Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America) [Hardcover]

Kent Masterson Brown (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 9, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0807829218 | ISBN-13: 978-0807829219 | Edition: 1st

In a groundbreaking, comprehensive history of the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat from Gettysburg in July 1863, Kent Masterson Brown draws on previously unused materials to chronicle the massive effort of General Robert E. Lee and his command as they sought to move people, equipment, and scavenged supplies through hostile territory and plan the army's next moves.

More than fifty-seven miles of wagon and ambulance trains and tens of thousands of livestock accompanied the army back to Virginia. The movement of supplies and troops over the challenging terrain of mountain passes and in the adverse conditions of driving rain and muddy quagmires is described in depth, as are General George G. Meade's attempts to attack the trains along the South Mountain range and at Hagerstown and Williamsport, Maryland. Lee's deliberate pace, skillful use of terrain, and constant positioning of the army behind defenses so as to invite attack caused Union forces to delay their own movements at critical times.

Brown concludes that even though the battle of Gettysburg was a defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee's successful retreat maintained the balance of power in the eastern theater and left his army with enough forage, stores, and fresh meat to ensure its continued existence as an effective force.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Captures the reader from beginning to end. . . . Should be in the library of every serious student and scholar of Civil War history."
— Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

"An immensely important read for anyone with a serious interest in the war."
— The NYMAS Review

"Using an impressive array of untapped source material, Kent Brown has written the first detailed narrative on the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg. This phase of the campaign has often been misunderstood and Brown brings understanding to how and why the Army of Northern Virginia escaped across the Potomac without another full-scale battle against the Army of the Potomac. (D. Scott Hartwig, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)"

From the Inside Flap

Brown details the retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia from Gettysburg in July 1863, focusing on the complex logistics of moving a 57-mile wagon and ambulance train and tens of thousands of livestock through hostile territory while scavenging for provisions and planning the army's next moves.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; 1st edition (March 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807829218
• ISBN-13: 978-0807829219
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A long overdue study March 11, 2005

By Eric J. Wittenberg

Format:Hardcover

Kent Masterson Brown has spent more than twenty years researching and writing his 500+ page book on the retreat from Gettysburg. I first met Kent ten years or so ago, and I was aware that he was working on this project then. He has spent years and years on it, and it shows.

This book appears destined to become a standard reference work on the subject. The bibliography is 28 pages long, and he found a tremendous volume of primary source manuscript material that is unfamiliar to even me, who has also been studying the retreat for more than ten years. The work is extremely scholarly in nature, but yet is amply mapped and amply illustrated, making it attractive to less sophisticated students of the Gettysburg Campaign. There are also unpublished photos that I have never seen before that add a lot to the story, including a photo of Capt. George Emack, the company commander who held off Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's entire cavalry division at Monterey Pass for much of the night on July 4.

Brown's primary thrust is the logistics of the retreat, and he shows that there are many complex reasons why the definitive fight did not take place on the north bank of the Potomac River after Gettysburg. Those who are inclined to criticize Meade may well reconsider their positions after reading this.

Congratulations to Kent Brown for writing a terrific and much needed book that addresses a too-often overlooked aspect of the Gettysburg Campaign in the level of detail that it has long deserved.

This book definitely needs a place on the bookshelves of any student of the Gettysburg Campaign, and also on the bookshelves of any student of army logistics and how they can make or break a campaign.

Highly recommended.

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Study of Gettysburg and its Aftermath October 21, 2005

By Robin Friedman HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Kent Masterson Brown's "Retreat from Gettysburg" (2005) has been justly praised as the first full-length study of the Army of Northern Virginia as it withdrew from Gettysburg following the failure of "Pickett's Charge" on July 3, 1863, crossed South Mountain, and succeeded in crossing the Potomac River on July 14, 1863. Most histories of the battle devote only a few anti-climactic pages to the retreat and tell the story from the standpoint of General Meade and the Army of the Potomac. These books then either praise or criticize Meade to varying degrees for not being more aggressive in attacking Lee's army. As is well known, President Lincoln was highly critical of Meade and believed that a further attack could have severely crippled the Army of Northern Virginia and perhaps ended the War.

But Brown's study not only tells a detailed story of the retreat, it offers as well a somewhat different account of Lee's Pennsylvania campaign than that offered in recent studies. The books on the Battle of Gettysburg by Sears and Trudeau, for example, explain the Pennsylvania campaign as an attempt by Lee to win a major victory, to fight a battle for the annihilation of the Army of the Potomac, and thus to bring the war to an end. Brown argues that the primary focus of the campaign was different. He sees it primarily as a large-scale raid in which the Army of Northern Virginia invaded Northern soil to secure food for the troops, forage for the horses and mules, and essential supplies for the Army. Southern soil had been decimated by two years of heavy fighting, and the Confederacy lacked an adequate supply system to keep the army moving. Thus Lee wanted to tap the rich, untouched soil of Pennsylvania for supplies to keep his Army a fighting force.

And forage Lee's army did. Brown has unearthed and utilized a vast array of documentary evidence showing the extent of southern foraging. The foraging of food, supplies, and clothing began when the vanguard of the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac and proceeded with great force during the two weeks portions of Lee's Army spent unopposed in Pennsylvania before the Battle of Gettysburg. The foraging and gathering continued during the battle and, indeed, during the long retreat. The retreat was difficult in part because the Army of Northern Virginia had thousands of wagons which formed a train extending for 50 miles as it crossed the mountains. These wagons had to be protected, no less than the troops, to keep the army together. There were some losses to Union calvary but on the whole Lee and his army managed to get the goods they took in Pennsylvania across the Potomac and to make use of them to alleviate pressure on Southern soil and transportation systems.

For Brown, the Battle of Gettysburg was a serious tactical loss for the Confederacy, resulting in a defeat and in the loss of men that could not be replaced. But he argues that the Pennsylvania campaign had a strategically more ambiguous result because Lee achieved many of his objectives. His army spent much of the summer in Pennsylvania and took the food, the beef, the horses, and the supplies that were a prime objective of the campaign. Brown concludes that "Gettysburg cannot be viewed as the turning point of the Civil War or even a turning point of the eastern theater of war after Lee's remarkable retreat." (p. 390, citing the work of Gary Gallagher who has taken a similar view of the aftermath of the battle.)

The story of the retreat itself is told with remarkable detail and clarity. Brown gives the reader a full picture of Lee, Stuart, Imboden, Pettigrew, and many lesser-known leaders in the Army of Northern Virginia that played essential roles in the long, difficult retreat through the mud and the mountains, most of it in driving rain. There are closely-drawn pictures of the many ill and wounded soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia and of the African-Americans, slave and some free, who accompanied and provided essential services to Lee's army. The maps in the book are well-chosen, clear, and illuminating. The book is also graced with many rare photographs and drawings.

Brown gives the reader the retreat almost exclusively from the Southern standpoint -- by following the Southern army -- but this hasn't been done before for the retreat. It deepens the reader's understanding of the campaign and of the army. I understood better after reading this account why General Meade had to hesitate in his pursuit -- he was unsure of Lee's intentions and the condition of his own army and supply system demanded attention -- and why Meade was probably correct in not attacking the strong southern defenses at Williamsport. Still, the Army of Northern Virginia was highly vulnerable to attack during the evening of July 13 early on July 14 while it was crossing the Potomac. The Union cavalry mounted a strong late attack at this point, resulting in the death of Southern General Pettigrew. Possibly a more effective reconaissance and a stronger Union infantry presence during the crossing could have inflicted greater damage.

Brown has written a thoughtful and well-documented history of the retreat from Gettysburg and of the Pennsylvania campaign that has much to teach the serious student of the battle and of the Civil War.

Robin Friedman

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars important Civil War history June 29, 2005

By James W. Durney TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This could be the most important Civil War history published in 2005. This ignored subject is usually covered in a few pages at the end of a Gettysburg history. We all know the AoNV managed to get back to Virginia, that it was a horrible experience and that the AOP was unable to force a battle that it could win. Kent Masterson Brown has taken these few facts, coupled with extensive research and built a story of escape, pursuit and human suffering with few equals in American history. Somehow, a complex series of stories come together in a compelling narrative that engages and then astounds the reader.

This story starts with the failure of Pickett's Charge and ends about two weeks later, with the AoNV safe in Virginia and Meade forever dammed for "allowing Lee" to escape. In between is hell. Rain, mud and floods on a scale that rival the more famous "Mud March", coupled with thousands of sick and wounded men being transported to safety or death. Tens of thousands of animals create an incredible amount of filth and draw every fly for miles. This book allows us to "see" what this meant in very personal human way that adds to our understanding.

Interspersed are battles with the Union Cavalry, worn out, badly beat up from Gettysburg but still "game" and spoiling for a fight. Meade must determine Lee's intentions, mount an effective counter and supply his army while caring for thousands of wounded. The author details these problems and allows us to understand what this means. For the AOP, pursuit was almost as bad as retreat was for the AoNV. Short of everything, burden with the dead and wounded from Gettysburg and working blind, they group their way south not really ready to close in for a kill but hopeful. In the end, Lee has time to entrench, the Union Corps commanders advise Meade not to attack and Lee crosses the Potomac ending our story.

Of note is the treatment of blacks, both slave and free, in the Army of Northern Virginia. This topic generates controversy but is present in a straightforward factual manner that adds importance to the book. Much of the personal in the AoNV's supply trains were black and most units had a number of slaves with them. Kent Brown tells the story of these men, during the retreat without sensationalism. He makes no effort to minimize the essential services they provide to the army and their masters either. Their story is woven into the very fabric of the retreat and together produces a compelling honest book.