"So... even if General Lee won Gettysburg... " Topic

….nothing would have changed …

At least it is the conclusion I read in this interesting thread…."

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Amicalement
Armand

Vicksburg falls and then Port hudson. Grant comes east early and the war ends a year earlier.

I've never heard of that battle!

Susquehanna bridges get cut. Short term disruption of Union supply lines. Maybe destruction of rail line to DC. But DC is safe. Maybe a larger force goes to Chickamaqua. Delay to the Georgia campaign; possible enough to affect 1864 presidential election. Doesn't affect Vicksburg Campaign.
But he didn't.

Why do what if writers always, assume the ANV doesn't get heavy damaged to kill the AP. As Shelby Foote said the North would have pull its other arm out and defeat the South.

Foote, I think, overstates the matter. The Confederacy didn't need to reach a point at which the Union couldn't win--only a point at which the North decided it wasn't worth the cost. We don't know what that point would have been.

But I think mostly the "what if" people underestimate what it would have taken. The Confederacy didn't need field victories. It had those. It needed a Saratoga, Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu--the complete destruction of a Union army. That might have happened at the Seven Days or Chancellorsville. It was never a possibility at Gettysburg.

Maybe a larger force goes to Chickamaqua.

Wouldn't have happened. Getting Lee to release Longstreet was like pulling teeth.

Robert: "The Confederacy didn't need to reach a point at which the Union couldn't win--only a point at which the North decided it wasn't worth the cost."

That's the best explanation I've ever read.

And I guess it could apply equally well to the Revolutionary War.

Dan

The South was wrong, in every aspect, morally as well as all other reasons. So they woulda lost anyway but it mighta' taken a bit longer. Wait, lately it seems, they mighta' won…

Dude!….

Amicalement
Armand

Wait, lately it seems, they mighta' won…

How so? Can you explain your comment?

He's walking the politics line clearly.

The Confederacy didn't need to reach a point at which the Union couldn't win--only a point at which the North decided it wasn't worth the cost.

The South needed not to lose but they were losing and Gettysburg wasn't going to change that fact.

He's walking the politics line clearly.

Ok, thanks. Maybe a case of TDS.

Well, let's see, a Confederate victory in all probability would not have meant the destruction of the Army of the Potomac. Lee had been trying for that sort of victory right from the start and never achieved it. That sort of crushing battlefield victory was almost impossible to achieve anymore. The only one that comes close (with large armies involved) was Nashville.

And, most of Lee's big victories came at a huge cost in manpower for the ANV. It seems unlikely that Lee could have pressed on into the North with what little he'd have left. meanwhile Union reinforcements would have poured in from everywhere and the AOP would have been quickly rebuilt. So yeah, probably not a huge change.

To win a war of attrition you either need to be able to absorb more damage or cause more damage than the other side. To do that they needed foreign involvement, which was not likely as long as they maintained "the particular institution ".

We were able to win the AWI because while both sides took the punches when the French provided logistics, sea power and seige equipment the tide turned. No major power was willing to step in so it was a "lost cause ".

Salutations, gentlefolk !

I think I saw, once, a quote from a letter by Adm DuPont – then commander of the Union South Atlantic blockade squadrons – that if the Confederates cut the Reading RR and Schulykill Canal, between Pottsville and Philadelphia, the Union navy – without coal from the Pennsylvania anthracite fields – would have to lift the blockade and go home.

(Sorry, stuf to do today, can't get to library and find the quote)

Whether the Confederates realized this, and whether they could, and would, get a force across the Susquehanna and eighty miles on, is an open question.

By this period of the war, the Union had some very expert crews for repairing railroads and bridges.

You need to see the Susquehanna bridges. Even with todays equipment, it would take months. Not sure that Lee could have destroyed them even if he got there. But they would have been down for at least a year, if he destroyed the entire bridge.

The War is won in the Western Theater. Lee is very much focused on Virginia and is going to be very reluctant to release troops to stabalise the situation. Meaning it end up as a "So What" like all those other "victories" of Bobby Lee.

Sometime when there's a minute to spare, its an interesting exercise to sit down and have a count of the losses in Bobby Lee's "victories".

I doubt that what ever alternate scenario you can come up with to produce a win for the ANV that Gettysburg would be any different.

To get your lick in, you have to take a lick in return and Lee's army took plenty of those.

if the Confederates cut the Reading RR and Schulykill Canal, between Pottsville and Philadelphia, the Union navy – without coal from the Pennsylvania anthracite fields – would have to lift the blockade and go home.

Only if the Confederates can KEEP them cut! How long can they sit there?

It not like we can just buy coal from the British. Oh yeah the North could.

+1 Wackmole9

Yes, and what if Napoleon had had a B-52 at Waterloo?!

The General responsible for the most Confederate casualties is Robert E. Lee.

It not like we can just buy coal from the British. Oh yeah the North could.
But it would take weeks to just get someone to England to start negotiation. Not sure if England would need to ramp up production. Their navy and industry would get priority. Two or three months without a blockade may have given the South a major boost. Or maybe have no effect.

Coal is a heavy, bulk commodity, not the type of thing you're going to run a blockade with. You want light, high value items that will generate a large profit. Arms and luxury goods will be your first choice. Coal, pretty much the last.

Whether the Confederates realized this …

They did. It was part of the motivation for Lee's raid into Pennsylvania. See the book North with Lee and Jackson, by James A. Kegal

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To clarify, the union would need the goal for its fleet. The south would want food, powder, cannon and other war supplies.

And those bridges were where Lee was headed.

Knowing where Scott lives I believe he has seen the bridges a few times. Temp rout for the coal would have been via of Lake Erie to NY and down the Erie canal. Besides there were many mines East of the River, enough to supply the fleet until the bridges were repaired.

Define "won". Meade abandons the battlefield to ANV? Lee's army is still so badly damaged he has to pull back to Virginia anyway. No difference. By 1863 there were too many solid veteran units in the Union Army to allow a Bull Run type rout. Short of achieving that result I don't think anything changes. More promising would have been if Stuart's cavalry had done something useful like sack some major northern cities. That MAY have won the south some foreign recognition while damaging Lincoln's position PERHAPS leading to a peace candidate in 1864. IMHO real long odds!

I used to think Ewell failing to attack on July 1 was no big deal. If he had taken the high ground south of town the Army of the Potomac would have simply withdrawn to any one of a number of other defensive positions in southern Pennsylvania or northern Maryland, called in reinforcements from Washington and Baltimore and made a stand. From a strictly military standpoint I still think that is true.

However I now think the Army of the Potomac couldn't just operate based on military considerations. Lee's army was in southern Pennsylvania and had severed both the southern (B&ORR) and central (PRR) rail lines between the east coast and the midwest. His army had already defeated one force in the Shenandoah Valley, and a complete victory at Gettysburg on day 1 would have given him a second victory in the campaign over 1/3 of the Army of the Potomac. While Meade might still have been content picking out a good defensive position and making a stand, Lincoln might have felt the political need to force Meade to take the offensive. At that point the terrain would favor Lee as defender, and the two forces would have been close to even in size. The result of such a battle would not be a foregone conclusion, and another defeat in the campaign that left Lee in the north would have had political implications for Lincoln.

called in reinforcements from Washington and Baltimore and made a stand. From a strictly military standpoint I still think that is true.

Those reinforcements had already been "called in;" there weren't any left -- although there were a few on the way from North Carolina (which never were used).

Lincoln saw Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania not as a crises, but as an opportunity to destroy Lee's army, and was highly upset that Lee managed to get back to Virginia more or less intact.