WI No CSA Invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863

So overall, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Lee and the Confederacy?

If you're referring to the decision for a strategic offensive into Pennsylvania, not at all; the opportunity was ripe for Lee to crush the Army of the Potomac in a major engagement. I'd highly recommend this excellent thread from last year by @dandan_noodles. If you're looking for more of a "tactical" PoD, Longstreet's attacks on the second day also present an excellent possibility for a major victory.
 
Another aspect is, Lee is not given the time to 'live off the land' in rich PA for months and months. Instead he is forced to stay in picked over northern Virginia. This will make his supply situation much worse then in OTL. It also hands the strategic initiative entirely to the Union.

Lee lived off the land from crossing the Potomac to the Battle of Gettysburg, after which he was busy trying escape. That's 15 days of foraging for Ewell, 6 for Hill, 5 for Longstreet and Stuart. Is a week or two of foraging worth 28,000 Confederate casualties?
 
Lee lived off the land from crossing the Potomac to the Battle of Gettysburg, after which he was busy trying escape. That's 15 days of foraging for Ewell, 6 for Hill, 5 for Longstreet and Stuart. Is a week or two of foraging worth 28,000 Confederate casualties?
No its not. But for us, its impossible to quantify what the lack of provisions that were gained OTL would have done to Lee's Army over the next ten months. His men weren't robots. They needed to eat, and they couldn't survive any longer by picking over Northern Virginia, raiding an increasingly barren Maryland, and attacking ever better protected (by stronger cavalry) Union wagon trains.
 
If you're referring to the decision for a strategic offensive into Pennsylvania, not at all; the opportunity was ripe for Lee to crush the Army of the Potomac in a major engagement. I'd highly recommend this excellent thread from last year by @dandan_noodles. If you're looking for more of a "tactical" PoD, Longstreet's attacks on the second day also present an excellent possibility for a major victory.

Longstreet's having a success on Day Two requires the AotP to once again pull off the Criminal Stupids. IOW, despite Longstreet's maneuvers being in the full view of the enemy, the AotP just sits there contemplating their navels (waiting for orders) while their whole army is flanked.

And for once, I agree with Lee. If he had followed Longstreet's advice of flanking around both Round Tops, he would have emerged blind out of the woods, exhausted, disorganized, with no cavalry and his artillery left behind miles away. Just in time to run into the gaping jaws of Sedgwick's VI Corps, the largest corps Meade had. With the woods Longstreet just came through acting as a wall to his own retreat.

But I'll check out @dandan_noodles's ATL.
 
Longstreet's having a success on Day Two requires the AotP to once again pull off the Criminal Stupids. IOW, despite Longstreet's maneuvers being in the full view of the enemy, the AotP just sits there contemplating their navels (waiting for orders) while their whole army is flanked.

You didn't read Meade's day 2 orders did you? Also Longstreet's maneuvers would have been out of sight for his last 3/4 of his march if it wasn't for the III corps since Meade withdrew the cavalry screening from that very area. Granted, going to Maryland in the first place and expecting the enemy to be dumb as a doorknob is a questionable tactic
 
The food supply issues are a salient point, but I don't see how after the taking of Winchester, that cavalry raiders could not have gotten what Lee needed for his army without having to actually invade the North. There was no Union force guarding against incursions from the Shenandoah Valley. The AotP was firmly entrenched in Northern Virginia.

As for a relief attempt of Vicksburg, I just don't see how the Confederate rail network was going to get one of Lee's Corps to Mississippi without it causing major issues for Bragg's Army in Tennessee in the process, and an overland march will never get there in time.

But I could be wrong about the rail network. If so, I still don't see how Johnston and Longstreet, even combined, are going to be able to dislodge Grant from his siege. He had 77000 men there pretty soon, and he could have easily taken troops from the encirclement of Vicksburg and used them to shore up Sherman's defenses facing east.
 
What if, following Chancellorsville, the Confederate government decided to go with Longstreet's suggestions (IIRC) of reinforcing Vicksburg while staying on the defensive in Virginia, instead of Lee's proposed invasion?

Standing on the defensive, then counterstriking had worked repeatedly for the Army of Northern Virginia and helped conserve Confederate manpower. Confederate invasions of Union territory, from Gettysburg to Glorietta Pass, always ended in failure for the Confederacy. The Maryland Capampaign was probably the Confederacy's best showing, Antietam was a tactical draw, but a strategic defeat since Confederate logistics meant they had to withdraw after the battle. The Gettysburg Campaign had no real chance of gaining foreign intervention - during the campaign, a backbencher named Roebuck introduced a motion in Parliament to recognize the Confederacy. Even though most British people expected Lee to win, the bill faced overwhelming opposition and was withdrawn without a vote while Parliament still thought Lee would win. Annihilating the Army of the Potomac was a Pipe Dream as well - it's a staple of alternate history, but only in Confederate propaganda was the AotP that fragile.

Sending Longstreet west would not have saved Vicksburg, but if they'd had a better commander than Bragg, those extra troops might have been enough to delay Union advances in the west until war weariness led to Lincoln not being re-elected in 1864.
 
Robert E. Lee was fighting for Virginia, not the Confederacy. Except for a brief tour of inspection of fortifications in South Carolina (long before taking over the AoNV), he spent the entire war fighting in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. To be blunt, if he wasn't acting to defend Virginia, he just didn't seem to be terribly interested. Sending Longstreet's Corps, his strongest and best led, at a time when he has just lost his BEST ever commander (Jackson), during the very start of the Summer campaign season, would be for the Virginian Lee Unthinkable. Longstreet was thinking strategically, while Lee was showing his typical mastery of operations. But no one in the Confederacy seemed to grasp the elements of the Grand Strategic Threat the Union represented. Though to be fair, even if someone did (Johnston?), they lacked the forces to do anything about it.

From reading The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War by Stoker it appears Bragg and Beauregard offered Davis advice on Grand Strategy. Beauregard's ideas were generally impractical, beyond the Confederacy's ability, but Bragg's seemed more practical. Of course, Jefferson Davis listened to no one but himself, and he doesn't seem to have developed a strategy.

Lee's victories so often depended on his putting "the scare" into his opponents, and/or getting them to do Something Stupid. He can't get that from George Meade.

And Lee didn't seem to realize that.

The best the Confederates could hope for at Gettysburg was, on Day One, to totally rout Buford's brigades, Reynolds' I Corps, and Howard's XI Corps before the remaining Union forces arrive later that day (Slocum's XII Corps and Hancock's II Corps) and that night. A moderate victory, (3) destroying two corps and forcing the AotP to fall back upon Meade's original choice for a defensive position: The Pipe Creek Line.

I'd say the Confederates did achieve the best they could have on Day 1 of Gettysburg, thanks to Ewell arriving at the right place and time, then ignoring Lee's orders to not bring on a general engagement. Taking the hill was not practicable - Union troops had been digging in there before Ewell reached the field of battle and Lee refused to support the attack with AP Hill's forces. The Confederate's best chance would have been to go on the defensive on Day 2 and hope the Union attacked, but Lee was too aggressive to do that and Meade was too careful to make that mistake.

A genuine military victory on Days 2 or 3 for the AoNV is impossible. At least, if you disallow the Union Army getting the Criminal Stupids. For all the drama to be found in "The Killer Angels", Meade's work at playing fireman over those two days was stellar.

The Confederacy only did as well as they managed on Day 2 due to a bad case of the Stupids on Sickles part. Had more Union leaders firefighting been cut down by Confederate, there's a chance they could have reached the ridge, though Union counter-attacks almost certainly would have driven them off. Less known is that on the opposite flank, Slocum left only a brigade on Culp's Hill, but it was led by General George Greene, who believed in field entrenchments and thus his brigade was able to stop the attack of a Confederate force that outnumbered them 3-to-1.
 
Longstreet's having a success on Day Two requires the AotP to once again pull off the Criminal Stupids. IOW, despite Longstreet's maneuvers being in the full view of the enemy, the AotP just sits there contemplating their navels (waiting for orders) while their whole army is flanked.

And for once, I agree with Lee. If he had followed Longstreet's advice of flanking around both Round Tops, he would have emerged blind out of the woods, exhausted, disorganized, with no cavalry and his artillery left behind miles away. Just in time to run into the gaping jaws of Sedgwick's VI Corps, the largest corps Meade had. With the woods Longstreet just came through acting as a wall to his own retreat.

But I'll check out @dandan_noodles's ATL.

Agreed on the proposed movement to the right, but I'm actually not referring to that. From the Civil War wiki:

Ewell's men were close to the field that morning, but James Longstreet's were not. Two divisions of his corps had stopped for the night several miles away from the field with a third too far away to assist that day. The two divisions under Generals John Bell Hood and Lafayette McLaws set out at 4 AM that morning but had not yet arrived near Gettysburg while Lee was formulating plans for an early morning assault. By the time they arrived it was after 8 o'clock, and Lee was forced to alter his timetable. Orders were finally re-issued at mid morning for General Longstreet to put his troops in motion. Not thrilled with his assignment because of the unfamiliarity of the ground and his desire to fight defensively, a disgruntled Longstreet put Hood and McLaws in motion on secondary roads south. After considerable delay, the march began filled with hope as the early morning drizzle had ended and the sky cleared. Yet misinformation and poor scouting thwarted the march. The day grew warm and the roads turned dusty under the tramping feet of 16,000 soldiers. Midway to the assigned positions, the lead scouts discovered that the road crested a ridge where signalmen on Little Round Top could easily spot the Confederate column. Somehow this critical location had not been reported by Captain Samuel R. Johnston, the officer in charge of an early morning reconnaissance to that area. Longstreet's men had to counter-march, or retrace their route back to another road that proved a more secluded route toward the southern tip of Seminary Ridge.

It was not until 3:30 PM when Hood's and McLaws' men finally reached their positions and formed battle lines having marched an exhausting 18 miles since sunrise. Very few of their troops had the opportunity to rest or fill empty canteens before the signal guns were fired to begin the assault.

Had Captain Johnston accurately reported the lay of the land, Longstreet would've hit Sickles before he could come forward and probably would've shattered him as well as opened up the Taneytown road to being cut. Such would've forced Meade to withdraw, or risk the Confederates enveloping a large part of his force.
 
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If you're referring to the decision for a strategic offensive into Pennsylvania, not at all; the opportunity was ripe for Lee to crush the Army of the Potomac in a major engagement. I'd highly recommend this excellent thread from last year by @dandan_noodles. If you're looking for more of a "tactical" PoD, Longstreet's attacks on the second day also present an excellent possibility for a major victory.

In Dandan's scenario:

* For no explained reason, Stuart doesn't act like Stuart, to the advantage of the Confederacy.
* Lee gives Ewell the self-contradictory orders of concentrating on Gettysburg and seizing Harrisburg, even though they require marching in opposite directions at the same time.
* For no explained reason, Harrisburg falls to the Confederates, just like it didn't in OTL.
* For no explained reason, Longstreet reached Gettysburg a day faster than in OTL, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Lee doesn't act like Lee and takes the defensive at Gettysburg, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Lincoln micromanages at a level beyond anything he did in OTL and vetoes a plan by Meade that Lincoln probably wouldn't know about, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Reynolds attacks a larger, better prepared force than he faced in OTL instead of taking the defensive till reinforcements arrive, to the the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Meade does not act like Meade, attacking entrenched Confederate forces instead of holding on the defensive until his full force has come up and until knows whether Ewell is about to strike his flank during the Union advance. This also works to the advantage of the Confederates.
* Ewell hits Meade flank on Day 2, yet is still a "fresh corps" on day 3. Nor do any other Confederate units seem at all worn down from previous fighting.
* For no explained reason, Lee used a different plan to assault the Union position than he did in OTL.
* Even though Lee's plan is vastly more complex than any assault he made in OTL, there are none of the unexpected delays, command conflicts, misunderstood orders, failures of leadership, combat losses of key personnel, or poor coordination between units that happened with OTL's Confederate army at Gettysburg.
* For no explained reason, AP Hill does not act like OTL's largely passive and uninvolved AP Hill, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Lee's army is able to mount a faster, better coordinated, and more effective pursuit than in OTL.
* Flooded rivers are major obstacles to Union, but not Confederate movement.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
There is another option: sending Longstreet to Bragg's army in order to concentrate a large enough force for an offensive towards Nashville. Many people suggested this, hoping that it would force Grant to detach forces away from Vicksburg. Personally, I don't think it would have been any better than the proposal to send Longstreet to Mississippi.

Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania seems, in my opinion, to have been the best option at the time. To remain where he was would achieve nothing, as the Battle of Chancellorsville had been a Pyrrhic victory and the Army of the Potomac would have attacked again in a month or so. Hooker, for all his faults, was no McClellan. The logistical reasons for moving into Pennsylvania have already been mentioned and the political and diplomatic benefits of a victory on Northern soil can scarcely be underrated.
 
* For no explained reason, Stuart doesn't act like Stuart, to the advantage of the Confederacy.

Stuart IOTL was sending reports to Lee and Davis both, but said reports failed to make it to Lee; ATL we can presume they do.

* Lee gives Ewell the self-contradictory orders of concentrating on Gettysburg and seizing Harrisburg, even though they require marching in opposite directions at the same time.

Concentrates his other two Corps and orders Ewell to do so likewise after taking Harrisburg. Basic order of operations here.

* For no explained reason, Harrisburg falls to the Confederates, just like it didn't in OTL.

There was almost an entire page of explanation on why it fell within the thread. It only requires some additional marching to do, as was noted.

* For no explained reason, Longstreet reached Gettysburg a day faster than in OTL, to the advantage of the Confederates.

Literally explained by the title.

* For no explained reason, Lee doesn't act like Lee and takes the defensive at Gettysburg, to the advantage of the Confederates.

Lee, with one Corps detached, goes onto the defensive and baits Meade into attacking him until he have his other Corps join him. Nothing unlike his OTL actions here.

* For no explained reason, Lincoln micromanages at a level beyond anything he did in OTL and vetoes a plan by Meade that Lincoln probably wouldn't know about, to the advantage of the Confederates.

A Union state capital has fallen and Lee is rampaging in Pennsylvania, so there is no way in hell Lincoln can politically afford to let Meade sit on the defensive in Maryland. Given Meade needs logistics and the fact the telegraph has existed for sometime prior to 1863, Lincoln will definitely learn very quickly what Meade is doing.

* For no explained reason, Reynolds attacks a larger, better prepared force than he faced in OTL instead of taking the defensive till reinforcements arrive, to the the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Meade does not act like Meade, attacking entrenched Confederate forces instead of holding on the defensive until his full force has come up and until knows whether Ewell is about to strike his flank during the Union advance. This also works to the advantage of the Confederates.

Ewell has taken Harrisburg and the Army of the Potomac can't march any further North without leaving Washington and its own line of supply exposed to Lee's force.

* Ewell hits Meade flank on Day 2, yet is still a "fresh corps" on day 3. Nor do any other Confederate units seem at all worn down from previous fighting.

Relative term, and they were able to pull off a solid withdrawal IOTL after losing a third of their force; no reason they can't likewise preform a pursuit, especially since in this battle they've mainly been on the defense.

* For no explained reason, Lee used a different plan to assault the Union position than he did in OTL.

Completely changed tactical situation. This is alternate history, after all.

* Even though Lee's plan is vastly more complex than any assault he made in OTL, there are none of the unexpected delays, command conflicts, misunderstood orders, failures of leadership, combat losses of key personnel, or poor coordination between units that happened with OTL's Confederate army at Gettysburg.

He literally sits on the defense for most of the battle, and then orders attacks upon tactical terrain in order to compel the Army of the Potomac to withdraw. The first half is easy to preform, and the second half was what he was trying to do historically, but with the ATL benefit of the AotP having been chewed up quite effectively before hand.

* For no explained reason, AP Hill does not act like OTL's largely passive and uninvolved AP Hill, to the advantage of the Confederates.

Hill sits on the defensive for most of the battle, and later on his Corps is apart of the pursuit, nothing very strenuous about that.

* For no explained reason, Lee's army is able to mount a faster, better coordinated, and more effective pursuit than in OTL.

They never mounted a pursuit IOTL.

Flooded rivers are major obstacles to Union, but not Confederate movement.

This was not stated, nor suggested anywhere.
 
You didn't read Meade's day 2 orders did you?

I did. I also know that the local corps commanders chose to alter those orders to changing circumstances on the ground. Sometimes for the bad (Sickles), sometimes for the good (everywhere else). And rather than scream or pout, Meade decided to back his subordinates' decisions, as they were the commanders on the scene. He tried to countermand Sickles' actions, but it was already too late.

Also Longstreet's maneuvers would have been out of sight for his last 3/4 of his march if it wasn't for the III corps since Meade withdrew the cavalry screening from that very area.

Time-time-time. Longstreet didn't have enough of it, and the Union holding Little Round Top (from there seeing Longstreet's approach-its a high hill) and the Devils Den meant he wasn't going to accomplish much beyond killing a lot of his own men anyway.

Granted, going to Maryland in the first place and expecting the enemy to be dumb as a doorknob is a questionable tactic

But understandable from a psychological perspective. Certainly after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and Stuart spending the last two years running rings around the AotP and continually humiliating the ineffective Union Cavalry Corps.

As Shelby Foote put it quite accurately: "Lee had become convinced that he could do anything, and that his boys could do anything."

From reading The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War by Stoker it appears Bragg and Beauregard offered Davis advice on Grand Strategy. Beauregard's ideas were generally impractical, beyond the Confederacy's ability, but Bragg's seemed more practical. Of course, Jefferson Davis listened to no one but himself, and he doesn't seem to have developed a strategy.

A listener Davis was not.

And Lee didn't seem to realize that.

It appears as though Lee saw Meade as being too cautious, based on his fresh promotion, and having come up from the McClellan school of generalship. Unfortunately for Lee, that caused him to see an opportunity, an advantage, for an aggressive campaign. An opportunity that did not in fact exist.

I'd say the Confederates did achieve the best they could have on Day 1 of Gettysburg, thanks to Ewell arriving at the right place and time, then ignoring Lee's orders to not bring on a general engagement. Taking the hill was not practicable - Union troops had been digging in there before Ewell reached the field of battle and Lee refused to support the attack with AP Hill's forces. The Confederate's best chance would have been to go on the defensive on Day 2 and hope the Union attacked, but Lee was too aggressive to do that and Meade was too careful to make that mistake.

Culp's Hill is not only high and steep, but it has a very deep depression and steeper approach to the hill itself. It was actually worse than Little Round Top's sheer face, if that's possible. While the Union defenses were initially weak in terms of manpower, due to the circumstances of "nature's defense" they didn't NEED all that many forces to start with. Ewell himself didn't know about the "mini-canyon" in his front, with the fading light and his scout under enemy fire. His troops had been forced to do more marching and then go into direct combat than any other units on Day One. They were exhausted. Ewell decided to wait for Johnson's Division (the smallest in the AoNV) before assaulting Culps Hill. But they arrived only after dark.

A.P. Hill wasn't in a position for giving support. They were too bloodied after making their own attacks and Hill was too sick (1) to concentrate his forces. Plus he had Gettysburg Town itself blocking a smooth shift to support Ewell.

Even Lee was convinced that the enemy wasn't going to be turned on their right flank.

1) Thanks to a case of venereal disease that flared up every time his blood pressure went up. Like when battle loomed.

The Confederacy only did as well as they managed on Day 2 due to a bad case of the Stupids on Sickles part.

Yet he has his defenders. Mainly those who concentrate on tactics and ignore operations. It wasn't worth an entire corps just to slow down the enemy. III Corps would have been well used on Day 3.

Had more Union leaders firefighting been cut down by Confederate, there's a chance they could have reached the ridge, though Union counter-attacks almost certainly would have driven them off.

The Union LOCs included two macadamized pikes running parallel to each other and to the Union lines. They were also out of sight of the enemy. They enjoyed a road leading road up to the crests of the two Round Tops while the more exhausted Confederates had to both march to, climb, and fight their way through Little Round Top and the Devils Den. Many may point to the idea of the Confederates taking Big Round Top. But Longstreet was right about Big Round Top being militarily useless. There were no roads on the Confederate side, it was blind in terms of use of artillery, and any flanking force trying to attack Little Round Top is as likely to get lost or arrive piecemeal. They certainly won't be able to exploit their actions.

Less known is that on the opposite flank, Slocum left only a brigade on Culp's Hill, but it was led by General George Greene, who believed in field entrenchments and thus his brigade was able to stop the attack of a Confederate force that outnumbered them 3-to-1.

As mentioned, Little Round Top would have fallen before Culp's Hill. And Little Round Top wasn't going to fall.

Agreed on the proposed movement to the right, but I'm actually not referring to that. From the Civil War wiki:

Had Captain Johnston accurately reported the lay of the land, Longstreet would've hit Sickles before he could come forward and probably would've shattered him as well as opened up the Taneytown road to being cut. Such would've forced Meade to withdraw, or risk the Confederates enveloping a large part of his force.

TBH, I believe that history has spent far too much effort making a goat out of Captain Johnston. The approach he had to make, virtually alone, was across open ground with the enemy on Cemetery Ridge able to see him if he got close enough. For much of the time, even the signals unit wouldn't have been easy to see. And it was a very near thing in terms of when the Union troops arrived versus Longstreet's.

To get a better scouting report, Johnston would have to get so close to the Union lines that he will either a) Get captured, or b) Stop a bullet

Quite simply, we come back to the Criminal Stupids. Meade was slowly filling in his lines north to south as they arrived. And as each position was threatened.

In Dandan's scenario:

* For no explained reason, Stuart doesn't act like Stuart, to the advantage of the Confederacy.(I)
* Lee gives Ewell the self-contradictory orders of concentrating on Gettysburg and seizing Harrisburg, (II) even though they require marching in opposite directions at the same time.
* For no explained reason, Harrisburg falls to the Confederates, just like it didn't in OTL. (III)
* For no explained reason, Longstreet reached Gettysburg a day faster than in OTL, to the advantage of the Confederates. (IV)
* For no explained reason, Lee doesn't act like Lee and takes the defensive at Gettysburg, to the advantage of the Confederates. (V)
* For no explained reason, Lincoln micromanages (VI) at a level beyond anything he did in OTL and vetoes a plan by Meade that Lincoln probably wouldn't know about, to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Reynolds attacks a larger, better prepared force than he faced in OTL instead of taking the defensive till reinforcements arrive, (VII) to the the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Meade does not act like Meade, (VIII) attacking entrenched Confederate forces instead of holding on the defensive until his full force has come up and until knows whether Ewell is about to strike his flank during the Union advance. This also works to the advantage of the Confederates.
* Ewell hits Meade flank on Day 2, (IX) yet is still a "fresh corps" on day 3. (X) Nor do any other Confederate units seem at all worn down from previous fighting. (XI)
* For no explained reason, Lee used a different plan to assault the Union position than he did in OTL. (XII)
* Even though Lee's plan is vastly more complex than any assault he made in OTL, there are none of the unexpected delays, command conflicts, misunderstood orders, failures of leadership, combat losses of key personnel, or poor coordination between units that happened with OTL's Confederate army at Gettysburg. (XIII)
* For no explained reason, AP Hill does not act like OTL's largely passive and uninvolved AP Hill, (XIV) to the advantage of the Confederates.
* For no explained reason, Lee's army is able to mount a faster, better coordinated, and more effective pursuit than in OTL. (XV)
* Flooded rivers are major obstacles to Union, but not Confederate movement. (XVI)

I) I take it that the cavalry battle the previous month in which he held his ground but was humiliated didn't happen ITTL?

II) The Susquehanna River CANNOT be forded at Harrisburg, and in 1863 the entire city was on the NE side of the river. That is, on the wrong side of the river if the AoNV were to try to seize it. There was only one way across that river: A major railroad bridge. And though the PA Militia didn't cover itself in glory, THIS critical strategic action they didn't screw up. If for no other reason than that their own people, their own leaders, were watching them.

III) OP's preference!? On to Boston!

IV) I feel sorry for the troops of Hill's Corps, who were obviously trampled to death by Longstreet's veterans. Or for Longstreet's men, who must have dropped dead from exhaustion.

V) ASB. It's making a Not-Stuart Stuart and a Not-Lee Lee. Why not toss in a Not-Jackson Jackson and have the bullet miss him at Chancellorsville?

VI) Ahem. Lincoln could be a problem, except that at Gettysburg Meade was cut off from any telegraph communications. The nearest signals station was IIRC south of the Pipe Creek Line. And after firing Hooker so relatively quickly, he's not going to interfere with Meade's action in his very first battle. Not when Lincoln has no idea of what's going on.

VII) To be fair, he WAS killed while attacking Seminary Ridge.

VIII) So, in addition to Not-Stuart, Not-Lee, and Not-Lincoln, we now have Not-Meade.

IX) No way. Early, Ewell's alter ego was against it. So Ewell was against it. Even Lee was against it. Except in case of a Union withdrawal. Not-Ewell & Not-Early?

X) So now its a Confed-wank.

XI) Officially.

XII) Aerial recon?:p Otherwise, how does he know the Union's strengths, positions, and the ground before them and behind the enemy?

XIII) Radio and satellite communications. Maybe Lee also had Facebook.

XIV) BS alert. The Confederacy did NOT invent penicillin. Though if they did, it might explain the way they seem to be able to maintain their battery (standing forces).

XV) Lee had panzers? IDK how they'd do in the heavy mud that started on the late evening of "Day 4".

XVI) That's a real trick. Considering that the rivers ran behind and on the southern flank of the AoNV, not the AotP. And if the AotP is in full retreat, they've got excellent roads and working rails clean to Washington DC and Baltimore. The Confederates...do not.

Not to mention that with the Potomac at an extreme flood stage level, that allows even the deepest draft Union Navy ironclads to close up and support the AotP. I wouldn't want to be a Confederate gunner trying to match up with 30 pounder Parrott guns.

There is another option: sending Longstreet to Bragg's army in order to concentrate a large enough force for an offensive towards Nashville. Many people suggested this, hoping that it would force Grant to detach forces away from Vicksburg. Personally, I don't think it would have been any better than the proposal to send Longstreet to Mississippi.

It has the advantage of having Longstreet slightly closer to Virginia (though Nashville would be no pushover, as the LOCs favor the Union), allowing him to make a desperate run back if he can (in time).

Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania seems, in my opinion, to have been the best option at the time. To remain where he was would achieve nothing, as the Battle of Chancellorsville had been a Pyrrhic victory and the Army of the Potomac would have attacked again in a month or so. Hooker, for all his faults, was no McClellan. The logistical reasons for moving into Pennsylvania have already been mentioned and the political and diplomatic benefits of a victory on Northern soil can scarcely be underrated.

And I will honestly state now that if Hooker were still in command of the AotP during the Gettysburg Campaign, you may well be right. But "destroying" the AotP at the hands of the AoNV is still a Pipe Dream. Hooker was IMVHO still a poor general. But it would have required Burnside (who at least DID best Longstreet at Knoxsville) to get a general with sufficient Criminal Stupids to at the very most "break" the AotP to the point where it would have to rebuild itself as was done post-First Bull Run. And if nothing else, they could always fall back to the impenetrable DC defenses. Consider: Lee could get so much buck fever that he tries to assault THOSE defenses, and he'll wind up doing more damage to his own army than would have been seen ITTL's Gettysburg on the AotP.
 
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