Lee did NOT want to go. So he proposed the raid into Pennsylvania in its stead. That is strategic myopia to the level of near blindness. And the South paid. "
Here's my reference:
Bowden & Ward argue that Lee had the superior strategic vision. Lee knew, the only place the South could actually win the war was right there in the East, by defeating the Army of the Patomic on northern ground.
We see Lee's vision already in September 1862, when he first marched into Maryland and the Battle of Antietam.
In 1863 Lee proposed going back north. His arguments won the day with Jefferson Davis, though Davis did not give Lee all the units he asked for.
I don’t agree with them. In 1862 Lee invaded the pro-Unuion half of Maryland and wondered why no one was rushing to enlist in the Army of Northern Virginia, and why no rebellion had broken out.
If they can see the strategy behind the Gettysburg Raid [I have trouble calling it a campaign], aside from gathering provender, giving Northern Virginia a rest, and frustrating any chance of Lee’s being sent west, more power to them.
The critical theater of war in the Civil War was the West. It’s where the Civil War was decided. And Lee either never grasped that fact, or deliberately ignored it in his desire to put Virginia first. Such parochialism does not a great strategist make.