Then Meade as usual was very slow to follow up when Lee finally pulled out (it was raining).
For years I wanted to know more about this.
Background for those unfamiliar (of which I understand that you,
@Cincydawg are not one):
At Gettysburg the Union line was actually South of the Confederate line because the Union Army had come up (North) from DC to contest Lee's invasion.
Thus, once the battle ended it would have been theoretically possible for Meade and the Union Army to trap the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in Pennsylvania and disconnected from their supply lines. Had this been successfully accomplished the Army of Northern Virginia could have been destroyed (nearly everyone either killed or captured) and the war may well have ended in 1862.
Meade has been criticized ever since for failing to grasp this strategic opportunity. The criticism started immediately with President Lincoln supposedly saying that "He (Meade) had the Confederate Army in the palm of his hand and failed to grasp it." Later, political opponents of Meade in Congress latched on and historians even today frequently advance some form of the same basic arguments.
I always wanted to know more because it is frequently presented as such an obvious opportunity that one has to wonder how Meade could possibly have failed to see it.
Several years ago I read Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign by Kent Masterson Brown. Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Retreat-Gettysburg-Logistics-Pennsylvania-Campaign/dp/0807872091I warn all that this is a tedious read.
The gist of what I learned was this:
- Lee had done a good deal of preparation for the possibility of being forced to retreat so his lines of communication and retreat were reasonably well protected.
- There were a few skirmishes along these lines that are nearly unknown to history in which relatively small groups of well armed and entrenched Confederates were able to maintain Confederate control of some key mountain passes. While these are largely forgotten and seemingly minor, if their results had been reversed that outcome could have been catastrophic for the Army of Northern Virginia.
- While the Confederates had suffered grievously the Federals had taken plenty of casualties as well and while the Confederates were critically low on ammunition and other supplies the Union had supply issues of their own.
- To be fair to Meade, he was acutely aware of his own problems but could only guess at Lee's. In retrospect nearly any signifigant Union attack on July 4th or shortly thereafter would have been successful because the Confederates would have exhausted their ammunition against the first wave then been relegated to a bayonette line. I know that 160 years later but Meade didn't know that then.
- Lee's orders for the retreat were quick and were executed very well. Lee and his subordinate Generals knew that they needed to GTFO and they did so quite competently.
- Meade was understandably and to some extent justifiably cautious. He knew that he had won an important victory and he didn't want to spoil that by getting overextended chasing Lee and losing an equally important battle.
