Daily as the columns advanced, Old Bald Head studied how to scour the country for the supplies Lee expected him to collect. He was instructed to keep one division east of the mountains, to deter the Federal army, if it crossed the Potomac, from moving westward before Lee could concentrate. These troops were to undertake to destroy the bridge across the Susquehanna at Wrightsville, a short distance northeast of York. While this was in process of execution, Ewell reached Carlisle on June 27. Early, with the easternmost of the columns, proceeded to Gettysburg, where he stampeded a regiment of raw Pennsylvania militia, and the next morning advanced toward York.
Extra Billy Smith had his “tooting fellows,” as he called his bandsmen, play “Yankee Doodle” as he proceeded in his triumph through the streets of York on June 28. He bowed, he smiled, he displayed so genial and courteous a mien that by the time he reached the center of town he had elicited some cheers. He halted the column and directed the men to stack arms, and loosed a bantering, half-joking flow of eloquence to the effect that warm weather in Virginia had led his men to “take an outing” in Pennsylvania. He was in the flood of this when a volley of oaths roared down the street as Jube Early sought wrathfully to make his way through the ranks that Smith’s deliverance had halted. At last, with many weird explosions of unpremeditated profanity, Old Jube reached the still-declaiming Smith. “General Smith,” Early demanded, “what the devil are you about, stopping the head of the column in this cursed town?” Smith’s answer was naive and unruffled: “Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, and at the same time teaching these people something that will be good for them and won’t do us any harm.”
Routes from the Potomac to Carlisle, Harrisburg, Gettysburg, and York.
There was no quarreling with a man who talked in that manner. Early got the column moving, made requisition of cash in the sum of $28,000, and, before night, rode on to the Wrightsville bridge over the Susquehanna. But before he could seize both ends of the long bridge the enemy set it afire. Early was disappointed. He had been planning ambitiously to cross the river there, cut the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, and assail Harrisburg from the rear while Ewell attacked from the south.7
Ewell’s adventure, too, was approaching a climax far different from that which Old Bald Head had planned or wished. As he had approached Carlisle he continued to collect cattle. The number sent back for the subsistence of the two corps following him totaled 3,000. Ewell was pleased, but he was more interested in reaching the state capital. The day he entered Carlisle, he sent Jenkins and the corps engineer to reconnoiter the defenses of Harrisburg. While he awaited their report, he took part in the raising of the Stars and Bars over the famous old Carlisle Barracks, where so many cavalrymen had served. Ewell even spoke a few words on the occasion—he was no orator—but his mind remained on Harrisburg. If Jenkins’s reconnaissance was favorable, he was resolved to start his infantry the next day for the Susquehanna. The new month must yield a new prize, the handsomest the Confederacy yet had won. Jenkins’s report on June 29 was encouraging. Orders were given Rodes to start for Harrisburg during the afternoon.8
Expectation in Carlisle was mounting to excitement when, from the south, there arrived a headquarters courier. He brought a letter written in haste at Lee’s order: The Federal army, said the commanding general, was reported to have crossed the Potomac and reached Frederick, Maryland. Ewell must move southward and rejoin the other corps. The married and converted Ewell did not swear, but he did not pretend to conceal his displeasure at being compelled to forgo an advance on Harrisburg. He started Johnson for Chambersburg and dispatched orders for Rodes and Early.
After Johnson had gone some miles, there came new orders from Lee: Instead of concentrating at Chambersburg, the army should assemble around Gettysburg. There, east of the mountains, it seemed preferable to challenge the enemy. This change of unpleasant orders upset Ewell still further. Lee put on him a responsibility of choice concerning a matter regarding which he was ignorant. Lee said: “When you come to Heidlersburg, you can either move directly on Gettysburg or turn down to Cash-town.” Ewell was disturbed that Lee should have made that discretionary. Hotchkiss had to write in his diary: “The General was quite testy and hard to please, because disappointed, and had every one flying around. I got up in the night to answer questions and make him a map.”
Ewell inflicted no hardships on the townspeople of Carlisle before departing. The worst that was done was what Johnson might have termed a work of necessity. Many of Old Allegheny’s men were barefoot; his prisoners were well-shod. Johnson had lined up his captured Pennsylvania militiamen in their new Federal uniforms and relieved them of their shoes and socks for the benefit of his soldiers. “Johnson said they were going home,” John Casler recalled, “and could get other shoes quicker than he could, as he had work for his men to do.” Ed Moore found the prisoners “greatly crestfallen” at the prospect of returning to “wives and little ones at home, after having sallied forth so valiantly in their defense. How embarrassing bare feet would be instead of the expected trophies of war!”9
To Heidlersburg, on the road to Gettysburg, Dick Ewell made his way before sundown on June 30. This march had a disconcerting end. In a note delivered by another headquarters courier, Ewell was told again by Lee to move to Cashtown or to Gettysburg, as circumstances might dictate. Ewell received also a message from A. P. Hill, who said that he was at Cashtown and that the enemy’s cavalry and probably other troops in undetermined strength had been observed that day at Gettysburg. Ewell was perplexed. Rodes, Early, and Isaac Trimble, who was newly arrived as a volunteer aide, were called to informal council.
Lee’s orders were read again and again. On them Ewell commented sharply. He was as caustic as he had been in the spring of 1862 in his criticism of Jackson’s mysterious orders. The more he talked, the more did he confuse the issue. Trimble alone had a suggestion based on the realities. He had seen Lee on the twenty-seventh and discussed with him the geography of that part of Pennsylvania. Lee intended, said Trimble, to assail the advance of the enemy. If Federals were in Gettysburg, Lee would want Ewell there. Ewell fumed and protested, but decided nothing that night.10
If Ewell was disturbed, his chief was not. Nor were Old Bald Head’s division commanders. They were more than satisfied with their new leader. After three weeks of high distinction and well-nigh flawless performance, his first period of semi-independent service as head of the Second Corps was about to end. Twenty-eight guns and close to 4,000 prisoners had been captured. Besides all the food, mounts, and quartermasters’ supplies seized and issued to Ewell’s own men, some 5,000 barrels of flour, in addition to the 3,000 cattle, had been located for the chief commissary of the army. A trainload of ordnance and medical stores had been dispatched from Chambersburg. All this had been achieved with losses that scarcely exceeded 300 and with straggling so limited that it found no mention in reports. “I never before or afterward saw the men so buoyant,” one young soldier testified. Without storming or scolding Ewell had directed wisely and executed promptly. His first operations as corps commander seemed to duplicate, if not to outdo, the cherished accomplishments of the dead Stonewall. Except for his grumbling over discretionary orders, he at no time during the campaign had given the least evidence of any lack of decision. As Dick Ewell approached Gettysburg, almost every Confederate soldier would have asserted that a fitting successor to Jackson had been found.11
2
LONGSTREET DEVELOPS A THEORY
The second of Lee’s lieutenants whose state of mind was to influence the operations in Pennsylvania had shared two victories and one drawn battle after the army in August 1862 left Richmond. In all three of these contests, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, and Fredericksburg, James Longstreet had been most fortunate. He had been able to take a defensive position and to receive the enemy’s assaults. At Second Manassas the attack had been on Jackson, but Longstreet’s counterstroke had been demolishing. Narrowly the following month, on the heig
hts above the Antietam, Old Pete had beaten back the onslaught of the enemy and had recrossed the Potomac with all his guns and most of his wounded. Fredericksburg, from his position, had been a triumph of the defensive.
On this foundation of experience, Longstreet reared a tactical theory that if the Confederates could be maneuvered to commanding ground, close to their adversaries, the Federals always could be induced to attack. Longstreet built up, also, a conviction that a small Southern force, comparatively, could repulse any charge the Union army could deliver. Most fully he subscribed to Jackson’s observation: “My men sometimes fail to take a position, but to defend one, never!”
While he was developing this theory of a superior tactical defensive, Longstreet watched intently the operations in Tennessee and the Gulf States. He followed the reports of Braxton Bragg’s withdrawal to Tulla-homa after the battle at Stone’s River, and he doubtless wondered where the Confederacy could find the reinforcements for Pemberton at Vicks-burg. In speculating on the future employment of the divided forces of Pemberton and Bragg, who were under Joseph E. Johnston’s titular command, Longstreet made his first-known venture in grand strategy.
There was nothing sensational about the plan he evolved. It simply was to rely boldly upon the defensive power of the Army of Northern Virginia, and to utilize the inner lines of the Confederacy. He concluded that half of Lee’s forces could remain defiantly on the line of the Rappahannock, and the other half could reinforce Bragg and help in destroying Rosecrans. Then all the strength the Confederacy commanded in a wide region could be turned against the Federal divisions mustering to capture the strategic town of Vicksburg. A part, at least, of this plan its author communicated to Lee on the twenty-third of January. One implication of this theory was that in March Lee could afford to dispatch the two remaining divisions of the First Corps to Southside Virginia where Longstreet was operating with Pickett and Hood. Lee could not agree to march additional troops to the vicinity of Suffolk and leave no more than one corps of infantry, with some cavalry, between Richmond and the enemy. Longstreet was not offended; nor was he shaken in his conviction that he had a sound plan.12
When Longstreet was summoned to evacuate the Suffolk front and return to the Rappahannock, there was time for a stopover in Richmond. That brief halt at the Confederate capital set another stone of conviction on the path of James Longstreet. The secretary of war, James A. Seddon, was a man who had great art in making his guests feel that their opinions were desired on public questions. When Longstreet called on him, the secretary welcomed him and, among other things, spoke of the difficulty of collecting troops and supplies in Mississippi for the relief of Vicksburg.
The conversation led Longstreet to present the theory he had been cherishing since January: Rather than attempting the direct relief of Vicksburg, he said, Johnston might take his force at Jackson, Mississippi, and advance to Tullahoma, where Bragg’s army was awaiting a move by Rose-crans. Simultaneously, Longstreet could take his corps or the two divisions of it then returning to Lee and proceed by rail to Tullahoma. These two converging columns would make Johnston strong enough to crush Rose-crans and then would permit a march for Ohio. As soon as the North faced the prospect of invasion, Longstreet continued, Grant would be recalled from Vicksburg to defend Ohio. The whole operation, Longstreet concluded, simply meant the employment of inner lines, which were the sole means by which the South could “equalize the contest.” Seddon mildly suggested that the objection to the plan was the manifest one that it weakened too heavily the army defending Richmond. In any event, gratifying it was to Longstreet to be asked for counsel by the secretary on what was the most fateful question of strategy the government faced in the summer of 1863.13
On the ninth of May Longstreet came back in satisfaction of spirit to Fredericksburg heights. His mind was full of his plan for a defensive in the East and an offensive from Tennessee with Joe Johnston, whom he regarded as the greatest soldier of the Confederacy. Longstreet believed in this strategy but had no immediate opportunity of presenting it. He found his chief in acutest distress because of the illness of Jackson. The next afternoon Jackson died, and by this tragedy Longstreet became the most conspicuous of Lee’s surviving lieutenants. None so surely could present all his views to the commanding general.
While Lee mourned over Jackson, weighed the merits of possible successors, and considered the reorganization of the army into three corps, Longstreet had time for an examination of the tactics and strategy of Chancellorsville. To the contest he applied the theory he had advocated in dispatches to Lee—“to stand behind our intrenched lines and await the return of my troops from Suffolk.” So considered, Longstreet did not approve Lees operation. The point to be stressed is not that Longstreet was correct or incorrect in his appraisal, but that in making it he showed himself an unqualified advocate of a tactical defensive by the Army of Northern Virginia. Its strategy might be offensive, but not its tactics.14
In this state of mind, when he found Lee free to hear him, Longstreet submitted his plan for the reinforcement of Bragg, an offensive against Rosecrans, and the attempted invasion of Ohio as a means of forcing the recall of Grant from Vicksburg. The proposal was given unbiased consideration by Lee. In the end, it was rejected. Face-to-face with Hooker’s army, which numerically was much superior, Lee did not feel that he safely could divide his forces. The alternative, so far as it concerned Vicksburg, was for Johnston to reinforce Pemberton instead of sending help to Bragg for an advance against Rosecrans. As for the Army of Northern Virginia, what better service could it render the other Confederate armies and their common cause than to invade the North and threaten Washington?
Longstreet frankly opposed such an offensive. He argued; he restated the case for his own plan; he pointed out the difficulties of an advance in the enemy’s country. When he saw that Lee had reached a final decision on the larger question of strategy, the argument was turned to tactics. In detail, Longstreet reviewed the theory he had formulated. He recorded later: “I suggested that, after piercing Pennsylvania and menacing Washington, we should choose a strong position, and force the Federals to attack us…. I recalled to [Lee] the battle of Fredericksburg … when, with a few thousand men, we hurled the whole Federal army back, crippling and demoralizing it, with trifling loss to our own troops…”
To this argument, as he subsequently admitted, Longstreet held with “great persistency.” He did not find his chief in opposition. Lee agreed with the principle, though he never had any thought of committing himself to a tactical policy that was to be applied regardless of circumstances. To Lee’s mind, any such commitment would have been a negation of strategy. Longstreet mistook courtesy for consent and believed that Lee had pledged himself to defensive tactics though the strategy might be offensive. The Battle of Fredericksburg, Longstreet kept saying, was an example of what he hoped to achieve in Pennsylvania.15
After the advance of the army began, Longstreet had in mind the possibility that Lee might attack the enemy should an opening appear. Stuart’s battle at Brandy Station made him especially apprehensive that Lee might follow up the advantage by attacking with heavy force this detachment of Federals. When Lee refrained from pursuing the Union cavalry, Longstreet told himself that Lee “had determined to make a defensive battle, and would not allow any casual advantage to precipitate a general engagement.”
Cheerfully, then, on a flawlessly arranged march behind the Second Corps, Longstreet moved his troops toward the Potomac. His advance was without sensation, and on June 27 reached Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The Third Corps was with the First; Ewell was at Carlisle. Stuart was detached, but as nothing had been heard from him, it was supposed that the Federal army still was in Virginia and that the Confederate cavalry was watching it. The troopers of Imboden had operated on the left of Ewell as he advanced toward the Susquehanna, but they, too, had disappeared. They were, in reality, resting idly at Hancock, Maryland, more than fifty miles southwest of Chambersburg. When this became
known it was to provoke the wrath of Lee as did few events of the war. On June 27-28 it was assumed that the mounted forces were doing their full duty and that all was well; but there was uneasiness, almost exasperation, over the failure of the cavalry to send in any information of the enemy’s movements.16
In this disagreeable state, when the army was in the dark, Longstreet put the Confederacy in his debt. While Old Pete had been at Suffolk, Secretary Seddon had dispatched to his headquarters a Mississippian of adventurous spirit named Henry T Harrison, who offered to serve as a spy. All spies were suspected of being double traitors and giving the enemy as much information as they got from him; but Longstreet employed Harrison and found the man both active and trustworthy. Before the army left Culpeper, Longstreet directed him to go to Washington and glean intelligence. When Harrison asked where he should report on his return, Longstreet remarked evasively that headquarters of the First Corps were large enough for any intelligent man to find. Staff officer Sorrel noted that Longstreet “was very far from giving even to his trusted scout information as to his movements. But Harrison knew all the same; he knew pretty much everything that was going on.”
Harrison disappeared; the army moved northward; on the night of June 28 the spy appeared at a Confederate outpost and was taken to headquarters, recognized, and escorted to Longstreet’s tent. Harrison had news of first importance: The Federal army had left Virginia and moved north of the Potomac; at least two corps were close to Frederick; once more the command had been transferred. This time the new leader of the Army of the Potomac was Major General George Meade. In the absence of Stuart’s cavalry, none of this information had reached army headquarters. Even if the cavalry had been at hand, some of the facts unearthed by Harrison might not have been discovered. Credit, then, was due Harrison and, indirectly, Longstreet. Corps commanders seldom employed spies, but Longstreet, with his usual care for detail, saw to it that his spies were well-chosen and diligent.
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