General R. E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign: Objective #1
After his victory at Second Manassas in late August, 1862, Gen. R. E. Lee determined to take his army north across the Potomac. He had several military objectives for operating in Maryland—and if the “results” justified it, going into Pennsylvania.[1] His primary goal was to seek out and engage the enemy in one last decisive battle that would end the war. Was this strategically realistic or achievable? Not really…
At the start of the campaign, he wrote on September 3 to President Jefferson Davis, the Army of Northern Virginia couldn’t “afford to be idle, and though weaker . . . in men and military equipments [sic], must endeavor to harass if . . . [it could not] destroy them . . . I do not consider success impossible . . . .”[2] He later bluntly wrote: “I went to Maryland to give battle.”[3] There’s no doubt. He wanted a smack-down-drag-out-fight in the hopes of achieving a decisive battle.
Was it wise to conduct an offensive campaign and engage the enemy in another large-scale battle in September 1862? One historian contends that Lee’s timing was appropriate. The Confederacy “enjoyed the best odds it could hope to obtain;” the Army of Northern Virginia numbered, 75,500.[4] Gen. George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac counted 87,000 combatants.[5] Yes, Lee had better numerical odds; that we can all agree on.
Still, the art of grand tactics isn’t a pure mathematical equation. It’s about having an appreciation of all the factors influencing the situation, including thinking about the field commander’s most valuable asset: his men and preserving their lives.[6] Lee cared about his men, but the casualty rate in his army was too high, too fast. Since he had taken command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the army had lost a total of 31,040 soldiers in two months. The Confederates counted 22,330 casualties in the Seven Days campaign. Casualties were more sustainable at Cedar Mountain with 1,276 dead or wounded. The numbers then went back up at Second Manassas with Lee’s army suffering the loss of 9,474.
No matter the size of Lee’s “liberation” army, at this time he needed to avoid another pitched battle and preserve the lives of his soldiers. He could use a combination Fabian defensive strategy and an offensive strategy. Like Gen. George Washington, Lee could apply the philosophy “defeat and light losses tolerable, and victory with heavy losses intolerable.”[7] Let the hardest hit regiments rest, recuperate, and rebuild throughout Virginia and North Carolina.[8] Simultaneously, the fresh infantry divisions with cavalry could be used as a raiding party to achieve his second objective: to find food for his men and give northern Virginia farmers a break. Lee could have placed Jackson in command of this raid.
General Lee was unfortunately unwilling and unable to pace his army. He was tied to the false idea that aggressive tactics worked. He felt compelled to inflict a large numbers of casualties on one enemy army, in a short period. This would, in his mind, achieve the Confederacy’s political goal: independence. He had been with Gen. Winfield Scott in the Mexican War where an offensive strategy with aggressive tactics was effective.[9] Lee’s use of this same approach, pushing his army, seemed to be working now in the American Civil War. He was getting “wins,” but at what cost?
This superhuman tempo caused a huge fallout in stragglers during the Maryland Campaign. From the start, Lee’s ranks began to thin. How many stragglers is unknown. Confederate officer and Virginian, John Esten Cooke, estimated it was as high as 20,000-30,000 stragglers. “While General Lee was fighting at Sharpsburg, all Northern Virginia was filled with stragglers, preying upon the inhabitants . . .”[10] No matter how many stayed behind, the stragglers continued to drain Virginia resources and offset Lee’s second objective to his Maryland Campaign: giving the Virginia farmers a break.[11]
You can read Lee’s Maryland Campaign Objectives 2 and 3 here,
[1] R. E. Lee to Davis, Leesburg, VA, September 4, 1862, O.R., Ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 2, 592. See also Joseph L. Harsh, Taken at the Flood, 78–9. My Maryland blog series is taken from my Phd dissertation…and future book on R. E. Lee. It’s a blend of lessons learned and narrative styles. Lessons learned makes the reader go “hmm?” and ask more questions. Narrative style makes the reader say “oh, that’s what happen…” U.S. Army War College, Dr. Jay Luvaas introduced me to the lessons learned technique. It’s a respectful, albeit tough, way to look at why, how, where, when leaders’ decisions went wrong or were right. This approach has helped me question contemporary military and political leaders.
[2] For Lee turning his attention to Maryland and Pennsylvania, see R. E. Lee to Davis, Leesburg, September 4, 1862, O.R., Ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 2, 592. For quote, see R. E. Lee to Davis, Headquarters, near Dranesville, VA, September 3, 1862, Ibid., 590–91.
[3] Lee made this statement after the war while he was President of Washington College, see R. E. Lee to Edward C. Gordon, Douglas Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 2, 717. See also, Edward Clifford Gordon, “Memorandum of a Conversation with General R. E. Lee,” in Lee the Soldier, ed. Gary Gallagher, 26; and, Harsh, Taken at the Flood, 509, note, 97.
[4] See Harsh, Taken at the Flood, 31–9. For strength of Lee’s army, see also D. Scott Hartwig, To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, 675.
[5] https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/antietam.
[6] This remains true in modern warfare. In 1956, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Joseph “Bull” Fisher aptly told his class at The Basic School in Quantico, “‘And remember, gentlemen, you have a sacred obligation: spend bullets not boys.’” See JoAnna M. McDonald, “Colonel Joseph R. ‘Bull’ Fisher, A Marine’s Marine: ‘Come on, You Marines.’” Leatherneck Magazine (December 2006): 26.
[7] Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 2nd ed., 304 and 353. General Washington, New York, September 8, 1776 and Washington, Trenton, New Jersey, January 1, 1777, in The Writings of George Washington, vol. 4, 81 and 256. Fabian strategy is named for the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus who fought against Hannibal in the Second Punic War. This approach aims to avoid large-scale, open battles for fear of the outcome and instead seeks to win by wearing down the opponent over time. For definition of Fabian strategy, see James Bartholomees, Jr., “A Survey of Strategic Thought,” vol. 1 (2010), 31. See also, Polybius, The Histories, Book 30, trans. Chambers Mortimer (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1966), 169.
[8] The three weakest divisions were Jackson’s. Many of his men had been campaigning since March 1862. Three fresh divisions, though, arrived from Richmond, see Harsh, Taken at the Flood, 34, 39, and 44.
[9] The Mexican War was like Desert Storm, Aug 2, 1990 – Feb 28, 1991. The U.S. was fighting a dictator in both conflicts, and the political-military goals were narrow. The American Civil War was much more complex. We can discuss this in another blog.
[10] John Esten Cooke, The Life of Stonewall Jackson, 195 and 208.
[11] Illustrations: Gen. R. E. Lee, https://virginiahistory.org/learn/historical-book/chapter/civil-war; Confederates overrun a Union battery during the Battle of Glendale on June 30, 1862 during the Seven Days campaign. Painting by Don Troiani. https://www.historynet.com/a-week-of-war/southern-cross-1994-on-canvas/; drawing by Alfred Waud, Confederate army moves into Maryland, 1862. Found at, Alex Rossino (9/1/2024) As Memory Serves: Lee’s 1862 Trek Into Maryland, In Artists’ Eyes. HistoryNet Retrieved from https://www.historynet.com/as-memory-serves-lees-1862-trek-into-maryland-in-artists-eyes/.
Regardless of his objectives, Lee was blown away at South Mountain.
I can’t say Lee’s reasoning was ‘flawless’, but his logic seemed sound. The Confederacy was still seeking foreign recognition and hopefully assistance. Taking his army on the offensive in the Union’s territory and achieving a victory was worth pursuing. He obviously knew of the Union’s difficulties with their high command structure, with McClellan leading the AoP, then Pope, then back with McClellan. His army was on a roll. What obviously isn’t known is what might have been. Lincoln needed a victory to coincide with the Emancipation Proclamation. What might have happened had Lee’s special order not been found by Union personnel and given to McClellan? But, that order was discovered and we do know what transpired. Given everything that is known, I ask why shouldn’t Lee have tried an offensive?
One other thing here. A figure of up to 30,000 stragglers seems almost incomprehensible. That’s 40 percent of Lee’s army. That seems to represent an incredible leadership failure by him and his officers, and that alone could have helped doom such ambitious plans. I have read about Union stragglers in certain campaigns like that of Gettysburg, where Union stragglers were reported to have been all over Frederick, MD, and causing mayhem there. I can’t find any numbers about how many Union stragglers Meade’s forces had to deal with leading up to Gettysburg, or how many McClellan might have had in his movements towards Sharpsburg/Antietam.
30K stragglers? John Esten Cooke as a primary source? Beware y’all. Also beware of historical hindsight and the fog of war. On a lighter note, living next to Camp Pendleton I have had many enjoyable conversations with ex-Marines. I found the 12/2006 issue of Leatherneck Magazine on eBay and I’m looking forward to reading Joanna’s article. Semper Fi!
Lee’s primary objective in crossing the Potomac was to test the strength of secessionist sentiment in the state. The idea had become common in the Confederacy that Maryland was a lost sister state which had been forced to remain in the Union at the point of a bayonet. Whether that was true is beside the point. The point is that leading Confederates in the Congress, Jefferson Davis’s administration, and Lee’s army believed it. This notion then translated into a resolution passed by the Confederate congress in December 1861 which stated,
“The State of Maryland has suffered the same wrongs which impelled these Confederate States to withdraw from the United States. … It is believed that a large majority of the good people of Maryland earnestly desire to unite their State with the Confederate States. … The Government of the United States … has prevented the people and their representatives from adopting the political connection which they prefer. … Be it therefore resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of America … 1) That the sufferings of the good people of Maryland … excite our profound sympathy and entitle them to speedy and efficient exertions on our part for their relief. 2) That it is the desire of this Government … to facilitate the accession of Maryland, with the free consent of her people, to the Confederate States. 3) That no peace ought to be concluded with the United States which does not insure to Maryland the opportunity of forming a part of this Confederacy.”
Lee’s army entered Maryland to accomplish this “accession of Maryland,” to the Confederacy, much like Braxton Bragg would attempt to facilitate the “accession” of Kentucky in October 1862. When Lee learned on September 6, however, that Marylanders would not rise up against the Lincoln government unless Lee proved his army could protect them from reprisals by Federal forces, he determined to draw McClellan’s pursuing force west of the Blue Ridge (aka South Mountain) for a decisive clash in Washington County, Maryland. If he could defeat the enemy far from the protection of the DC fortifications, Lee believed it could encourage secessionists in Baltimore in particular to rebel.
In short, while Lee entered Maryland intending to give battle, he launched his operation to fulfill a political objective via military means.
The silliness seems never to end. General Lee had no choice but to move his worn out army into Maryland with the intent of inducing the enemy to engage his in battle at the Antietam. This was his sole objective. But, hey, enjoy the romance of thinking it otherwise.
Lee actually had no choice but enter Maryland. His Seven Days and Northern Virginia campaigns had been smashing successes, he held the momentum in terms of military operations, and it must be remembered that this was still early in the war, when it was still an effort by the Federal Government to bring the South back into the Union with slavery intact. Not only was Maryland still play for secession and recruitment, a victory here like Second Manassas could, it was hoped, bring France and/or England into the war. More likely, though, was that while it would not destroy the main Federal army, it would destroy the North’s desire to continue the war. Finally, Virginia had been ravaged over the past year; it was vital for Lee to take the war out of Virginia at harvest time, and to victual his army in a state that was plentiful and had not yet been ravaged by war. However, the plan was not to fight along Antietam Creek; that was an exigency because McClellan surprised Lee by, for the first time in his career, moving quickly. This was due to the recovery of a copy of Lee’s plans, though even then he dawdled – and then wasted a day, September 16, when he should have been pitching into Lee’s weakened army. As such, Lee preventing the destruction of his army and inflicting such terrible casualties on McClellan should be regarded as one of the great masterpieces of battlefield leadership in history.
Lee actually had no choice but enter Maryland. His Seven Days and Northern Virginia campaigns had been smashing successes, he held the momentum in terms of military operations, and it must be remembered that this was still early in the war, when it was still an effort by the Federal Government to bring the South back into the Union with slavery intact. Not only was Maryland still play for secession and recruitment, a victory here like Second Manassas could, it was hoped, bring France and/or England into the war. More likely, though, was that while it would not destroy the main Federal army, it would destroy the North’s desire to continue the war. Finally, Virginia had been ravaged over the past year; it was vital for Lee to take the war out of Virginia at harvest time, and to victual his army in a state that was plentiful and had not yet been ravaged by war.