Amos Newcombe's Blog

Of Lee’s original three corps around Fredericksburg, two are now converging on Culpeper, leaving the third behind to keep watch on Hooker’s army. Hooker sent one division across the river downstream of Fredericksburg and captured some prisoners, but they advanced no further when that third corps of Lee’s started to fight back.

Word of the movement filtered down to the troops today, in particular to Col. Gates of the 20th NY. He wrote a good account of the day’s events in his diary that evening, and had time for two games of chess.

As Lee continued moving troops out of Fredericksburg, they were spotted by Union army balloonists. Joe Hooker, the Union commander, was not one to dither around wondering what his enemy was going to do. Troops were evacuating Fredericksburg — there must be a reason. But those were the troops that were keeping him out of Richmond, the Southern capital. Should he worry about what his opponent was going to do, or should he strike south at Richmond and perhaps end the war before Lee could do anything at all?

Of course, Hooker was defending Washington just as much as Lee was defending Richmond. A counterattack could end up “swapping queens”, with each army occupying the other’s capital city. What would happen then? Hooker’s reputation was in tatters after his loss at Chancellorsville a month ago. What did he have to lose?

Introducing a series of posts on the Gettysburg campaign of the US Civil War, and specifically the 20th NY Militia.

In the Spring of 1863 most of the action was in the West. General Grant, after many trials and failures, had gotten across the Mississippi and was closing in on Vicksburg from the east, with little interference from Joe Johnston’s outnumbered troops in Jackson.

In Virginia, the two sides faced each other across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg. The Union army had tried crossing the river in December at Fredericksburg, and in May at Chancellorsville, and been beaten back both times. By June, everything had quieted down.

The 20th NY were headquartered at Falmouth, but the troops were spread out over a dozen miles or so to the Potomac River. “My men guard trains and stores here.” wrote Col. Theodore Gates, their commanding officer, in his diary on May 15. No enemy crossed the river to challenge them.

But the South didn’t need quiet — it needed victories if it were to get any help from England or France, its customers in the cotton trade. Some thought it obvious that the victory should be at a reinforced Vicksburg, preserving the last link between the old South and the lands beyond the Mississippi. But Robert E. Lee was not among them. He wanted relief for Virginia, his native state that he had followed into secession and war. Its northern edge, including Lee’s own home at Arlington, was under enemy occupation and the much of the state had suffered under two years of battle.

His proposal was to carry the war to the north, out of Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania. If the North still wanted to fight him, let them do it on their own land. He had tried the same thing last summer, and been stopped. But his reputation carried the day in the Confederate cabinet meeting. Vicksburg would get no reinforcements. On June 3 Lee started to withdraw his men from Fredericksburg, starting them on the long road to Pennsylvania.

For the 20th, life went on as normal. Col. Gates had the previous day entertained “Miss or Mrs. Doctoress [Mary] Walker … young, pretty & a great talker”. Today: “Seized a large quantity of liquors.” Gates was a believer in the Temperance cause, as was Dr. Walker.