The Confederate's Mistakes at Gettysburg Part 1

It was the summer of 1863.
The American Civil War was in full swing.
The Confederacy needed a victory, badly.
The divided American nation was at a crossroad, a crossroad called Gettysburg.
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[@manilajohn0182]

1. Lee wasn't forced to take the AoNV north. Rather, Lee wanted to take the army north. Many members of the Confederate cabinet wanted troops from Lee's army sent west to remove Union pressure on the Confederate defenders at Vicksburg. This was first brought to Lee's attention early in 1863. Months prior to Gettysburg, Lee told Secretary of War Seddon that the surest method of relieving pressure on Vicksburg was for the AoNV to cross into Maryland. Relieving pressure on the Confederate defenders at Vicksburg- and not gaining foreign intervention- was the strategic objective of the campaign. After consultation with President Davis and members of the Confederate cabinet in mid- May, Lee was allowed to retain all of his forces in the east on this basis.
2. The task of the Confederate cavalry was not to protect the AoNV's supply line because the AoNV had no supply line; the Confederates were foraging off of enemy territory. In two letters (one of which you partially quoted), Lee assigned Stuart with two primary objectives for his small force- namely, to gather both information and provisions for the army. This was the fatal mistake of the campaign.
3. The error which Lee made was not sending Stuart on a mission just as Lee was entering enemy territory. Lee instead violated a fundamental military axiom- "One force, one objective". Specifically, Lee assigned Stuart with two objectives which Stuart could not possibly accomplish. Stuart lacked the strength (he had only three brigades with him) to gather both information and provisions simultaneously, and he lacked the available time to accomplish first one objective and then the other.
4. This was fatal to Lee's plan of campaign- which (per Lee's after- action report and Longstreet's memoirs) was to not engage in a battle unless attacked- or more specifically, to maneuver the AotP into attacking the AoNV. To accomplish this, Lee required timely information on the strength and location of the AotP. His resulting lack of information from Stuart led directly to the unexpected meeting engagement on 1 July. That meeting engagement (despite the resulting victory) ruined Lee's plan of campaign, because Lee was forced to assume the tactical offensive to gain it. By the morning of 2 July, Lee had now assumed both the strategic and the tactical offensive, and there was all but no chance that the AotP would carry out an offensive of their own- particularly since they had a new commanding general at the helm.
5. This left Lee stuck. He was foraging and couldn't remain in any one place for more than 3- 5 days, and the army hadn't foraged since Lee's concentration order of 29 June. Vicksburg had been placed under siege before Lee's campaign and had now been under siege for approximately six weeks. Lee's movement north had been considerably delayed due to the requirement to forage and the factor of time was by now critical. Since there was by now no realistic chance that the AotP would carry out an offensive, Lee had only two alternatives open to him- to either attack or abandon the campaign in failure and withdraw back to Virginia.

[@darthcheney7447]

Just a reminder that Jeb Stuart was famous riding around McClellends army a year earlier during the Peninsula Campaign.

[@hismajesty3567]

Something I have known for a while but thanks for countering the myth of glory seeking on Stuart's behalf. Time constraints forced by being on enemy soil forced the action and the performance of the new commanders Hill and Early were also subpar. Poor tactics were the result of strategic goals.

[@user-el5yw1er2j]

Fighting for the cause of slavery was their first mistake.
Had they been fighting for a valid, moral, righteous cause - and not for the formation of a nation to perpetuate the institution of chattel slavery - perhaps they would have performed more admirably.

[@BamBamBigelow.]

CSA lost: but now we have a common enemy in DC