Who won the Battle of Gettysburg?

[David Fair]

Who won the Battle of Gettysburg?

 

Was the battle a:

  Confederate Decisive Victory

  Confederate Strategic Victory

  Confederate Tactical Victory

  Confederate Marginal Victory

  Draw

  Union Marginal Victory

  Union Tactical Victory

  Union Strategic Victory

  Union Decisive Victory

[Mortiferum]

"Union victory" according to wikipedia.

[Snipe Twitchel]

Is this a poll?

[David Fair]

The point of getting your opinions is to see how much variance there is on the historical outcome.  Understanding gamer's perspectives can help define the metrics of how to set victory standards.  

 

So who won and by how much?

[Digby]

It was a strategic Union victory. The battle forced Lee to use up almost all of his artillery ammunition and with all of his divisions damaged to some degree he had no option but to retreat back the way he'd come. The battle resulted in his offensive camapign in the north ending in failure. The Union did not however follow up rapidly and aggressively enough to prevent the Army of Northern Virginia getting away across the Potomac, so it wasn't a decisive victory.

 

As the first really successful major Union win in the east it was also of great morale significance for the North.

[Nick Thomadis]

We will simulate the importance of the battle by explaining the significance of the outcome at the end.

For example, if Union presses on 4th day and accomplishes a Decisive Victory then we assume that Union wins also the Civil War.

If Confederates gain a decisive battle then they gain the support of European allies and soon their independence.

If outcomes are to historical levels then we explain what are the gains and losses fror each side.

[David Fair]

It would be interesting if the battle results were not a static list and had some quasi-random historical twists... 

 

Example of variables might include:

  1) War carries into 1866 with a negotiated settlement: Status quo ante bellum.

  2) Pemberton escapes Grant at Vicksburg - McClellan elected President; slavery adopted nationally as the

      13th Amendment

  3) Lee's Army of Northern Virginia shattered at the banks of the Potomac - war ends in 1864

  4) Negotiated Peace - forced evacuation of all former slaves to New Mexico

  5) England invades western territories claiming Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and the Dakotas

  6) Russia reclaims California

  7) French conquer Mexico and move into the South West

  8) McClellan elected President - US adopts "States Rights Supremacy Clause" effectively dissolving the

      Union by recognizing the right to succession

  9) If a Union decisive victory - Virginia secedes from the CSA and formally rejoins the Union

10) If a Confederate decisive victory - Washington DC and Baltimore occupied by CSA.  Maryland joins

      CSA as the 14th star...

[Nick Thomadis]

Yes David we should use more variables although we have to keep logical outcomes according to this one single battle won or lost by us in game.

7) or 8) for example are not so much related to the battle itself.

But we should certainly give many possible outcomes to enhance the importance of the battle based on historical facts.

[Remise]

One of the problems with subjects such as this --  outside of games, at least -- is that, at least in my opinion, if Lee had "won" at Gettysburg, he still would have been saddled with over 20,000 Confederate wounded who needed to get back to Virginia, plus hundreds of wagon loads of loot, plus his artillery train would have had, at most, enough ammunition left for one more day's worth of combat.  

 

If Lee had routed Meade's army -- again in my opinion -- he still would have had no choice but to retire back to Virginia, as not only were about 15,000  hastily raised Pennsylvania militia converging to block his supply lines and generally make a nuisance of themselves, Meade's largest Corps -- the VI -- had not even been committed to the battle, and there were additional Federal troops that Meade could have called upon to quickly rebuild his (presumably) defeated army.

 

Meade did not attack on the fourth day both because the rest of his army was in a shambles, and he did not want to risk his only reserve, and also because of Lee's reputation.  His troops were in no condition, after marching over 120 miles and fighting hard for three days, to fight another day.

 

But getting back to the original question -- I bet you thought I never would -- although I don't know your definitions for "Strategic" and "Decisive," I would call this both a strategic and decisive victory for the Union. Not only had Lee lost thousands of his best troops, and of course the battle itself, after Gettysburg, there was no remaining chance (if there ever had really been one, see Amanda Knox's book on this subject) for European recognition of the Confederacy.

 

Having said all this, if we are moving out of discussion of the battle itself, let us not forget that had soldiers in the Union army not been permitted to vote in the Presidential elections of 1864, Lincoln might not have been re-elected; peace might have been agreed upon, and the South might have won the war (as they defined victory) after all.

 

B.C. Milligan

[David Fair]

Remise,

Great response.  

 

Logistically the Gettysburg Campaign was critical for the South; it took pressure off the Virginia home front and allowed critical supplies to be gathered to sustain the South through 1864.  But for the Gettysburg Campaign the logistical problems that drove Lee out of Richmond in 1865 would likely have happened in 1864.  So from the logistical perspective Lee won the Gettysburg Campaign in that he could continue to fight for another 18 months (if you can call that winning).

 

Your observations on the battlefield results are spot on.  After a battle in the North Lee; win, lose, or draw would be forced to retreat due to casualties and ammunition.  Lee abandoned about 6,000 to 8,000 wounded on the field.

 

In my mind Gettysburg was clearly not "decisive" in that it did not result in the destruction of either army or end the war.  It was a meat grinder of a battle that continued the status quo.  

 

I'm not certain if Gettysburg was a "strategic" Union victory.  It seems to me that in a war of attrition battles with even casualty rates are just part of the grinding down process on the forces; leading to the eventual collapse of the weaker side.  

 

There are good arguments that Lee got the best result he could hope for at Gettysburg and it is clearly a high water mark for the South.  Lee's command control system has sustained critical losses (Jackson specifically and especially) prior to Gettysburg.  Without key leaders the ANV was plagued with timing issues that forced the ANV to fight defensively for the rest of the war.  Neither Ewell or Longstreet had the panache of Jackson and Lee's losses of officers at Gettysburg was heavy.  But again, this feels like more of the mathematics of attrition more than a "strategic" result.  As you point out, the Southern manpower problem was acute so Lee needed to inflict a minimum of 2:1 casualties to claim victory.  I agree that "victory" for the South at this point = influencing the presidential election; so the idea of Gettysburg as a southern victory is not credible despite the relief to the home front and easing for a brief period the logistical problems.

 

I've read the Knox book and others regarding European recognition.  Once it was clear that Southern cotton was not "King" and that middle east cotton was available for English production the motivation for Southern recognition was slim.  I'm not a big fan of binary certainties so I'm cautious to believe that there was never any chance of Southern recognition (which, if I recall correctly, is the theme of her book).  The wild card in international politics is, as always, if a compelling opportunity arises to advantage European nations had a reputation for exploiting opportunities.  Especially in the era of colonialism.  Politicians can be fickle and the challenge of the Yankee traders was a key consideration in British politics.  

 

Thanks for the post.

[Remise]

Mr. Fair --

I could ramble on here, or say in turn that yours was a great response, and that essentially I am in complete agreement. I guess there could be -- there has been, of course -- some argument as to whether or not Lee's advance into Pennsylvania shortened the war (by weakening his army and raising  Union morale, which was near its nadir), or lengthened it (by giving the farms and people of Virginia the better part of a summer and harvest season mostly unhindered), and also by raising Southern morale, too -- there were troops in Lee's army who had fought mostly on the first and second days who were absolutely convinced they had won the battle, and were in fact just going home victors.  The British observer Colonel Fremantle, who was on the field, seemed, as I dimly recall, to agree with this perception.

 

"What ifs" are always fun, and of course that is one reason we play games such as this one!

B.C. Milligan

[David Fair]

Remise,

Colonel Fremantle's observations are interesting; he was an aristocrat with an agenda.  He was not officially representing the United Kingdom during his 100 day tour of the South (April 2 through July 16, 1863).  What's staggering to me is the amount of expertise and volume of opinions he expressed during his short stay.  Fremantle entered the South through Texas arriving in Richmond in June.  He had access to Judah Benjamin (CSA Secretary of State) James Seddon (CSA Secretary of War) and Jefferson Davis.  At Gettysburg he listened to the Confederate band playing polkas and waltzes.  Then he managed to cross the lines in time to see the New York draft riots in person.  His book, Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 is a great read.

 

I'm guilty as a fan of the Southern logistical collapse theory.  There is some interesting research that was done at Ft. Leavenworth's U.S. Army Command and General Staff College regarding the logistics of the Army of Northern Virginia.  My Uncle, who was stationed at Leavenworth, had access to the Ft. Leavenworth library and passed along a number of professional articles that I've never seen in the popular press.  I'll try to see if I can find a reference for you or dig up my copy.  Basically the theme of the research was the impact that losing logistical assets such as Saltville, VA, railroads to Richmond, and especially the Shenandoah Valley had on the Army of Northern Virginia.  Reading logistical data is not everyone's cup of tea and studying the data requires both time and a bit of heavy lifting as there are conversion tables for wagons to grain transport from the collection point at Staunton, VA through the Rockfish Gap to the railroad that could have used a bit more spit and polish.  Studying bayonets is >> more interesting than corn production.   

 

The impact of the effort to scrape together the logistics to support the Gettysburg Campaign were an extreme strain on Southern resources.  The relationship of these efforts on the Southern home front are well known.  See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Bread_Riots

 

My recollection of the theme of the article was that Grant's realization that logistics were essential to ending the conflict and the deliberate steps taken when he assumed command to execute his plans were directly correlated to rations issued to the ANV.  If pressed to extreme the ANV would be forced to self correct to the logistics (especially the food supply).  Grant's undermining of the Southern war capacity whittled down the Lee's resources dramatically.  Only 25,000 men surrendered at Appomattox; more of Lee's men were AWOL from the ANV looking for food than were present to accept Grant's offer of food at surrender.  If we can rely on Lee's reports it was the daily AWOL returns that motivated Lee to abandon Richmond.

 

I'll defer to Napoleon's comment that an army marches on its stomach.

[Remise]

I agree that Fremantle certainly had an agenda.  My sole point was that -- and perhaps he wrote what he wrote for his audience, while knowing it to be essentially untrue -- he was there, and felt Lee had won, sort of.  I will have to start rummaging through some first-person accounts, but I do believe that he was joined in this opinion by many of Lee's men, if not his generals.   If they were not in Longstreet's corps, at the worst, they might have thought they had fought the Army of the Potomac to a draw, and were then going home in semi-triumph, as they had the year before from Antietam.

Further research, is, of course, required and expected.  

 

P.S. I have Fremantle's other book as well, and I agree. I also have William Howard Russell's book (though he went home before the battle), and, somewhere, a mildly interesting book by a Prussian officer who was sent to observe the war. P.P.S. I erred when I said I had 'Amanda Knox's" book. I meant, of course, Amanda Foreman!

 

B.C. Milligan

[David Fair]

B.C.

I figured you were talking about, "A World on Fire..." by Amanda Foreman. 

 

Fremantle was joined in his opinion of a CSA victory at Gettysburg by Abraham Lincoln, newspapers, and many firsthand accounts.  Lincoln's desperately wanted to see the ANV destroyed and he knew the best opportunity to accomplish the destruction was to catch the ANV in the north where it was a long way to the South's next ammunition depot.  

 

In his cabinet meetings Lincoln called the battle a draw, never a victory, and was stricken by the price in casualties.  It was Lincoln's fear of the loss of resolve in the North that made him take such careful pains in his Gettysburg Address.  

 

My recollection of Fremantle's theme was that the North could "never" defeat the South and it was time for a negotiated settlement.  He was drawing on the British experience in the American Revolution where King George III and 12 million souls could not subdue the 3 millions of the colonial rabble.  Fremantle sort of logically skips over the absence of the Atlantic, the invention of the railroad and the telegraph, New Orleans and soon to be Vicksburg, and over a century of unity in the American experience that made "union" such an important issue for the North. 

[Crowgasm]

I think there are other factors here; the distance of time help provide us with greater logical and possibly even emotional avenues of measurement that may be more pertinent than even Lincoln's immediate reactions. Some of those contempory accounts of who won the battle use odd measurements.

 

It might be fair to argue that the battle itself (i.e. the 3 days) was a Union victory based on casualties to each force and their relative ability to resupply and recruit. While it was certainly a failure in an opportunity to defeat the AVN, the retreat from Gettysburg was even more so. In that sense, the escape was a Confederate tactical and strategic victory, however limited, in terms of the overall (then unknown) scope of the war. One can certainly draw a line from Gettysburg in terms of how the AVN was critically bled of experienced men and materiel that it could never really replace.

 

The assertion that the North could never defeat the south is really rather backward. The South never had the logistical means to defeat the North, in real terms. The North fought the war with one hand tied behind its back, I would argue. International intervention via recognition was the South's only realistic hope of anything resembling victory. That may be the best place one can argue that Gettysburg was the most important Union victory, since the south never got closer to that recognition than when it threatened D.C. in 1863 (even if it got closer to D.C. in '64) and that loss was the beginning of a relatively inevitable end. It was a question of how long, from that point, not if. It certainly didn't seem so to many of the actors on the stage at the time, as we know from their writings, however with the wonderful benefit of hindsight it should be clearer now.

 

From a strategic point of view, Vicksburg always seemed more important to me, in terms of opening the river and tightening the blockade, then allowing for the eastward push to further cripple the South's already woefully inadequate industrial capacity. The prevalent idea of destroying an army in the field as the key to victory evolved (or regressed) from here, to where the means to degrade a nation or groups ability to furnish armies in the field became key, as shown in all major wars since, I think. I guess that's for another thread. 

[Remise]

A nice post.  I guess we could say that Lee's retreat from Gettysburg -- which certainly had its heroic moments -- was as much a victory as was Napoleon's campaign in France in 1814.  The final result was still a strategic defeat, but at the operational level, each outfought its much stronger foe.

 

I agree as well that Vicksburg -- which cost the South access to much of its raw material, plus the loss of an entire army -- was a more important event.  It is my personal belief that had Lee withdrawn after the second day at Gettysburg, which some of his generals urged him to do, and essentially declared victory and taken his loot home, that the battle might, indeed, have gone into the annals of history as a Confederate victory.

 

I haven't perused the thread on the scope of this game yet, but if this does become a strategic game of the entire campaign, that might be an interested concept, i.e., what to call it if Lee marches into Pennsylvania, smacks the Army of the Potomac around and hurts it, and then marches back to Virginia.

 

B.C. Milligan

[Calvin809]

The way I see it Lee invaded the North to try to destroy Northern morale and get them to agree to peace allowing the South to continue to exist as a separate country. That was basically the only way the South could have won because they did not have the manpower or industry to defeat the North so they had to concentrate on the will to fight aspect of war. Lee did not accomplish what he set out to do in fighting in the North. He fought a large battle in which he lost a lot of men and supplies and had to retreat back south. The Northern morale did not break and Lincoln was elected president again, not exactly a Northern movement toward recognition of the South.