniel Skelly, it was around midnight that Gettysburg civilians heard a commotion caused by the initial Confederate withdrawal. Officers ordered troops bivouacked on the streets to rise quietly and fall back. By 4 a.m. soldiers in blue were marching down the streets with the fife drum corps playing, [and] the glorious Stars and Stripes fluttering at the head of the lines. Rebel soldiers left behind were quickly gathered and marched to the rear, while departing Confederates threw up breastworks on the outskirts of town to protect the retreat of their army.¹⁴

Michael Jacobs, another Gettysburg resident and Pennsylvania [now Gettysburg] College professor, noted that all the Confederates had withdrawn from town by 3 a.m. and were behind Seminary Ridge. In fact, he added,

there is sufficient evidence that Lee’s retreat began soon after the night of the 3rd had set in, and that he was hurrying his wounded, his stores, his ammunition and wagon train forward all night and all Saturday (the 4th) by the two roads leading to the Cumberland Valley; the one by the Chambersburg Pike, as far as to Greenwood, and thence towards Waynesboro; and the other, directly towards the latter point and Hagerstown.

Jacobs believed Lee’s escape was a military necessity and added that virtually the only Rebels remaining in the area were multitudes of stragglers and an even larger number of wounded, emptied out of wagons into farmhouses and barns during the Confederate’s hasty retreat.¹⁵

At 3:45 a.m., Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames ordered a 12-man detachment from the 17th Connecticut (XI Corps’ First Division) to form a skirmish line and move through the meadows at the foot of East Cemetery Hill toward town feeling for the enemy. The Nutmeg State men moved ahead into a dense fog rising from the damp ground despite their fear of rebel sharpshooters. The hard-fighting Louisiana Tigers and Hoke’s Brigade led by Col. Isaac E. Avery had previously occupied the area, so they advanced under strict silence and communicated by using hand signals until they knew the area was clear. When they reached the line previously held by the enemy (about a half mile from town), no signs of the Rebels were found except long grass which had been trampled flat, or the pieces of cracker, an empty canteen and all the refuse left by a line which had been sleeping on its arms. Once the fog lifted they recognized the church cupola they had seen just two days prior. Spotting an officer waving his hat, the detail quickened its pace and soon learned General Lee had been retreating since 3 o’clock in the morning.¹⁶

That morning, the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry entered the sleepy town and verified the only Rebels remaining were stragglers or wounded. All others were in full retreat towards … the sacred soil of Virginia.¹⁷ The 1st New Jersey Cavalry enjoyed a brief period of repose after the arduous three-day battle, but later that same day was back in the saddle following up the retreating columns of the enemy.¹⁸ Elsewhere, the 1st Maine Cavalry celebrated the Fourth of July by reconnoitering and learning that the enemy had drawn back the left flank.¹⁹

A High Price to Pay

Both sides had suffered heavily. Almost 8,000 Union and Confederates had been killed and more than 27,000 wounded during the three day cataclysm. Private Elbert Corbin, Battery B, 1st New York Light Artillery, wrote home while he was caring for wounded Lt. Albert Shelden at the II Corps hospital. He lamented the death of ten comrades and the 19 others who had been wounded, and criticized his battery commander (Capt. James McKay Rorty) for placing the guns in such an exposed position.²⁰

Captain John Parsons of the 149th Pennsylvania, from a Gettysburg house that had served as the First Louisiana Brigade hospital, likewise tended to his brigade commander. Col. Roy Stone had been wounded and captured on July 1. Parsons observed how confident the Rebels were of victory, even with plans to follow with marches on Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. He also noted a drastic change in their attitudes—from high spirits on the evening of July 1 to a much mellower mood after the fight at East Cemetery Hill on the evening of July 2. When news of the failure of the grand assaults of July 3 against Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Ridge trickled through the hospital, the prevailing attitude plummeted and the Rebels seemed depressed that evening. This change in mood was Parsons’s first intimation of the Union victory.²¹

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, whose 20th Maine had heroically defended Little Round Top on July 2, spent his morning conducting a reconnaissance of the battlefield, which he described as [a] scene of insupportable horror. Although told to rest and be ready to move the next day, Chamberlain added, There was neither removal nor rest for us, till we had gone up the [Little] Round Top slopes to bid farewell to our dead. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine survivors buried their comrades on the side of the hill where they had fought and marked their graves with names carved into ammunition boxes.²²

The scene on the Confederate side of the battlefield and surrounding area was indeed horrific. One Union soldier described the Confederate casualties sprawled along Cemetery Ridge as laying in heaps, with the wounded wriggling and groaning under the weight of the dead among whom they were entangled. A chaplain from the 30th North Carolina, Rev. Alexander Davis Betts, observed that the corps hospital was moved three miles out on the road toward Fairfield. He helped bury 3rd Lt. Ira T. Connell of his regiment’s Company G, as well as a soldier from the 4th North Carolina. The Union and Confederate wounded engulfed the entire area, turning the town into one vast over-crowded hospital with several thousand men lying with amputated arms or legs in tents, fields, woods, stables, and barns; Most were on the ground without any cover or shelter.²³

The grisly nightmare continued for almost five months until mid-November, when President Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to make a few appropriate remarks for the dedication of the National Cemetery—a permanent resting place for thousands of Union soldiers who gave their, last full measure of devotion. It was several years before Confederate bodies would be retrieved from their grave trenches and re-interred in Southern resting places.²⁴

Defense or Offense?

An issue that received little attention at the time, but later surfaced during a congressional hearing discussing the Gettysburg campaign, dealt with whether the AOP should have counterattacked following the defeat of the Confederate assault on July 3. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, the Union II Corps commander in charge of the sector where the Rebel attack struck, testified that it was unfortunate that he and Brig. Gen. John Gibbon were wounded during the assault because the absence of any prominent commander who knew the circumstances thoroughly proved to be a great disadvantage. Our lines should have advanced immediately, he opined. If a counterattack had been made, argued Hancock, we should have won a great victory.

Hancock and Meade had previously discussed the possibility of just such a counterattack. Hancock left the meeting with the impression that Meade would employ the V and VI corps to attack the enemy’s flank. He felt so certain that a counterattack would be made that he instructed Brig. Gen. John C. Caldwell, who commanded a division in the II Corps, to attack the enemy’s flank if the enemy’s attack strikes further to your right. Hancock also told Caldwell, you will find the V and VI Corps on your left and they will help you. Fortunately for Caldwell’s division, he did not order the attack because neither V Corps nor VI Corps advanced as Hancock had anticipated.²⁵

Essentially, Hancock—though a trusted and loyal subordinate—expressed concern about Meade’s command decisions and an honest disappointment over his missed opportunity to win a great victory and perhaps bring the war to an end. He explained that he had dictated a note to Meade while he was wounded and lying in an ambulance conveying that if he put V and VI corps in, they would win a great victory. Later, after Hancock recovered enough to return to the army, he asked Meade why he had not ordered the movement. Meade replied that the troops moved so slowly that nothing was done before nighttime.²⁶

Major Thomas D. Chamberlain of the 150th Pennsylvania corroborated Hancock’s assertion. Wounded and captured on July 1, Chamberlain witnessed the drastic change in mood by Rebels following Pickett’s ill-fated attack on July 3. He described how they transformed from being confident and exultant to such alarm and confusion that bedlam reigned. He also described how, in panic, Lee’s troops rushed to construct breastworks to protect against an anticipated counterattack. In his judgment, if a column of the least engaged Union troops had pushed forward vigorously, resistance would have been short-lived and the Rebel lines would have melted away. While conceding that Meade probably knew best under the circumstances, Chamberlain claimed many regretted that no major effort was made to deliver a crushing blow.

Confederate Col. James P. Simms of Longstreet’s Corps echoed Chamberlain: There was much confusion in our army so far as my observation extended, and I think we would have made but feeble resistance, if [Union forces] had pressed on, on the evening of the 3d. A member of Meade’s staff, Maj. James C. Biddle, defended his commander’s decision, arguing that if Meade had yielded to his own inclination to attack, he would have been repulsed and would have thrown away the fruits of his great victory.²⁷

Meade later testified before the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War (JCCW) that he intended to advance on his left after the repulse of Pickett’s Charge, but a number of factors caused him to abandon the effort, including the great length of the line, and the time required to carry these orders out to the front, and the movement subsequently made, before the report given to me of the condition of the forces in the front and left, caused it to be so late in the evening as to induce me to abandon the assault which I had contemplated. Meade’s words indicate he had spent little, if any, time preplanning a potential counterattack considering both Hancock’s assertions and his own predisposition as army commander to remain on the defensive. Regarding offensive pursuit, he hesitated to act upon his own initiative, preferring instead to rely upon advice and direction from his subordinates. His hesitation resulted at least in part from being only recently appointed to replace Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as commander, but established a pattern. This was Meade’s first real opportunity to assume the offensive against Lee’s defeated forces, but he chose not to do so.²⁸

Although Meade had informed Halleck in Washington that there were indications the previous evening that Lee might be withdrawing, he was still not convinced the Confederate army was in retreat. Early in the day, Meade adopted a guarded approach after receiving a report that cast some doubt about Lee’s plans. Brigadier General Francis C. Barlow, commander of the First Division of XI Corps, sent word from inside town that he believed the enemy was not retreating. Barlow had been wounded and captured on July 1 and left behind when the Rebels withdrew. Although he did not provide evidence to support his opinion, Meade still attached credence to it.

Subsequent events proved Barlow wrong. His captors may have fed him misinformation (a common practice) regarding their intentions. In any event, it bolstered Meade’s reluctance to pursue Lee’s army and validated a wait-and-see approach. At 6 a.m., Meade’s chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, sent a message to newly appointed I Corps commander Maj. Gen. John Newton: "General Barlow, in town, sends word that he believes the movement of the enemy to be a mere feint … [Gen. Meade] thinks that Barlow’s opportunities for judging are good. The general only desires to know where the enemy are, and not by any means to bring on an action [emphasis added]." Delaying the pursuit of Lee’s retreating army, Meade missed his second opportunity after the battle do further damage to the enemy.²⁹

While Lee was engrossed in planning and implementing a secure withdrawal, Meade moved his headquarters to Baltimore Pike near Rock Creek and decided to take time to rest, resupply, and consider his options. Once notification was received from the VI Corps signal station that Lee’s army might indeed be withdrawing, Meade ordered elements of the V, XI and XII corps to reconnoiter the battlefield. Meade also ordered chief engineer Warren to pinpoint Lee’s location and movements and also instructed General Sedgwick to have his VI Corps ready at 4:30 a.m. to support Warren. All Union signal stations, meanwhile, remained on watch and provided communications between army headquarters and subordinate units deployed at various locations.³⁰

Lee’s Retrograde Movement

The army was moving back, slow and defiant, to the Potomac.

— Captain John Esten Cooke

At 6:45 a.m., Lts. J. Calvin Wiggins and Norman Henry Camp at the Union VI Corps signal station on Little Round Top provided more evidence Lee was retiring:

President Abraham Lincoln

Library of Congress

Enemy wagon trains were rolling toward Millerstown on the route leading from Gettysburg to the Fairfield Road and there were a heavy line of skirmishers extending from our extreme left to the brick house [probably the Sherfy House] on our right. The movement was probably the artillery wagons Longstreet had ordered to Cashtown loaded with as many of the wounded as they will carry. Fifteen minutes later Meade notified Halleck that he had deployed pickets to ascertain the nature and extent of the enemy’s movement, but still thought his information was insufficient to determine whether Lee was planning to retreat or [to] maneuver for other purposes. Meade’s indecision conceded the initiative to Lee.³²

At 10 a.m. in Washington, meanwhile, a thankful President Lincoln issued a press release: The President announces to the country that news from the Army of the Potomac, up to 10 p.m. of the 3rd, is such as to cover that Army with the highest honor, to promise a great success to the cause of the Union, and to claim the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen. Reflecting a mood of elation after two years of repeated disappointments by the AOP on the battlefield, Lincoln praised God: He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude.³³

Lincoln enjoyed the excellent timing of the good news from Gettysburg because the White House was preparing to commemorate America’s 87th birthday. Assistant presidential secretary William Osborn Stoddard coordinated celebratory activities with Brig. Gen. John Henry Martindale, the military governor of the District of Columbia. Martindale arranged for infantry, cavalry, and artillery units in the district to participate in the ceremonies on the White House grounds before moving up river to reinforce Meade’s army.³⁴

Late in the morning, Halleck informed Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Kelley in Clarksburg, West Virginia, of captured dispatches from President Jefferson Davis that indicated the area between Lee’s army and Richmond had been entirely stripped of troops. Kelley was also told that Brig. Gen. Scammon’s planned expedition aimed at cutting Lee’s vital supply line—the Virginia Central Railroad— should move ahead expeditiously. Halleck ordered Kelley to concentrate his forces at Hancock, Maryland, and be in a position to attack Lee’s flanks, should he be compelled to re-cross the Potomac. Washington authorities were doing all they could to marshal forces to support the AOP’s efforts to pursue and to further damage or destroy Lee’s army.³⁵

Finding little time to rest, Meade relied on his limited reserves of strength as he watched Rebels reform their lines west of Gettysburg and withdraw their skirmishers. The move left some of their dead and wounded on the field. That, together with information he had already received, should have made him realize that he possessed a more than 20,000 troop advantage over Lee, with potentially more coming from other sectors.³⁶ Major General Darius N. Couch, Department of the Susquehanna commander in Harrisburg, had reported that Lee had concentrated his entire force, some 75,000 including 12,000 cavalry, at Gettysburg. The report was consistent with an earlier eyewitness report Meade received on June 28 that reliable citizens of Hagerstown had painstakingly counted the Rebel army as it marched through their town and could not make them over 80,000.³⁷

Although he acknowledged to Halleck that the figures from Hagerstown were confirmed by information gathered from various sources regarded as reliable and it was confirmed by Judge Kimmell’s report from Chambersburg and Couch’s telegraph earlier that day, Meade still embraced the unsubstantiated claim that Lee’s army was stronger than his own. He estimated Lee’s strength at 92,000 infantry and as many as 8,000 cavalry, but did not cite a single source or any evidence to support this belief. The inflation of Confederate strength inhibited Meade’s operational tenacity.³⁸

Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, general-in-chief of the Union armies

Library of Congress

Based on what was already known about Lee’s ANV prior to the Gettysburg campaign, Meade should have put confidence in the information received from his intelligence staff. A few days prior to the Battle of Chancellorsville in early May, the BMI prepared an order of battle for the ANV totaling 61,800 men of all arms. According to Halleck, after his defeat at Chancellorsville, Hooker never estimated Lee’s army to be more than 70,000, while Others who have had the best opportunities of observation [probably a reference to the BMI], do not think they have exceeded 60,000. AOP provost marshal general (PMG) Brig. Gen. Marsena R. Patrick, the administrative head of the BMI, noted in his diary after Chancellorsville that the Union army was double the enemy in number. An even more authoritative voice on this subject was Lee’s own assistant adjutant general (AAG), Lt. Col. Walter H. Taylor, who placed the Rebel army’s strength at Chancellorsville to be 57,000. The official total for the Union Army’s present for duty, equipped strength at Chancellorsville was 114,343.³⁹

Lee suffered extensive losses at Chancellorsville, but was reinforced prior to the Gettysburg campaign when two of Longstreet’s divisions returned from the Suffolk operation, and other units were added to his army. Estimating an army’s strength more than 150 years after the fact is not an exact science, the examination of existing records do permit reasonably accurate conclusions. For example, respected analysts John Busey and David Martin list ANV strength for June 30, 1863, to be 80,202. They also calculate engaged numbers during the three-day Battle of Gettysburg to be 71,699. Taylor (Lee’s AAG) placed the army’s strength into a much more realistic focus when he noted that at Gettysburg it had totaled 67,000 to 68,000 men.

In other words, factors that may not be apparent to us today tend to skew the numbers. Civil War armies were not as strong as modern-day calculation might suggest. Soldiers had a mind of their own and were not always where they were supposed to be, which Lee discovered all too well when he later informed President Davis that upwards of 5,000 of his otherwise healthy men had avoided combat at Gettysburg and straggled down Chambersburg Road on July 4. A report the next day from a Union cavalry patrol confirms the wholesale capture of prisoners … [who] were endeavoring to make their way into the mountains.⁴⁰

We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.

⁴¹

Given the information Meade received through a variety of sources concerning the condition of Lee’s army, he could well have responded like a shark finding blood in the water and struck. There is no evidence, however, whether Meade ever sought the advice of PMG Patrick, AOP chief of intelligence Col. George H. Sharpe, the BMI, or even Halleck about the strength of the enemy’s forces. Rather than seize the moment, Meade adopted a cautious approach and remained in position, rested his army, and assessed its condition and his options. When he learned that Meade did not intend to immediately pursue Lee, Brig. Gen. Hermann Haupt of the Union Military Railway Department fired off a message to Halleck from Oxford, seven miles east of Gettysburg: I fear that while Meade rests to refresh his men and collect supplies, Lee will be off so far that he cannot intercept him. A good force on the line of the Potomac to prevent Lee from crossing would, I think, insure his destruction. Of course, Haupt was neither in charge of the army nor encumbered with the weight of responsibility Meade carried.⁴²

Col. George H. Sharpe, Army of the Potomac chief of intelligence

Library of Congress

While Lee was still planning and implementing his defeated army’s withdrawal, Meade informed his corps commanders, The intention of the major-general commanding is not to make any present move, but to refit and rest for to-day. Meade also reined in his field commanders with instructions that their lines as held are not to be changed without orders, the skirmishers simply advanced according to instructions given, to find and report the position and lines of the enemy. Meade did not want to attack or provoke Lee’s forces as he rested his own and decided on a course of