Oh, no! Not another Gettysburg what-if!

Right off the bat, I know that Gettysburg what-ifs are, well...

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but just humor me for a moment.


Recently, I was reading Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau. In the book, he mentions something I did not know about beforehand, nor have seen mentioned on this board before.

The author talks about how General Lee, during the planning stages of his invasion of the North, wanted Confederate forces in the Carolinas and Georgia, under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard, to consolidate and move north into Virginia.

General Lee's hope was that, in conjuction with his invasion of the North, General Beauregard's troops would keep the pressure on Washington. It was figured that General Beauregard's forces would not be able to take Washington, but present enough of a threat to split the Army of the Potomac.

However, no matter how hard General Lee pushed the issue with President Jefferson Davis, the Confederate government did not agree with General Lee's request. But suppose they had, and....

With a victorious Army of Northern Virginia in Pennsylvania, General Beauregard's troops south of Washington, the proposed draft, and despite a Federal victory at Vicksburg, the prospect of more years of war, could this have pushed the northern civillian population over the edge to demand peace?
 

67th Tigers

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I've seen mention that Lee wanted Beauregard with a Corps* to move up to Fredericksburg and Manassas. allowing him to move with his entire Army into MD and PA (effectively he'd gain about another Corps worth). With more of a threat at Fredericksburg the Union would have to split.

The units which OTL were stripped out of the Washington defences to reinforce the AoP were:

2 Bdes of the Pennsylvania Reserves
Stannards Vermont Bde
Hay's Bde
Lockward's Bde
Custer's Cavalry Bde

This may have worked, but Beauregard's forces were busy masking the Union coastal enclaves etc. It didn't happen because Lee asked for Beauregard too late, he was already over the border and there wasn't time (although in the Grant Comes East books, this reinforcement takes place after a successful Gettysburg). OTL The CSA had an establishment "reinforcement track", with units coming up from GA to SC, SC to NC, then NC to VA and then onwards to the field army (i.e. everyone takes one step north). However, DH Hill (commanding NC and South VA) had a habit of holding onto reinforcements that came up rather than forwarding them, and Jeff Davis kept doing the same with the Richmond Defences.

Longstreet OTOH proposed, Beauregard moving north and the AoNV (or at least his wing) moving west, picking up Bragg's army and falling on Grant's forces at Vicksburg. This has huge potential as a POD.

* CS Corps, 30-40,000 men, equivalent to about 3 US Corps
 
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