Gettysburg or Vicksburg: A Question About the Question
Gettysburg or Vicksburg?
It is, as my friend Garry Adelman recently pointed out on the ECW YouTube page, a false choice. For lots of reasons, the answer can be “both.” Certainly in tandem, they marked a major turn in Confederate fortunes–especially when you add in the fall of Port Hudson and the Federal success at Tullahoma. We even created the first two books in our Emerging Civil War 10th Anniversary Series to be in conversation with–not opposition to–each other: The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg and The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg.
At our 2018 ECW Symposium, Matt Atkinson offered his own take on the “Gettysburg vs. Vicksburg” debate (which you can watch here).
People love to discuss the merits of the battles and the ramifications of both, and even if it’s a false dichotomy, fans of both battles like to argue the primacy of each. I suppose that’s part of the fun of being a serious student of the Civil War, from the brand-new buff to the seasoned scholar: we enjoy the chance to debate and discuss ideas. Through those discussions, we hopefully come to a deeper understanding of the material. What’s not to love about that?
The other day, though, I read a comment that puzzled me: “I think too much emphasis is placed on the fall of Vicksburg.” My immediate reaction was, Is that even possible? I do not say that to disparage the commenter at all—I was simply caught off guard.
The people of the time placed huge weight on Vicksburg. Abraham Lincoln called it “the key.” Jefferson Davis called it “the nail head” that held both halves of the Confederacy together. It was a lynchpin in the Anaconda Plan. I could go on and on.
In my own experience, I find that people who dismiss Vicksburg typically (but not always) do so because they’ve not studied the Vicksburg campaign enough. I know my own familiarity with the campaign really didn’t start getting serious until five years ago or so; the more I’ve studied it since, the more enthralled with it I’ve become, and writing my book The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi (Savas Beatie, 2022) made me a True Believer. If you’ve not taken the time to do a deep dive into Vicksburg, I urge you to treat yourself to a fascinating story.
And as Garry points out, you can still love Gettysburg, too.
Love both? Next thing you’re going to tell me is that it’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time!
I would be pushing it on that….
I think that can be said of the Western Theater as a whole. Many people dismiss the West as a backwater of the war in the East. Stones River, Chattanooga/Chickamauga, Franklin are often overlooked.
I don’t dismiss Vicksburg. And as the direct descendant of one Confederate who fought West of the Mississippi during the entire war, and another Trans-Mississippian who came east with ( blech) Van Dorn, I’ve done a bit of studying about it. What I discount is the histrionic rejoicing or despair that attended it’s fall. The war went on for almost two years after it’s fall. The inadequacies of Confederate rail transport had acted to seriously inhibit the value of Trans-Mississippi supplies even before it’s fall. Following it’s fall, many of the paroled Confederates reentered service. And most crucially, as after Halleck’s grand victory at Corinth, Grant’s Union army remained virtually inert, until the catastrophe at Chickamauga forced it, and it’s commander, into motion.
Vicksburg, and the Western Theatre in general, we’re vastly more important than what has been ascribed in the past. Ultimately, however, the East is the Theatre of Operations which will decide the Victor.
Vicksburg is enormously significant because it is a big part of enabling Union success in the East.
But ultimately, it is Appomattox, not Vicksburg, that signals the war as over.
Had the Union still captured Vicksburg and yet, the Confederacy prevailed at Gettysburg, the scales are massively tipped to the latter to prevail. British, and thereby French, recognition would have been bestowed.
Indeed, the ramifications of a Federal loss at Gettysburg could have been huge–but they likewise could’ve just meant that the next battle took place at Meade’s prepared defensive line at Pipe Creek. No way to know. So, we can’t put TOO much emphasis on what might have happened had Gettysburg turned the other way.
We DO what happened as a result of Vicksburg, though. And we know what the status quo would have looked liked, at least for a while, had Grant not captured Vicksburg because that’s what the status quo had been for months leading up to the siege.
I disagree that the west’s primary importance is that enabled Union successes in the east. The AoP had a tough time in the east, even after Grant took over. But time and time again, the Confederacy lost vast tracts of territory in the west, which also meant huge chunks of the South’s war-making facilities.
How many times did the A of the P fall back with its tail between its legs? How, exactly, was Lee going to sustain & resupply his army 41 miles on the wrong side of the Potomac after another strategically fruitless tactical victory? How long would the resupply of empty ammunition boxes have taken? From what base & from how far away would those supplies have come? On the positive side, every battle, Lee lost about 30% of his infantry in every battle, so there would have been fewer mouths to feed.
Contemporaneously, Rosecrans’ Tullahoma Campaign was driving Bragg across the Tennessee River, about 100 miles. The innovation, thorough planning, logistical preparation of the Army of the Cumberland is completely missing in Lee’s Gettysburg operation. Missing from Rosecrans’ plan were futile Napoleonic banzai charges. The results speak for themselves.
The only reason Gettysburg is the ‘High watermark of the Confederacy ‘ was Jubal Early & the Southern Historical Society’s decades long rewrite of history. Viewed with objective cold military logic, the Gettysburg Campaign is indistinguishable from Hood’s Nashville Campaign. In his case, what Lee’s likely fate “besieging Washington” would have been doesn’t have to be imagined.
It is 2023, false equivalents between a tactical & strategic disaster & a smashing strategic victory are no longer serious topics of discussion.
The South had the same advantage as that Russia has traditionally enjoyed; the ability for vast chunks of its territory to be held by an adversary and yet both could pursue their war efforts to potentially successful conclusions.
The importance of the East manifests itself in what signals the end of the war?
Was it Vicksburg? Was it Atlanta? No, it was the veritable destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater which culminates in the Petersburg Campaign.
The spectre of the potential of the Army of Northern Virginia (or other Confederate armies operating in same area), being demonstrably able to invade Northern territory and defeat the armies thereupon had objectively held since First Bull Run.
The significance of the East on the North in the defensive context is not only what was achieved but what was prevented, to use some of Mackenzie King’s words.
And we know for a fact that the British were most interested in the demonstrated military capacity of the South in the East in terms of whether they would ever grant recognition or not.
Agree ? with your commentary. I think one of factors that hurt Vicksburg and Shiloh as well is their location. Both are a little bit off the beaten path which hurts tourism.
The false equivalency lies in the fact that Vicksburg & Tullahoma were campaigns & Gettysburg is a meeting engagement in Nowhere PA. On July 4th, Rosecrans’ army was intact having driven Bragg out of Tennessee. Grant accepted Pemberton’s surrender. Lee ordered the tactical equivalent of Hood’s attack at Franklin.
By December 1863, as direct result of the Vicksburg & Tullahoma Campaigns, the Western frontline stretched from Cumberland Gap to New Orleans. As a result of tactical defeats eerily similar to Hood’s Atlanta / Nashville debacles, Lee was back where he started minus half his army.
It was campaigns, not meeting engagements in strategic nowhere that won the Civil War. Conversely, it was the false belief that one great battle would win the war that lost it. Vicksburg & Gettysburg could hardly be more different.
I understand your point.
However, taking your argument under consideration, allow me to put to your that Gettysburg IS a campaign, one on the Confederate side, the Union’s being a defensive, counter-campaign.
At this stage of the war, the Confederacy is rumbling along in the East from win to win. If the Confederates had been able to demonstrate during this campaign that either they could destroy in utter fashion the Army of the Potomac, (unlikely), or, (more achievable), demonstrate that no matter the ‘on paper’ advantages of the Union, they would defeat them time and time again.
To render the track record that the Army of Northern Virginia could not be defeated in any section of the Theatre of Operations and thereby, what northern areas/cities/etc, be taken and defeats rendered?
That’s what Lee was determined to impress on the Northern public, Governments and Lincoln: We can not be defeated. Your advantages are useless, no matter how much comfort you momentarily take in them.
Add to this, the only reason the British had really not recognised the South to date was they were waiting to see if the South was demonstrably capable of prevailing on its own military ability.
Prime Minister Palmerston had deemed that Lee’s retreat from Antietam the year before was proof the South couldn’t, and this non-recognition was actioned despite the entire British Ministry being very openly divided about if that’s what Antietam should be taken to mean.
I’ve written Lee being aware of this.
And, the entirety of the Col. Arthur Fremantle ‘visit’ is clearly seen as a way by the British to land an advisor on the scene and not be invoked into the war in the papers of Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Stanley.
You’re largely correct that victories in the war are the result of overall campaigns and battles, I would add to that, best thought of as ‘culmination’, either intentionally or not, or to some extent, of such.
But the Gettysburg Campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia nearly ended the war.
nearly ended the war? i guess some forgot to tell Confederates since they fought on for another year and half.
I immensely enjoyed and respected your comment.
Rhea Cole-
Allow me to please copy and paste your reply to me here, so I can most effectively engage with it.
*****How many times did the A of the P fall back with its tail between its legs? How, exactly, was Lee going to sustain & resupply his army 41 miles on the wrong side of the Potomac after another strategically fruitless tactical victory? How long would the resupply of empty ammunition boxes have taken? From what base & from how far away would those supplies have come? On the positive side, every battle, Lee lost about 30% of his infantry in every battle, so there would have been fewer mouths to feed.****
-My reply – (A)(i) The Army of the Potomac had been defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia numerous times leading up to Gettysburg. In the East since First Bull’s Run, Confederate armies had menaced Washington DC repeatedly. (ii) Lee was going to supply his Army by the same means he had on the Maryland campaign the previous year; by foraging/collecting supplies in Union territory. Michael C. Hardy has estimated that the foodstuffs that the Confederacy had collected on the Gettysburg Campaign sustained it well into 1864, which Matt Atkinson has also put, (with is famed ‘Spaceballs’ analogy). Lee himself slept in a tent obtained from a Union Colonel from New Jersey. The fact of the Maryland corn harvest in the fall of 1862 had been a major reason for which Lee had attempted that campaign at all and his papers show he had much the same mind for his planning the Gettysburg Campaign.
As an example, I need only to point out what had happened when Stonewall Jackson’s army captured the Union supply base in 1862.
(B) May I ask what exactly you are inferring or meaning when you say, ‘On the positive side, every battle lost about 30% of his infantry’, etc? What do you mean by saying this was, ‘positive’?
****Contemporaneously, Rosecrans’ Tullahoma Campaign was driving Bragg across the Tennessee River, about 100 miles. The innovation, thorough planning, logistical preparation of the Army of the Cumberland is completely missing in Lee’s Gettysburg operation. Missing from Rosecrans’ plan were futile Napoleonic banzai charges. The results speak for themselves.****
There is no debating that Tullahoma was a superbly conducted Campaign. That is quite certainly so.
Then why did this Campaign not end the war right then and there? After securing middle Tennessee and being in a position to threaten Chattanooga, why did the conflict not end there on the spot? Why did 2 more years of fighting continue, as they indisputably did?
Because: The Western Theatre could not, would not and did not determine the outcome of the war.
Vicksburg did not provide an end to the conflict, either.
It was when one side had utterly and completely destroyed the other’s ability to continue the conflict with any remote hope of success in the key Theatre of Operations that the war was ended. That just so happened to be the East. Only the East could determine the war.
And it must be remembered Gettysburg WAS a campaign; the actual battle was the chance of circumstances, but a battle would have been evoked regardless, as a Campaign had been ensued on. I could bring up that holistic critical reflection would point out that Tullahoma culminated in the result that Bragg obtained reinforcements and rendered victory at Chickamaugua a few months later, exactly as Gettysburg was a Union victory, so were there Union losses, too.
And pertaining to the tactics you cite, there were as many reasons to support the tactics Lee utilised at Gettysburg as not, most importantly of which was that precisely the same full on infantry charge had broken the Union line at Gaine’s Mill the year before in the Seven Days. Gaine’s Mill was one of the first demonstrations of a military taking the offensive and prevailing in the Era of Total War, and can even, I would argue, be seen as a rough blueprint of Canada at Vimy Ridge in WWI.
****The only reason Gettysburg is the ‘High watermark of the Confederacy ‘ was Jubal Early & the Southern Historical Society’s decades long rewrite of history. Viewed with objective cold military logic, the Gettysburg Campaign is indistinguishable from Hood’s Nashville Campaign. In his case, what Lee’s likely fate “besieging Washington” would have been doesn’t have to be imagined.****
I have various contestations of Jubal Early as a historian and the Lost Cause thesis and historiography he helped to found and write. That is not to say that there was no merit or validity at all in what he wrote and argued; it all comes back to reading history critically, is all I’m going to expound on at this time.
But his arguments for seeing Gettysburg as the ‘highwater mark of the Confederacy’ completely removed from the sake of argument, it is rather the records of Abraham Lincoln and his government, the reflections of OTHERS, that render the above description as accurate.
Besides Lincoln, another foremost piece of evidence and contemporary opinion that renders the description apt is what James Mason, Confederate diplomat to Great Britain, was informed after his last meeting with Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, when Mason had outlined the Duncan F. Kenner Mission’s proposals to the Prime Minister: In exchange for recognition and intervention, all 11 Confederate states would abolish slavery within their state constitutions, thereby abolishing the institution in the Confederacy.
Palmerston had declined and a few days later, as Mason reported to Judah Benjamin, he was informed by the British that it was too late; the UK could clearly see that the South was going to lose by this point and quickly. Mason reported further that he’d been informed that had the emancipation offer been put forth when the Confederacy was at its strongest, the offer would have been accepted and intervention/recognition given. Gettysburg was specifically named as the key point in time.
***It is 2023, false equivalents between a tactical & strategic disaster & a smashing strategic victory are no longer serious topics of discussion.****
(shrug)
I don’t appreciate the tone of disrespect in there. I’ve offered you none and though I strongly and assertively put forth a counter to your argument, I will not disrespect you.
Do the math, it is easy to look it up. At both Chancellorsville & Gettysburg the KIA & wounded casualties from both armies. Is almost identical. In the process, Lee lost about 1/2 his army. Win or loose, Lee’s tactics bled the Army of Northern Virginia to death without achieving a strategic victory.
By contrast, Rosecrans drove Bragg out of Tennessee at the cost of 550 dead. Grant, as an army commander captured two entire armies, opened the Mississippi River & dealt strategic hammer blows for (+/-) 33,000 fewer casualties than Lee as commander of the A of NV lost failing to defend VA.
From his failed attempt to destroy the isolated 6th Corps through the retreat from Gettysburg not a single one of the attacks Lee ordered achieved the intended tactical objectives. The evidence is clear, there really isn’t any substantial difference between Lee’s operations & Hood’s.
Queen Victoria despised slavery. Prince Albert was the head of the Imperial anti slavery society. It would have been a cold day in hades before Victoria’s realm recognized a slave-ocracy.
The deification of Lee & the the puffery of Gettysburg by Early & the Southern Historical Society engaged in creating the myth that a meeting engagement defeat was the high water of the Confederacy & and an act of military genius for decades is amply documented… by the publications of the Southern Historical Society.
Lose the aggression. No one is being aggressive here except you. If you don’t agree with me and you want to discuss something, even with some robust debate, no problem.
Communication on this forum is to be civil.
I’ll put my responses to your post above.
***Do the math, it is easy to look it up.***
-As I said, no one on here is being aggro but you. No need, period.
***At both Chancellorsville & Gettysburg the KIA & wounded casualties from both armies. Is almost identical.***
Most estimates put the Confederate casualties at Chancellorsville at about 12,000 and 28,000 at Gettysburg. Union at the former were about 17,000 and 23,000.
-How are these numbers to be read as ‘identical’? And what is the significance even if you make the argument that they were so, or close enough? What significance ought be read into this?
***In the process, Lee lost about 1/2 his army. Win or loose, Lee’s tactics bled the Army of Northern Virginia to death without achieving a strategic victory.***
-That entirely depends on what you define a ‘strategic’ victory as. Abraham Lincoln was horror-struck, stating, “My God, my God! What will the country say?” The Army of Northern Virginia had placed the South in the position where the North was fearing the war could be lost.
***By contrast, Rosecrans drove Bragg out of Tennessee at the cost of 550 dead.***
-True. But, Bragg incurred few casualties, too, and was able to obtain reinforcements to win at Chickamaugau a few months later.
I have no idea what you are referring to. This is a format devoid of nuance. I have simply stated the documented facts. I have no personal agenda or intention of creating offense of any kind whatsoever.
The fact is that the math is compelling. The only differential in the casualties in Lee’s greatest victory & defeat at Gettysburg is the number of missing & captured. Lee’s tactics were, win or lose. inflicted unsustainable casualties (240,000 in total) without achieving a strategic victory. The numbers don’t lie.
At that same time, Grant & Rosecrans, using very different tactics, were scoring massive strategic victories. 550 in the case of the Tullahoma Campaign. Once again, the math is incontrovertible.
It is a simple case of one general fighting a Napoleonic war & two others fighting like generals on the cusp of the 20th Century.
***Grant, as an army commander captured two entire armies, opened the Mississippi River & dealt strategic hammer blows for (+/-) 33,000 fewer casualties than Lee as commander of the A of NV lost failing to defend VA.***
-Actually, as H.W. Crocker III has written, even though Gettysburg was a loss, it was of such an impact that no further significant operations were engaged in the Eastern Theatre for the remainder of the calendar year. Meade also did not dare to pursue Lee into Virginia.
So while ultimately the ATP prevails over the ANV in Virginia, that comes two calendar years later. So even though Gettysburg was a loss, as HW Crocker III has written, it did have the effect of rendering Virginia essentially safe for the remainder of 1863.
***From his failed attempt to destroy the isolated 6th Corps through the retreat from Gettysburg not a single one of the attacks Lee ordered achieved the intended tactical objectives.***
-Actually, the Confederates were winning the battle by the end of the first day, the second ended in stalemate and the third failed only because of the position of the Emmitsburg Road Fence. This obstruction, which ought to have been cleared or at least, adequately noted for it’s strength to hold in penned cattle and bulls, was what ‘penned in’ the bulk of Pickett’s Charge and enabled the Union artillery and firepower to render casualised key number of the charging Confederates.
***The evidence is clear, there really isn’t any substantial difference between Lee’s operations & Hood’s.***
-That response shows a number of things: 1) You do not understand the reality of the Era of Total War, (1850-1945), wherein mass casualties are the norm due to the changed goals of warfare in the Western world during this period. No longer did armed forces view the taking/occupation of land as the indicator of victory; rather, victory came through the absolute and total destruction of one side to resist successfully the other. That is, one side utterly destroyed the other’s ability to wage war. 2) You are deliberately attempting to minimise Lee’s achievements which you know, or ought to know. Lee brought the Confederacy to the very brink of victory, like that historical fact or not.
***Queen Victoria despised slavery.
-So did Robert E. Lee. So did Abraham Lincoln.
But each had lived their whole lives in a nation, (the USA), which had legally and constitutionally enabled and protected and expanded it since 1776.
***Prince Albert was the head of the Imperial anti slavery society.
-George Brown was the Founder and President of the Abolitionist Society of Canada since its creation in 1851. But while pointing out slavery’s role in public speech on 3 February 1863, even he just as publicly recognised how other issues besides slavery had brought on the war in another speech on 7 February 1865.
What is the point of saying this?
***It would have been a cold day in hades before Victoria’s realm recognized a slave-ocracy.***
-The British HAD recognised a slaveocracy since 1783…the USA!
And they would continue this recognition all the way to 18 December 1865, the day that slavery became illegal throughout all of America.
Now…are you going to posit that the Confederacy was ‘absolutely committed’ to forever embracing the institution?
I would not do that. There is simply too much evidence pertaining to the Confederate Emancipation Treaty of 1862 between the CSA and France and Britain, not to mention the Duncan F. Kenner Mission.
I have absolutely no problem putting that evidence here if you contest it.
American slavery was an all American phenomenon…as was its end.
***The deification of Lee***
-I’m going to step in there and say, ‘yes’; Lee was deified. It’s a good thing that this process was challenged. However, once the veil of deification is carefully peeled away, and Lee is humanised by means of a measure of fair and balanced criticism, his most resounding human trait is heroism.
And you learn by critically reflecting on the Lost Cause thesis and historiography that Lee was deified by Jubal Early in order to advantage Jubal Early and what HE personally wanted to set forth, first and foremost.
Because a lot of what Jubal Early would hold about Lee, in the name of Lee, loudly FOR Lee and the People of the South…Lee would never, ever have supported, such as Lee was in favour of Black American people voting in the post-war in the same terms as Abraham Lincoln.
***& the the puffery of Gettysburg by Early & the Southern Historical Society engaged in creating the myth that a meeting engagement defeat was the high water of the Confederacy & and an act of military genius for decades is amply documented… by the publications of the Southern Historical Society.***
-I will put what Abraham Lincoln said of Gettysburg as being such an important battle, both in what happened, what was prevented and what could have occurred, as an indicator of my arguments. I doubt very much if Abraham Lincoln ever read anything the SHSP published &/or in Confederate Veteran-
1) ‘Lincoln wrote on 7 July a note on War Dept. paper saying, “the rebellion will be over” if only “Gen. Meade can complete his work” [pursuing Lee on his retreat], and that he wants the “substantial destruction of Lee’s army.”
2) Lincoln – Meade, 4 July 1863 [letter never sent]
“Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape– He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with the our other late successes, have ended the war– As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely…Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it…”
***I have no idea what you are referring to. This is a format devoid of nuance. I have simply stated the documented facts. I have no personal agenda or intention of creating offense of any kind whatsoever.***
-Yes, you do. You’re being ignorant and aggressive.
I want it to stop.
***The fact is that the math is compelling. The only differential in the casualties in Lee’s greatest victory & defeat at Gettysburg is the number of missing & captured. Lee’s tactics were, win or lose. inflicted unsustainable casualties (240,000 in total) without achieving a strategic victory. The numbers don’t lie.***
At that same time, Grant & Rosecrans, using very different tactics, were scoring massive strategic victories. 550 in the case of the Tullahoma Campaign. Once again, the math is incontrovertible.
-These numbers do not relate all the information one ought to in order to most holistically understand the history.
And your argument shows a determination to avoid engaging with all the evidence you know, or ought to know, is relevant to the topic. That’s called aggressive ignorance.
You deliberately evade looking at the fact that the minor casualties that were incurred by Rosecrans did not end the war. This campaign did not even come close to it. Not only that, but Bragg handed him a smashing defeat.
So really, Rosecrans tactics only staved off the inevitable 35,000 combined total casualties that eventually did occur…
Plus, deliberately avoiding the commentary of Abraham Lincoln as to the importance about Gettysburg is more evidence to the point: You are deliberately avoiding evidence as you know that the numbers can not and do not explain everything. Matter of fact, it can come down to a lack of historical credibility to ‘only’ cite the numbers which are advantageous to you and seek to evade conceding even just the numbers which oppose your arguments, let alone, all the other evidence…such as when Grant came to Virginia to war with Lee, his casualties were every bit on par as Lee’s.
That’s because the goal each was fighting for, (restoration of the Union/sovereignty of the Confederacy), could only be achieved in the Eastern Theater.
***It is a simple case of one general fighting a Napoleonic war & two others fighting like generals on the cusp of the 20th Century.***
-If you truly believe that, then your knowledge of warfare is lacking severely.
You ought to apply yourself to learning about WWI and how the Civil War/War Between The States was in all accuracy a ‘dress rehearsal’ for this conflict. Not only that, but study how Michael Collins and the IRA were determined to avoid at all costs even considering engaging in Total War.
From 1850-1945, victory in war came from the ability of one side to utterly destroy the other’s ability to successfully militarily resist.
And to be sure, the Confederacy sustained more casualties than did the Union at Chickamauga, (about 18,454 to 16,710), and yet, it still won the battle.
Rosecrans ought to have focused on destroying the Army of Tenn., not making it just retreat.
Mark Hartnitchek-
Had the Confederates prevailed at Gettysburg, the war could well have ended soon after.
That’s the clear intonation of my comment.