How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat by Bevin Alexander

Author:Bevin Alexander [Alexander, Bevin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: amazon
Published: 2020-04-28T12:04:00.562517+00:00

9

Fredericksburg

ON THE MORNING of September 18, 1862, Lee and Jackson reluctantly concluded that they could not launch a successful attack around McClellan’s northern flank because there was insufficient space between his lines and the Potomac. The only choice left was to retire across the river. Lee held the army in place all day to permit evacuation of the wounded. But after midnight and on into the morning of September 19 the Army of Northern Virginia crossed Boteler’s Ford east of Shepherdstown and bivouacked below the southern shore.

Lee left his reserve artillery and a small infantry detachment to guard the ford. Union General Fitz John Porter pushed a small force across that seized four guns. But Stonewall Jackson sent in A. P. Hill’s division on September 20, driving the Federals back across the river.

That ended the Maryland campaign. But its consequences reverberated to the end of the war and beyond. On September 22 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1, 1863. It was a revolutionary presidential edict that struck down constitutional protections for slavery and changed the war from a conflict to preserve the Union into a crusade to free the slaves. The edict did not end slavery in the Northern border states that had not seceded, only in the eleven Confederate states that had withdrawn.1

Lincoln wanted McClellan to go after Lee’s army at once, but McClellan commenced his usual procrastination, remaining in place and demanding that his army be refurbished before he could move. This angered Lincoln. Two other suspicions arose in the president’s mind—that McClellan would be the Democratic peace candidate in the presidential election of 1864 and that he was deliberately avoiding destruction of the Southern army to prepare for a compromise peace that would save slavery.2

On October 6, 1862, Lincoln gave McClellan a peremptory order to “cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy.” Once more Lincoln tried to be a strategist, advising McClellan to take the “interior line,” keeping between the Rebels and Washington and promising him 30,000 more men if he did so instead of advancing up the Shenandoah Valley, as McClellan preferred.3

The Army of Northern Virginia, meanwhile, underwent a remarkable recovery. Resting in ideal weather in and around Winchester, and receiving ample food, the army acquired much-needed clothing, shoes, and blankets. The few men who still were armed with smoothbore muskets exchanged them for rifles picked up on the battlefield or captured at Harpers Ferry. The army more than doubled in size as stragglers returned and a constant, if small, stream of conscripts arrived. On October 10, the army numbered 64,273; by November 20, 76,472.4 Lee also superintended the reorganization of the army formally into corps, one led by Jackson, the other by Longstreet. He promoted both officers to lieutenant general.5

For a while Lee entertained the idea of advancing again into Maryland, but eventually he gave it up as too hazardous. Even so, he wanted to know McClellan’s plans and on October 10 sent Jeb Stuart north with 1,800 horsemen. The

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