6. Lee twice invaded the North to obtain slave labor for his army
Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia twice invaded the North. In 1862 he attempted to follow up his crushing victory over the Union at the Second Battle of Bull Run by entering Maryland. At the time, Maryland was a slave state, with sharply divided sympathies. Lee hoped that his invasion would gain local support, possibly inciting insurrections against Union authorities. He also recognized that Virginia’s farms had been supporting two huge armies for more than a year. Better supply was likely to be had in Maryland, as yet untouched by foraging armies on campaign. As such, antagonizing the local population by kidnaping enslaved persons, or raiding local farms for supply, served against his interests. Lee’s army suffered a defeat at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. Though his army withdrew in good order following the bloodiest day in American history, the invasion was largely a failure.
In 1863, following his victory at Chancellorsville, Lee again invaded the North, this time entering Pennsylvania. Again, his primary goal was resupplying his army and attempting to destroy Northern morale by threatening Washington and Baltimore. He also wanted to destroy much of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (a goal of his first invasion as well). Contrary to what is often reported, he did not invade with the goal of acquiring slaves, though his troops undoubtedly enslaved many of the Blacks they encountered. In March 1863, before that year’s campaigning began, the Confederate government in Richmond issued orders regarding the treatment of captured Blacks, both escaped slaves and free. They were to be sent to Richmond and assigned as enslaved labor to support the Confederate war effort. The order led to some defining the Gettysburg campaign as huge “slave raid“, intended solely to obtain slave labor.