May J.E.B. Stuart forever be damned for his part in blinding Lee and sealing the fate of states rights those July days.
Hyperbole aside, Stuart only took about half his cavalry with him. Lee could have used the rest more effectively to screen his army but he did not. The blame falls with both men.
Gettysburg did not lose the war for the rebels. They lost it when Grant takes Vicksburg the day after Gettysburg.
Oh, and the states that pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act are in no position to argue they were defending "states rights", since the FSA trampled all over them.
Stuart left Lee with at least two brigades of cavalry when he went on his ‘ride’. Lee just didn’t use them properly.
Stuart’s ‘ride’ occurred, in no small part, because of Lee’s penchant for issuing suggestions and nebulous orders, instead of clearcut directives [”Take the hill, if practicable” ring a bell?].
Lee knew who he was fighting at Gettysburg on Day 1, and despite having his Army spread in an arc from York, Pa, all the way back down into Maryland, he chose to attack with what he had on hand. He could have retreated. He could have dug in. He didn’t.
So while Stuart’s attempted third circling of the Union Army was both a strateig and tactical failure [although the wagons came in handy on July 4th to transport the wounded], and may have contributed to the loss, the fault is Lee’s.
"I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
--Major General George E. Pickett, quoted after the war.