He turned his greatest victory into his greatest defeat
In May 1863 Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia – numbering less than 60,000 men – boldly attacked and routed the much larger Union army (105,000 men) at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia. The battle was famous for the surprise flank march executed by Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson on the night of May 1st, 1863. The price for their success was the mortal wound received by Jackson at the hands of his own men while scouting positions.
Jackson’s death changed the dynamic of the Army of Northern Virginia, which would never again win a major offensive victory in the field. With Jackson gone, Lee made the strategic decision to invade Pennsylvania rather than go to the aid of the besieged defenders of Vicksburg. The fall of Vicksburg would split the South and close the Mississippi to Confederate navigation.
The decision has been rationalized by the desire to obtain supplies from Pennsylvania farms, but in June the harvest is still some time off and although livestock could be gathered the army lacked grain to feed the animals it already held. However, supplies were more plentiful in the relatively peaceful north than in war-torn Virginia, which had supported armies in the field for more than two years.
Lee’s army was confronted at Gettysburg in a three-day battle which was the his biggest defeat, and the retreat back to Virginia was both humiliating and militarily devastating. Within a year Lee would be forced into the trenches he had prepared before Richmond in 1862.
Lee’s defeat in his second invasion of the North, coupled with his disregard for the defense of Vicksburg, reveals his weakness as a strategic planner in military terms. It also reveals his complete reliance on the input of Stonewall Jackson, who had developed the tactics for Lee’s greatest victory. And his ordering of Pickett’s Charge on the third day of the battle reveals his willingness to take heavy casualties in pursuit of victory, a trait more often attributed to US Grant. The entire Gettysburg campaign places the belief of Robert E. Lee being America’s greatest general in doubt. Lee himself was aware of his shortcomings revealed in the campaign, offering to resign in its aftermath. The Confederate Government, with no general of comparable reputation available, declined his offer.