When you get the compressed view of history in school – too much to cover and not enough time – you tend to think events like battles just happened. Two armies showed up and fought. But as Scott Mingus and Eric Wittenbergdemonstrate in If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania: The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac March to Gettysburg, battles like Gettysburg have lead-ups, clashes and conflicts, and after-events.
In other words, Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia didn’t just show up in Gettysburg and fight George Meade’s Army of the Potomac. In the month leading up to the battle, Lee’s army moved in three substantive routes toward Pennsylvania. The approval to take the war into the North was given by the Confederate government in late May, and Lee wasted no time. By June 1, his army began to move.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
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