Making Sense of the Senseless: The Great American War at 100
"...across a sixty mile front, over six hundred thousand men, most of them fresh recruits who had undergone no more than the mandatory 75 days of basic training, were thrown across the Susquehanna two days before the Confederates' fresh reinforcements were to arrive. They were preceded and supported by an artillery barrage of historic proportions at key points along the river - major fords and crossing points - and air cover from fourteen airplanes, half of the entire Army Aviation Section, deployed for scouting and light strafing purposes, where backseat co-pilots could fire rifles at men on the ground and even drop hand grenades if from a low enough height. The attack on March 21st, at almost exactly the same time as the push towards the Kentucky River on the other side of the Appalachians, was matched by a second assault begun in the late afternoon of that same day with an American army of four entire divisions of recruits and Michigan National Guardsmen collected at Bedford, Pennsylvania and in the days before the attack maneuvered to attack the Confederate garrison at Breezewood while sending a division south to the contested town of Cumberland, Maryland - thus threatening the Confederate lines of retreat to Harpers Ferry. The Confederates' spent frontline soldiers fought aggressively but it was the first battle in the East in which they did not enjoy an artillery advantage and the curiously well-timed assault (the United States had intercepted Confederate troop rotation and logistics shipments communiques, allowing them to attack on the most advantageous day) broke through at York Haven, just south of the US's main crossing base at Three Mile Island, today home of a major nuclear power station. On the 22nd, a second breakthrough was made at Wrightsville, and on the 24th the Elkton Pocket collapsed and the Confederates were forced to retreat to Perryville and Charlestown to be evacuated under cover of naval fire.
The key to attack, however, was the Bedford Salient. By attacking the lines of retreat for the Confederacy and their supply lines from the rear and side, it scrambled Confederate decision-making. In York, Summerlin and Patrick debated what was next; they could not afford to have a Union Army sitting in Chambersburg ready to attack them from behind, or turn south and retake Hagerstown and march into the Shenandoah Valley, one of the breadbaskets of Virginia which had helped feed the armies in Pennsylvania through the winter, even if meagerly. The Confederacy had deployed its miniscule number of aeroplanes and air balloons for scouting purposes at the south end of the line in support of the Elkton Pocket or in other theaters, and had not seen or realized the size of the troop buildup in Bedford, which they had believed was aimed at Cumberland en toto anyways to support the besieged West Virginian National Guardsmen trying to prevent a Confederate advance into their state from the east. By the morning of the 24th, McConnellsburg was threatened and the reinforcements marching up from Virginia would be forced to hold south of Chambersburg to potentially repel the Union. In theory, this meant that the Confederacy would have considerably larger numbers of soldiers they would have otherwise in the theater, but the attrition was nonetheless severe.
The York Offensive was thus a strategic success for the United States, in that it forced Patrick to make a crucial decision to abandon the Susquehanna line and withdraw to Baltimore. This had always been an option open to Patrick, who had given every divisional and corps commander strict orders about which routes to use if pulling back in fighting retreats, with commands to also destroy whatever they retreated past in a scorched-earth maneuver to "deny the Yankee his own lands." On the evening of the 24th of March, with American soldiers at the city's outskirts, Patrick ordered his retreating soldiers to put York to the torch, letting the Americans sort out trying to put out the raging fires. Confederates pulled out during the night from other points across the theater, withdrawing to defensible points across northern Maryland in a pre-prepared line from Frederick [1] to Aberdeen centered upon Pipe Creek, linking up with the reinforcements who had already halted at that line upon receiving orders from Patrick. The offensive had been a preview of future American offensives in the Eastern Theater over the next two years, in which the Confederates would carefully choose the place of battle and inflict highly disproportionate casualties even in defeat, and part of the reason why the myth of superior Confederate tactical and strategic commanders persists to this day, particular south of the Ohio. [2] Between the initial assaults over the river on March 21st and the decision three days later to withdraw to the Pipe Creek Line, the Confederacy had sustained twenty-two thousand casualties, a high but not overwhelming number compared to the seventy-nine thousand men wounded or killed on the American side trying to force their way across the river, and the planned contingency retreat had been mostly a success, with infrastructure the Americans could have found valuable at York and Hanover destroyed behind them, particularly railroad connections. The United States would not forget this style of warfare anytime soon, and would repeat it in turn before long, most infamously in Georgia. [3]
Mostly, because upon Summerlin's return to his own headquarters at Carlisle he received intelligence that McConnellsburg's defenses had not held and his corps across from Harrisburg was now threatened with being cut off from its withdrawal lines through Chambersburg to Hagerstown. Summerlin essentially had two options: continue his retreat as intended, with an American army behind him and in front of him engaging the reinforcement division meant to resupply him and replace his most exhausted men, or head southeast rather than southwest, breaking for the Pipe Creek Line as quickly as possible to reinforce Patrick's men in the defense of Baltimore. Both moves were unideal and carried a great deal of risk, but Summerlin had more confidence in a combined defense at Pipe Creek than in his own corps potentially getting trapped and annihilated and so he made an understandable gamble and after setting Carlisle aflame tacked out southwards late in the night.
What he did not realize was that the aerial advantage of the United States - even with eight of their fourteen planes shot down during the opening days of the York Offensive - allowed Liggett and his staff to identify what Summerlin was trying to do early in the morning of the 25th and thus rushed men from York and Chambersburg aggressively to attempt to intercept him, commanded personally by Liggett's chief aide, General George Cameron. The American armies looked likely to encounter Summerlin's fleeing soldiers at a small township halfway between Chambersburg and Hanover called Gettysburg..." [4]
- Making Sense of the Senseless: The Great American War at 100
[1] You've noticed by now I'm sure that the Confederacy has made a lot of use of this particular strategy of having a pre-planned fallback line in anticipation of a fighting retreat, viewing a tactical retreat to be able to counterstrike a good strategy for keeping pace with the Yankees. This didn't entirely work for them in northern Kentucky, obviously, but its already a sounder strategy than the Western Allies in WW1 deciding that it was time to just throw another fifty thousand boys into the meatgrinder because this time it'll totally work, and speaks to Confederate awareness of some of their logistical and manpower disadvantages when they're so close to the border. (Whether its too smart for WW1-era generals reared on trying to be the next Napoleon at Jena... well, YMMV)
[2] Plus ca change...
[3] Bill Sherman would be proud, is all I'll say...
[4] Subtlety, what is it
The key to attack, however, was the Bedford Salient. By attacking the lines of retreat for the Confederacy and their supply lines from the rear and side, it scrambled Confederate decision-making. In York, Summerlin and Patrick debated what was next; they could not afford to have a Union Army sitting in Chambersburg ready to attack them from behind, or turn south and retake Hagerstown and march into the Shenandoah Valley, one of the breadbaskets of Virginia which had helped feed the armies in Pennsylvania through the winter, even if meagerly. The Confederacy had deployed its miniscule number of aeroplanes and air balloons for scouting purposes at the south end of the line in support of the Elkton Pocket or in other theaters, and had not seen or realized the size of the troop buildup in Bedford, which they had believed was aimed at Cumberland en toto anyways to support the besieged West Virginian National Guardsmen trying to prevent a Confederate advance into their state from the east. By the morning of the 24th, McConnellsburg was threatened and the reinforcements marching up from Virginia would be forced to hold south of Chambersburg to potentially repel the Union. In theory, this meant that the Confederacy would have considerably larger numbers of soldiers they would have otherwise in the theater, but the attrition was nonetheless severe.
The York Offensive was thus a strategic success for the United States, in that it forced Patrick to make a crucial decision to abandon the Susquehanna line and withdraw to Baltimore. This had always been an option open to Patrick, who had given every divisional and corps commander strict orders about which routes to use if pulling back in fighting retreats, with commands to also destroy whatever they retreated past in a scorched-earth maneuver to "deny the Yankee his own lands." On the evening of the 24th of March, with American soldiers at the city's outskirts, Patrick ordered his retreating soldiers to put York to the torch, letting the Americans sort out trying to put out the raging fires. Confederates pulled out during the night from other points across the theater, withdrawing to defensible points across northern Maryland in a pre-prepared line from Frederick [1] to Aberdeen centered upon Pipe Creek, linking up with the reinforcements who had already halted at that line upon receiving orders from Patrick. The offensive had been a preview of future American offensives in the Eastern Theater over the next two years, in which the Confederates would carefully choose the place of battle and inflict highly disproportionate casualties even in defeat, and part of the reason why the myth of superior Confederate tactical and strategic commanders persists to this day, particular south of the Ohio. [2] Between the initial assaults over the river on March 21st and the decision three days later to withdraw to the Pipe Creek Line, the Confederacy had sustained twenty-two thousand casualties, a high but not overwhelming number compared to the seventy-nine thousand men wounded or killed on the American side trying to force their way across the river, and the planned contingency retreat had been mostly a success, with infrastructure the Americans could have found valuable at York and Hanover destroyed behind them, particularly railroad connections. The United States would not forget this style of warfare anytime soon, and would repeat it in turn before long, most infamously in Georgia. [3]
Mostly, because upon Summerlin's return to his own headquarters at Carlisle he received intelligence that McConnellsburg's defenses had not held and his corps across from Harrisburg was now threatened with being cut off from its withdrawal lines through Chambersburg to Hagerstown. Summerlin essentially had two options: continue his retreat as intended, with an American army behind him and in front of him engaging the reinforcement division meant to resupply him and replace his most exhausted men, or head southeast rather than southwest, breaking for the Pipe Creek Line as quickly as possible to reinforce Patrick's men in the defense of Baltimore. Both moves were unideal and carried a great deal of risk, but Summerlin had more confidence in a combined defense at Pipe Creek than in his own corps potentially getting trapped and annihilated and so he made an understandable gamble and after setting Carlisle aflame tacked out southwards late in the night.
What he did not realize was that the aerial advantage of the United States - even with eight of their fourteen planes shot down during the opening days of the York Offensive - allowed Liggett and his staff to identify what Summerlin was trying to do early in the morning of the 25th and thus rushed men from York and Chambersburg aggressively to attempt to intercept him, commanded personally by Liggett's chief aide, General George Cameron. The American armies looked likely to encounter Summerlin's fleeing soldiers at a small township halfway between Chambersburg and Hanover called Gettysburg..." [4]
- Making Sense of the Senseless: The Great American War at 100
[1] You've noticed by now I'm sure that the Confederacy has made a lot of use of this particular strategy of having a pre-planned fallback line in anticipation of a fighting retreat, viewing a tactical retreat to be able to counterstrike a good strategy for keeping pace with the Yankees. This didn't entirely work for them in northern Kentucky, obviously, but its already a sounder strategy than the Western Allies in WW1 deciding that it was time to just throw another fifty thousand boys into the meatgrinder because this time it'll totally work, and speaks to Confederate awareness of some of their logistical and manpower disadvantages when they're so close to the border. (Whether its too smart for WW1-era generals reared on trying to be the next Napoleon at Jena... well, YMMV)
[2] Plus ca change...
[3] Bill Sherman would be proud, is all I'll say...
[4] Subtlety, what is it
