Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg in July 1863 was a success, as
far as escaping from a hostile army after a defeat can be considered a success.
The Confederate Army made it to the Potomac on the July 7th. The
swollen river unfordable with the pontoon bridge destroyed, that was to have
allowed them safe transit. Nonetheless, a pontoon bridge was reconstructed and
the swollen Potomac River’s level dropped. The Army of the Northern Virginia
would make its way across the Potomac on the night of July 13 and morning of
the 14th and live to fight on
for another 22 months.
The Confederates on their retreat from Gettysburg were
harassed by Union Cavalry but the six corps of the Union Army didn’t engage the
Confederates in battle. The Confederates were allowed escape. General Meade was
roundly criticized by the President, General-In-Chief Halleck, and any number
of contemporary military officers at the time.
A true assessment of the 10 days of this retreat is an
impossibly daunting task. The contingent variables of a vast army and its venue
that have to be considered are legion. It's quite easy blaming Union General Meade.
A day after the third day of Battle of Gettysburg, July 4th 1863, the armies held their positions. Lee’s Army would have loved to have the Union charge entrenched positions. Meade refused to come down off Cemetery Ridge, content to stare down the Confederate forces. To have locked the Confederates in battle on the 4th may have been the key to holding Lee’s army in place and destroying him or become a tragic bloody blunder for the Union.
A day after the third day of Battle of Gettysburg, July 4th 1863, the armies held their positions. Lee’s Army would have loved to have the Union charge entrenched positions. Meade refused to come down off Cemetery Ridge, content to stare down the Confederate forces. To have locked the Confederates in battle on the 4th may have been the key to holding Lee’s army in place and destroying him or become a tragic bloody blunder for the Union.
Lee was hoping they would attack. The futility of frontal
attack was amply demonstrated in December 1862 at Fredericksburg where Lee’s
army repulsed Burnside’s Union troops numerous times. Some called the effort at
repeated attacks butchery. The assault executed by Pickett’s charge against
entrenched positions on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on July 3rd
becomes all the more mysterious.
After a day of waiting on the night of the 4th and morning of the 5th Lee’s Army began to slip away. It would march southwest
over South Mountain at Monterey Gap, some 16 miles away. Elevations along South
Mountain, a 70 mile long mountain from Maryland to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, were
between 1500 to 2000 feet; they would be insurmountable by an army except to
force passage at the gaps like Monterey that measured 1000 to 1300 ft in
elevation. The ultimate destination of the Confederate army was Williamsport,
Maryland some 30 miles away southwest on the Potomac River with Virginia
beyond. Hill’s Corp didn’t leave the Gettysburg Battlefield until July 6th
along with the 4,000 Union prisoners of war, guarded by Pickett’s Division.
As stated, Lee’s Army of the Northern Virginia was given ten
days to escape across the Potomac. The army was allowed to wait for the swollen
Potomac River to recede after torrential rains and the pontoon bridge
previously built on the passage north below Williamsport, destroyed on the 3rd
, be re-constructed. Meade, newly appointed, feared failure more than he craved
success. He cautiously approached a still dangerous Army of the Northern
Virginia, retreating to Virginia.
Previously, 15-20 mile long reserve quartermaster and
subsistence train had left for Fairfield late July 3rd. It contained thousands of head of cattle and
sheep pillaged from the Pennsylvania countryside. The Confederate Army was
constantly foraging for food stuffs and livestock, nominally paid with
worthless Confederate script. It was a critical part of the reason that the
Army of the Northern Virginia had journeyed into Union country. Virtually every
imaginable item was subject to pillage: Clothing, grain, livestock, horses,
etc.
The supply and ordinance trains of each of the three
Confederate army corps would be as long as 30 miles. They slowly trudged their
way towards the Monterey Gap. On the night of July 5th torrential
rains poured out of the sky. The Union Cavalry was sent to reconnoiter and
harass the retreat. A night battle in virtual pitch black was fought at the
Monterey Gap with General “Kill” Kilpatrick’s Calvary division in pursuit. The
Monterey Gap was defended by a tiny contingent of Confederate Calvary led by
Captain Emack. General George Custer was the vanguard of the division in the
dark and the downpour at the entrance of the road up the gap. They were shocked
when Emack’s handful of Calvary began to fire on them. Emack held them up five
hours. Eventually, 1st West
Virginian Cavalry led by Major Capehart and his 640 contingent broke through.
Some 1,300 Confederates and 250 wagons were captured.
There were other determined but largely ineffective attacks
made by the dispersed Union Cavalry in the week running up to Lee’s departure
across the Potomac. General Kilpatrick attacks Hagerstown on July 6 including
General Custer’s Michigan Brigade. The Confederates rally their wounded led by
General Imboden along with Stuart’s cavalry to repulse them.
On the same day General Buford’s Cavalry attacked
Williamsport, the site of the crossing of Lee’s army a week later. Once again
Confederate wounded were called to defend themselves. A late afternoon flank
attack by Confederate Fitz Lee’s cavalry brigade forced a Union retreat.
On July 6th General Meade sent out the 6th
Corps under General Sedgwick in reconnaissance in strength, ordered not to
engage the Army of Northen Virginia. They march 5 miles down the Fairfield road
toward South Mountain. They encounter Confederate rearguard at Granite Hill.
They can see Lee’s wagon train backed up in the distance. A skirmish line is
sent out and is met with a bayonet charge by the 26th Georgian of
General Ewell’s 2nd Corps. They scurry back to Granite Hill. The narrow
Fairfield pass is up ahead past the town. Sedgwick determines battle at the
narrow pass would give Lee a decided advantage. This is entirely true; once Lee
goes into the mountains he has the advantage of terrain. This would be in
contrast to battle the Confederate Army at Gettysburg on July 4th
before Lee can break off. Lee relished an attack.
Once Lee left and marched in
the mountains the opportunity of engaging his army is lost. Afterwards, Meade fears being caught and repulsed in
the mountains and hesitates.
One complication, the supply depot for the Union Army was 24 miles away at
Westminster, MD. Surprisingly, the Union army lacked supplies and short on
food. General Meade had to determine if Lee was going to make a stand at South
Mountain or retreat into Virginia to determine where the supply depots should
be. The latter would dictate he’d be moving the supply depot east to Frederick,
Md.
***
General Meade had taken leadership only 3 days before the
Battle of Gettysburg. He had lost two experienced corps commanders in General Reynolds,
I Corp, killed on first day of Gettysburg, offered the leadership of the Army
before Meade but turned it down and General Hancock, II Corp, who was wounded
on the 3rd day at Picketts’ Charge.
Most importantly, Meade was directed to protect Washington
at all costs; this meant making certain to always interpose the Army of the
Potomac between it and the Confederate Army. Thus the route to Williamsport was
in fact longer (50 miles) for the Union Army than pursuit down the Cumberland
Valley, Lee’s route.
Following Lee’s route (30 miles) was out of the question,
ignoring all the logistic hurdles that it would have involved. It was only
after it was reported that Lee’s Army was moving beyond South Mountain past the
Monterey Gap did General Meade decide to begin the pursuit. Remember the Union
Army is marching to the east of South Mountain to Frederick, Maryland (some 37
miles march from Gettysburg), equidistant from Williamsport. The long way
around.
Meade with his staff arrives at Frederick on July 7th.
The Union Cavalry once again is stymied by Confederate Cavalry at Funkstown,
Maryland on the 7th a few miles southeast of Hagerstown.
Confederate Cavalry commander Jeb Stewart forces action at Boonsboro, Maryland farther east and the Union Cavalry stops them on July 8th. Formidable infantry 6th and 11th Corps began to arrive late in the evening of July 8th, having made forced marches of some 30 miles the day before. Boonsboro measures twenty two miles southeast from Williamsport, Maryland.
Confederate Cavalry commander Jeb Stewart forces action at Boonsboro, Maryland farther east and the Union Cavalry stops them on July 8th. Formidable infantry 6th and 11th Corps began to arrive late in the evening of July 8th, having made forced marches of some 30 miles the day before. Boonsboro measures twenty two miles southeast from Williamsport, Maryland.
Mid-day July 7th the last corps of the Army of
Northern Virginia passes through Hagerstown, Maryland just seven miles northeast
of Williamsport, MD. They were about to beat the Union Army to Williamsport. The
cavalry fights following the battle at Gettysburg allow Lee’s army space and
time.
With the adoption of the rifled musket, lethal at 400 yards,
infantry regiments have no problem defeating mounted cavalry. Infantry regiment
of five hundred to fifteen hundred of men can get off thousands of accurate
shots by the time they are to have been run down by the mounted horsemen.
Horsemen had been the most daunting element on the battlefield for well over
two thousand years, no longer. This is meant to say the failure of Meade to
pursue with infantry insures Lee’s ability to reach Williamsport and fortify
the army behind trenches and redoubts.
On the July 10th another skirmish was fought at
Funkstown as the Union Army begins to move forward towards Williamsport. All
the while the Confederates are constructing miles of formidable fortifications
around Williamsport, which Mead will be very hesitant to assault.
Most of the Army of the Potomac was present by July 11th
near Williamsport and waited with reluctance to attack Lee’s nine mile long
fortifications.
On the morning of July 12th General Custer and
his Michigan Cavalry brigade recaptured Hagerstown, some seven miles northeast
of Williamsport. The Confederates are firmly ensconced behind fortifications by
this point.
General Meade struggles to make a decision to attack Lee’s
heavily fortified position around Williamsport. The Union Army hesitates as the
Army of Northern Virginia is behind several miles of trench and breast works
around Williamsport. The Confederate Army could afford to wait for the Potomac River
to recede and upon the re-construction of a pontoon bridge.
General-In-Chief Henry Halleck at Washington, D.C. throughout
the week continued to urge prompt action against Lee before his army was lost
across the Potomac. Meade offered that troops after forced marches were short
on rations and marching barefoot, accounting for the dilatory pursuit.
Lee would be able to secure retreat across the river on 13th
and morning of the 14th. The Union made a tardy stab at the remnants
left waiting to cross on the 14th. General Pettigrew commanded the
very last remnant of the troops crossing back over to Virginia. A participant
on July 3rd of the renowned Pickett’s charge, he was mortally
wounded by a last minute Union Cavalry charge, thinking they were one of his
own. Virtually, all the Army of Northern Virginia was able to escape to safety.
It would take General Grant to engage in a grinding war of
attrition to conclude the war in April 1865. That took twenty two months and it
ended with defeat of the Southern means to war and the destruction of its
economy. With that effort in mind one could surmise that destruction of the
Army of the Northern Virginia before the Potomac in July of 1863 would not have
been an altogether straightforward task as so many have speculated.
As already mentioned, Meade’d barely been commander of the
Army of the Potomac for a week by July 4th. Commanding and
coordinating tens of thousands of troops is a daunting task in itself; now the
leader has to decide to commit additional thousands to their deaths or possible
lifelong disability. Virtually anyone placed in that position of responsibility
would shudder at the thought. In no other venture are decisions laden with so
much consequence. In business you lay off some people or close some stores or
factories, when circumstances go awry. Even medical personal providing life and
death care have the responsibility of one individual not thousands.
The irony of war is losses of thousands today may save many
more later, but then it might just mean you’ve needlessly sent those thousands
to their deaths for naught.
Map of the Gettysburg Retreat: