General Longstreet implored General Lee to vacate Gettysburg and march the Army of Northern Virginia on Washington DC. This appears now to have been sound reasoning as DC was roughly 90 miles from where they were. Had they done that, I suspect there might have been a wholly different conclusion to the conflict. Northerners stood in abject fear of an incursion into the Capitol and subsequent movement north through a southern sympathetic Maryland.
The southern strategy was screwup after mis~step after tragedy. If the southern states had seceded and then simply stood back and built their industrial defense base while initiating no military force they probably would have won.
Lee would never have done that. DC was heavily fortified and had about 90,000 men stationed there for the defense of the Capitol. Lee had no siege artillery, a 35 mile long wagon train and not direct means of resupply from Richmond.
I have read that Longstreet’s advice to Lee was to withdraw from Gettysburg, find an easily defensible position and allow Meade to wreck the AOP attacking Lee’s defenses.
Lee would have none of that, “That is where those people are, and that is where I will strike them”
Lee would never have done that. DC was heavily fortified and had about 90,000 men stationed there for the defense of the Capitol. Lee had no siege artillery, a 35 mile long wagon train and not direct means of resupply from Richmond.
I have read that Longstreet’s advice to Lee was to withdraw from Gettysburg, find an easily defensible position and allow Meade to wreck the AOP attacking Lee’s defenses.
Lee would have none of that, “That is where those people are, and that is where I will strike them”
No one can explain Lee’s intransigence at Gettysburg and his insistence over Longstreet’s strongest objections that Picket attack the center of the union lines. The Union had the luxury of interior lines and could move troops around to where they were needed most. Their artillery held its fire until the attackers were close in and the CSA artillery had used most of its ordnance vainly trying to breach the lines. Everything that could go wrong on July 3 for the South did go wrong.