Lee at Gettysburg

With the retreat of the Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock and the subsequent arrival of Lieutenant General James Longstreet and his two detached divisions from operations around Suffolk, south of the James River, Lee was now free to return to his original plan to invade Pennsylvania. As early as 23 February Jedediah Hotchkiss, Stonewall Jackson’s celebrated map-maker and reputedly ‘the best topographical engineer’ in the army, had been ordered to ‘prepare a map of the Valley of Virginia extended to Harrisonburg … and then on to Philadelphia’, and to keep the project ‘a profound secret’. ¹ Such a move, Lee later reassured the Secretary of War, would offer ‘the readiest method of relieving the pressure’ on Confederate forces in the west, and he had already begun preparations for his offensive when Major General Joseph Hooker crossed the Rappahannock on his vast turning movement to Chancellorsville. ² After the battle, which one authority has described as ‘perhaps more nearly a flawless battle … than any … ever planned and executed by an American commander’, ³ Lee reorganized his army. He expanded his two corps into three, explaining that 30,000 men ‘are more than one man can properly handle and keep under his eye in battle … They are always beyond the range of his vision, and frequently beyond his reach’, a consideration now increased by the recent loss of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson at Chancellorsville. ⁴ Lee also perfected the battalion system of artillery that had been such a vital factor in his most recent victory.