Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War

by Peter Tsouras

  By any standard, Meade had chosen an excellent position in which to husband his remaining troops and assume a defensive posture. Below Pipe Creek, his engineer officers had laid out a 20-mile line that ran from Manchester toward Middleburg. The line exploited the formidable contours of Parr Ridge, a rugged, steeply sided plateau, parts of which reached elevations above 1,000 feet.

  By the afternoon of July 2, approximately half of what remained of the Army of the Potomac had occupied sectors of the high ground within easy supporting distance of one another; by late that evening, the balance of Meade’s forces had arrived, and the position was secure. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock’s II Corps, augmented by collected fragments of the I and XI Corps, occupied the left of this line, which ended at a point about five miles southwest of Taneytown. On Hancock’s right, Meade had positioned the XII Corps of Major General Henry W. Slocum, with Major General George Sykes’s V Corps and Major General Daniel E. Sickles’s III Corps farther east, and with the VI Corps of Major General John Sedgwick anchoring the far right of the line. Under Meade’s personal supervision, the army’s artillery chief, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt, had lined the summit with dozens of batteries—guns parked hub to hub to sweep all lines of approach. By then, too, Meade had posted Pleasonton’s remaining horsemen—the divisions of Judson Kilpatrick and David Gregg—so as to cover both of the army’s flanks as well as parts of its front.36

  Lee did not immediately confront the new position, but neither did he remain stationary. Leaving a caretaker force outside Gettysburg, he led his main body to Dick Ewell’s old bailiwick on the Susquehanna. During the fortnight following the battle of Gettysburg, engineers and fatigue parties repaired recently destroyed bridges, via which most of the army crossed to the north shore. They had been preceded by smaller bodies, ferried across aboard captured and improvised transports. By the middle of the month, the Army of Northern Virginia had secured Harrisburg and its environs, out of which hundreds of foragers scoured Lebanon and Lancaster Counties for all manner of provender. Within a week they had secured enough to support an indefinite occupation of the region.

  Detachments of Stuart’s cavalry (the division was again at full strength, with the return of the brigades under Jones) eventually reconnoitered the Pipe Creek Line. Despite exercising caution, the troopers clashed several times during the first half of July with counterparts in blue venturing north on scouting missions of their own. A particularly sharp encounter occurred on the 15th, when Hampton and Fitz Lee teamed to pincer a portion of Kilpatrick’s division, which their leader, with typical rashness, had pushed beyond range of his infantry supports.37

  Not until month’s end did Lee move in force against Pipe Creek. By then Stuart had identified the sector between Taneytown and Middleburg, where Parr’s Ridge was less elevated than elsewhere, as the most promising avenue of approach. Accordingly, on the 28th, Lee ordered a reconnaissance-in-force by Longstreet’s corps, most of which had remained south of the Susquehanna.

  Primary responsibility for the operation fell to Major General George E. Pickett, whose division had been covering the army’s rear near Chambersburg and was spoiling for a fight. Longstreet advised his favorite subordinate to advance gingerly and make maximum use of supporting forces. However, through miscommunication and, it would seem, an exaggerated sense of his own strength, Pickett attacked before his flanks could be secured. From their commanding perch, Hancock’s men repulsed successive assaults, each of which cost Pickett more men than the preceding (by afternoon’s end his casualty rate approached 40 percent of the number engaged). Fittingly, “Pickett’s Charge” would become a synonym for an offensive gone terribly awry.38

  Two days after Longstreet’s repulse, Lee returned the First Corps to the Susquehanna, where it remained for six weeks. During that period the invaders occupied four counties and scores of villages, each of which they stripped of foodstuffs, horses and mules, and every other resource that might sustain their sojourn in the North.39 Meanwhile, an anxious, uncertain Meade probed fitfully at his enemy, cutting off a few foraging parties, while conferring almost incessantly by telegraph with his military and political superiors. President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton relentlessly urged their field commander to advance and clear the state of the invader. But, having lost two full corps in battle on Pennsylvania soil, Meade was unwilling to yield his unassailable foothold in Maryland. Even after receiving reinforcements from Harpers Ferry and other outposts in the new state of West Virginia, the harassed commander refused to take the offensive.

  The Sack of Philadelphia, September 3, 1863

  Lee’s apparent willingness to remain indefinitely in the North had momentous effects on the course of the war. By early August, every Democratic politician in Pennsylvania, as well as a growing number of Republicans, were calling for Lincoln to open negotiations with the Confederate government. Before month’s end, the president had had enough; he relieved Meade and replaced him with Dan Sickles, the only corps commander who pledged to mount a full-scale offensive toward the Susquehanna. But before the former Congressman from New York—well known for his self-confidence and impetuosity if not for his tactical ability—could act, Lee began to shift eastward from Harrisburg, as if heading for Philadelphia.

  The movement was spearheaded by Stuart, whose troopers, during the first week in September, descended suddenly on the Quaker City. Swatting aside militiamen and home guards, the Rebels rampaged through the northern suburbs, then hastened south, leaving destruction and consternation in their wake. Among Stuart’s carefully chosen objectives was the Philadelphia Naval Yard, where his men wrecked machinery, torched mounds of coal, and even damaged a few warships; and the venerable Frankford Arsenal, where they confiscated enough ordnance and ammunition to sustain the firepower of Lee’s army for many months.40

  By the time Stuart turned his back on the burning ruins along the Delaware to rejoin his army in Lebanon County, the curses of stunned, outraged, and frightened Pennsylvanians had descended upon the heads of Lincoln, Stanton, General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, and every prominent advocate of a hard-war policy. In such an atmosphere, Lee had only to strike another dramatic blow on Northern soil to put a finishing touch to enemy morale.

  The Battle of Reading, September 10–11, 1863

  That blow fell on September 10, when the advance of Sickles’s gun-shy command blundered into a trap Lee had set for it in Berks County, southwest of Reading. The magnitude of the Union defeat—the last full-scale battle in the eastern theater—deserves a broader canvas than this essay can provide.41

  A myriad of events, some whose true significance was only dimly discernable at the time, led directly to that climactic confrontation in southeastern Pennsylvania. It can be argued, however, that the most influential of these was the movement north from Rector’s Cross Roads in late June by the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. During the critical ten-week period that followed, the officers and men under J.E.B. Stuart expertly supported Lee’s army, not only shielding its front, flanks, and rear, but also feeding it timely, accurate intelligence that permitted its scattered elements to concentrate speedily and effectively in the face of powerful pursuers. Then, via independent maneuvering—sometimes far afield of their army, exactly as their commander had hoped—the Confederate troopers kept their adversaries off balance, ignorant of Lee’s intentions, and on the defensive for a fatally long period.

  The praise that Robert E. Lee bestowed on his horsemen in the aftermath of his successful invasion was, by any standard, richly merited. As Marse Robert observed, at every turn of the campaign in the North, the gray riders had made:

  “… a contribution absolutely essential to victory on enemy soil, a victory that ensured the preservation of their army, their nation, and the cause that sustained us all through two and a half years of bitter strife.”42

  The Reality

  When J.E.B. Stuart asked permission to launch his expedition, Robert E. Lee agreed that the c
avalry leader, with three of his five brigades, could cut loose from the army, pass through or around the enemy “if you find that he is moving northward,” and link with Ewell on the Susquehanna. A second set of orders authorized Stuart to set out only if he found the Federals inactive in northern Virginia. Glossing over the contradiction, Stuart decided he had carte blanche to pursue his mission as he thought best. He obeyed Lee’s order to leave Robertson and Jones to guard the Blue Ridge passes, but they remained in Virginia long after the Federals left and did not join Lee until the invasion was almost over. Stuart did not honor Longstreet’s request that he leave behind Wade Hampton as a liaison with the infantry. Nor did he obey Lee’s order to return at once to the army when, on June 25, hours after starting out with Hampton, Fitz Lee, and Chambliss, he encountered Hooker’s II Corps in motion east of the Bull Run Mountains.

  Detouring around the enemy, Stuart continued on his way. Over the next five days, he waylaid supply depots, railroad tracks, and river shipping, while capturing a 125-wagon supply train bound for Hooker’s army. His revamped route and the ponderous train slowed his progress, as did a clash with enemy cavalry at Westminster, Maryland, on the 29th and an all-day battle with Kilpatrick at Hanover, Pennsylvania, the following day. In the end, Stuart failed to locate either Ewell or Lee—a courier from army headquarters found him at Carlisle early on July 2. In his absence the main army had wandered blindly through enemy territory and stumbled into battle with Buford on the 1st. Unaware he faced only cavalry, A.P. Hill failed to drive Buford from his position until Reynolds, with the I and XI Corps, reached the field. Thanks to the timely arrival of Ewell’s corps, Lee eventually forced the Federals into retreat, but they held on south of town until the rest of Meade’s army arrived. Two more days of full-scale combat ended with the repulse of Pickett’s Charge and Lee’s decision to return to Virginia, his second (and last) invasion of the North a strategic failure.

  Bibliography

  Blackford, W.W, War Years with Jeb Stuart (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1945).

  Calef, John H., “Gettysburg Notes: The Opening Gun”; Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 40 (New York, 1907).

  Cheney, Newel, comp. History of the Ninth Regiment, New York Volunteer Cavalry (Martin Merz & Son, Poland Center and Jamestown, NY, 1901).

  Coddington, Edwin B., The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1968).

  Downey, Fairfax, Clash of Cavalry: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863 (David McKay, New York, 1959).

  Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1942–4), 3 vols.

  Fuller, Ezra J., “Who Fired the First Shot at the Battle of Gettysburg?” Journal of the United States Cavalry Association 24 (Washington, D.C., 1914).

  Hebert, Walter H., Fighting Joe Hooker (Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1944).

  Klein, Frederic Shriver., “Meade’s Pipe Creek Line”; Maryland Historical Magazine 57 (1962).

  Longacre, Edward G., The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations During the Civil War’s Pivotal Campaign, 9 June–14 July 1863 (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford, NJ, 1986).

  Marshall, Charles, An Aide-de-Camp of Lee, ed. Sir Frederick Maurice (Little, Brown, Boston, 1927).

  McClellan, H.B., Life and Campaigns of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Commander of the Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia (Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1885).

  McPherson, James M., Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (Oxford University Press, New York, 2002).

  Mosby, John S., Stuart’s Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign (Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1908).

  Moyer, H.P., comp., History of the Seventeenth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry (Sowers Printing Co., Lebanon, PA, 1911).

  Nye, Wilbur S., Here Come the Rebels! (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 1965).

  Pleasonton, Alfred, “The Campaign of Gettysburg,” in Annals of the War, Written by Leading Participants, North and South (Times Publishing Co, Philadelphia, 1879).

  U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 4 series in 70 volumes in 128 books (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1880–1901).

  Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA, 1959).

  Wellman, Manly Wade, Giant in Gray: A Biography of Wade Hampton of South Carolina (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1949).

  Wert, Jeffry D., General James Longstreet, the Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993).

  Notes

  1.

  In researching this essay, the author acknowledges the assistance of Gerald R. Ewan, Lawrence T. Longacre, and Eric J. Wittenberg.

  *2.

  The War for Southern Independence: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Confederate and Union Armies (62 vols. in 3 series. Richmond, VA, and Washington, D.C., 1880–92) [hereafter cited as OR], ser II, vol. 4, pp. 692–9.

  3.

  McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, pp. 98–131; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 88–9, 624 note, 625 note; Nye, Here Come the Rebels!, pp. 73–9.

  4.

  McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, pp. 296–314.

  5.

  Marshall, An Aide-de-Camp of Lee, pp. 201–2; Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 3: p. 41 and note.

  6.

  McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, pp. 52–71, 94–102, 136–66; Blackford, War Years with Jeb Stuart, pp. 164–81.

  *7.

  R.E. Lee, The Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, ed. by George Washington Custis Lee and Walter H. Taylor (2 vols. New York, 1874), 2: p. 417.

  *8.

  OR, I, 27, pt. 1: 515–7, 663–4, 689, 677; pt. 2: pp. 440–9; pt. 3: pp. 997, 999–1002, 1117, 1120–5, 1133.

  *9.

  Lee, Memoirs, 2:pp. 417–8.

  *10.

  James Longstreet, Gettysburg-Pipe Creek-Reading: Reminiscences of the War’s Climactic Campaigns (Philadelphia, 1892), pp. 297–9.

  *11.

  Robert Rowland Prentiss and Julian W. Perry, From Manassas to Manila Bay: The Campaigns of James Ewell Brown Stuart (Richmond, VA, 1899), p. 304.

  12.

  Wellman, Giant in Gray: A Biography of Wade Hampton, p. 112; Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, pp. 46–7, 166–7, 259–60.

  *13.

  Desmond Carr, The Laughing Cavalier: A Life of Fitzhugh Lee, 1835–1905 (New York, 1982), pp. 114–6.

  *14.

  Theodore G. Barker, Riding with Hampton, ed. by Lucille Barker Wells (Columbia, SC, 1887), pp. 29–30.

  15.

  Mosby, Stuart’s Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 65–6.

  *16.

  John S. Mosby, “Behind Enemy Lines,” North American Review 142 (1886), pp. 112–3; John S. Mosby, “With Stuart from Rector’s Cross Roads to Gettysburg,” in Harrison B. Markham and D.D. Royce, eds., Campaigns and Commanders of the War between the States (3 vols. New York, 1890–93), vol. 3: p. 404 and note.

  17.

  McClellan, Life and Campaigns of Stuart, pp. 318–9.

  *18.

  Mosby, “With Stuart from Rector’s Cross Roads to Gettysburg,” p. 421.

  *19.

  Premiss and Perry, From Manassas to Manila Bay, pp. 312–8; P. Goddard Wynne, Sword and Pen: Memoirs Military and Literary (Staunton, VA, 1902), pp. 181–6.

  20.

  Wellman, Giant in Gray, pp. 101–2, 133–4; Hebert, Fighting Joe Hooker, 243–4; Pleasonton, “The Campaign of Gettysburg,” in Annals of the War, Written by Leading Participants, North and South, pp. 452–3.

  21.

  Hebert, Fighting Joe Hooker, pp. 244–5; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 128–33.

  22.

  Nye, Here Come the Rebels, pp. 259,
273–7, 283–97, 331–42, 347–56; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 264–5.

  23.

  Wert, General James Longstreet, pp. 242–7.

  24.

  Chambliss’s position at and west of Chambersburg paid dividends almost as soon as he assumed it. On June 30, the 13th Virginia of his brigade captured an enemy supply train—125 wagons long—near Fort Loudoun in Franklin County. The train and its small mounted escort had escaped from Winchester two weeks before, shortly before Ewell carried the outpost; it had fled to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, only to be cut off and forced eastward by Imboden’s brigade on its circuitous march to Gettysburg. See * Wynne, Sword and Pen, pp. 227–30; and *Franklin County Historical Society, West of Gettysburg: Franklin County in the Civil War (Chambersburg, PA, 1963), pp. 120–3, 126–35.

  25.

  Cheney, Ninth New York Cavalry, pp. 100–3; Moyer, Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, pp. 49–50, 329.

  *26.

  Barker, Riding with Hampton, pp. 52–3.

  *27.

  OR, I, p. 27, pt. 2: pp. 334–5; Lee, Memoirs, 2: pp. 498–502.

  28.

  Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 264–5; Calef, “Gettysburg Notes: The Opening Gun,” p. 48; Fuller, “Who Fired the First Shot at the Battle of Gettysburg?” pp. 793–4.