Post by Tipsyfish on Jun 26, 2016 0:40:43 GMT
Hello
I was going to make a video short series about the main difficulties with the Confederates trying to capture Washington D.C This isn't an alternate history scenario but I wanted other people's opinions on what more I should add/focus on. I'm making this into three videos (one for each battle).
In 1863, just two years after the fall of Fort Sumter, Washington boasted over 60 forts and 840 guns manned by over 25,000 men. The defenses of Washington contained more artillery than the combined total of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. 13 miles of trenches supported the forts, which were arranged in a supporting structure. Rather than standing alone, the forts of Washington contributed to each others' defense, and were positioned so they could cover the dead spots in their neighbors' fields of fire. This was the technique used in the lines of Torres Vedras by Wellington to protect Lisbon from French forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Each fort would have at least the cover of three others, as the range of these guns were massive, being able to hit a target from nearly a mile away.
With a massive ring of forts protecting the city constantly manned by Union troops, taking the city in a lightning stroke would be impossible. An army would be forced to besiege, batter, and wear their way through the defenses in a costly, years long campaign. During that time, the attacking army would be vulnerable to the Union forces outside the defenses, while the city's defenders would continue to receive supplies via the Potomac River as the Confederates could never blockade the river, or produce enough naval ships to even attempt such a thing. The entire perimeter of the defenses was over 37 miles, meaning that any attacking army would be required to guard that whole distance. The sheer logistics of a siege make it impossible for the Confederacy to even attempt.
It wasn't until the victory at Fredricksburg in late 1862, that the confederacy was able to fully equip it's men with rifled Muskets. The shortage of weapons wasn't limited to rifles either. The Confederacy had a severe lack of artillery as well and had a much inferior quality of fuses and of gunpowder. The fuses would more often then not prematurely explode or not explode at all. Meaning that any attempt to dislodge fortifications were much harder, as the shot was to explode over the heads of the entrenched enemy. Glancing shots weren't as effective. . In 1861, more guns were produced in the state of New York alone than in the entire Confederacy. This lack of heavy artillery would hamper Confederate armies at every turn, and if the Army of Northern Virginia had attempted to capture Washington, this lack would have been a massive disadvantage in a lengthy siege. While they had a large amount of heavy guns, a lot of them had little ammunition throughout the war, and more often then not, guns of different calibers would be mixed together to form a battery. The confederates got nearly 2/3rds of all their artillery from the Union, and had to make due with what they had.
During the entire course of the war, Washington came under direct, large-scale attack only once. In July 1864, 20,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of General Jubal Early snuck across the Potomac and attacked the northwestern defenses of the city at Fort Stevens. After trying to force the defenses for two days, Early's force retreated. Confederate forces never even reached the walls of Fort Stevens, the main fort under attack. I've already done a video on this topic which is why it will not be covered in this series. Having the Confederates win at Fort Stevens is a pipe dream, and wouldn't have been all that realistic. I admit that more now then when I made the video.
Though this was one isolated event, the Army of Northern Virginia did have chances to attack the capital. In every instance, it chose not to do so — deterred, by the city’s defenses. Three main opportunities stand out: in the wake of the Battle of Bull Run, during Lee's Maryland invasion, and during the Gettysburg Campaign.
The Battle of Bull Run
At the start of the war, The Confederacy had nearly 3,000 guns at it's disposal but they could only muster 60 field guns in the east. I wasn't able to find any numbers for the west. The army classified its artillery into three types, depending on the gun's weight and intended use. Field artillery were light pieces that often traveled with the armies. Siege and garrison artillery were heavy pieces that could be used either in attacking or defending fortified places. Seacoast artillery were the heaviest pieces and were intended to be used in permanent fortifications along the seaboard. They were primarily designed to fire on attacking warships. The distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, as field, siege and garrison, and seacoast artillery were all used in various attacks and defenses of fortifications. All the guns gotten were from the federal forts simply given to the Confederates before the main fighting started. However, most of the guns were heavy guns or seafortress guns. When Norfolk VA was captured, nearly 1,000 had been left, but the vast majority of them were 24 or 32 pounders with some sprinkling of massive calibers. However, these guns weren't exactly fit for field use, and instead were better for defensive, seafaring or fortress protection. The Union at the start of the war had nearly 5,000 guns but only about 250 were actual field pieces. The cannons built in the South often suffered from the shortage of quality metals and shoddy workmanship. Napoleon guns and the 12 and 24 inch howitzers were originally cast out from bronze, but after the capture of New Orleans and the nearly 500 bronze bells within the city, the guns were created out of wrought iron. Another disadvantage was the quality of ammunition. The fuses needed for detonating shells and cases were frequently inaccurate, causing premature or delayed explosions a lot of the time the charges wouldn't even go off. The union had the same issue but it wasn't nearly as bad. They had an especially hard time trying to have the charges explode over fortifications and trenches, as glancing shot wasn't very effective.
Even before the Battle of Bull Run, work had begun on the defenses of Washington, D.C. Initial barricades had been prepared within the city, and in May, work began on forts to protect the Virginia ends of the Aqueduct Bridge and Long Bridge. These works were expanded in the seven weeks between the time Union troops marched into Virginia and the Battle of Bull Run. More than half a dozen forts and batteries sprang up along the banks of the Potomac. They were small, independent works intended to defend the bridges across the river, and didn’t constitute a self-supporting defensive line.
The work was interrupted by the Battle of Bull Run. Engineers working on the fortifications were sent south with the Army of Northeast Virginia. In the wake of the disastrous battle, Washington was terrified by the fear that the Confederate Army was about to sweep down upon the city. Contemporary newspaper accounts reveal wild rumors of Confederate forces advancing on the city, of Confederate cavalry crossing the Potomac to strike at the city’s undefended rear, and of Confederate supporters rising up across Maryland. This last point is the one that most believed as the Boston riots were still very fresh in people's minds.
We know that the Confederate forces involved in the first major battle were in no condition to conduct a pursuit of the disorganized Union troops. The initial stages of the battle had badly shaken the Confederate regiments, and only the intervention of Gen. Jackson and his Virginians that prevented a Confederate defeat. From a force of 33,000 at the beginning of the battle, the Confederates could muster fewer than 30,000 troops in still-green regiments. Most of the losses came from desertions with fewer than five hundred confirmed dead, a showcase of the inexperience on each side.
But what if the Confederate forces had engaged in a pursuit immediately after the battle? The answer is that they couldn't. This was the first battle the soldiers had fought in, and many were suffering from what would later become known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Limited fighting had taken place in the Shenandoah with Jacksons men as well as a few hundred men that had fought in West Virginia under Robert E. Lee, however, the experience that they gained was limited and had little effect of the men at large. In addition, the companies and regiments involved in the fighting had become disorganized. Any immediate pursuit would have resulted in a Confederate force no more coherent than the Union men they were chasing. Any exhausted Confederates arriving at Washington in fighting order would then face the Potomac forts and a handful of fresh (though green) regiments bivouacked in and near the city, in addition to whatever veterans of the battle had managed to reform. This also doesn't include the 15,000 men under General Patterson that were in the Shenandoah valley, the army that was supposed to keep the 9,000 men of Joseph Johnston from linking up at Bull Run.
Had the Confederates waited and taken time to re-group then they would be facing even more problems. They'd be facing a new Union commander — General George McClellan, and a new series of earthworks, which McClellan had ordered in the first days after assuming command. The Union forces would've had time to regroup as well, and would have been bolstered by fresh regiments brought in by train from the north. The new Army of the Potomac that replaced the Army of Northeast Virginia was stronger and more experienced than its predecessor.
But the odds would be far better than those later in the war. An advance on Washington in August or September would have been the Confederates' best chance to capture Washington. By Christmas of that year the forts begun by General McClellan were finished, so any successful attack on the city would have had to have taken place before that date. The Confederates would have had the momentum provided by victory at Bull Run, better odds, and would avoid the need to break through the massive defenses that would later protect the city. Side note, when Joseph Johnston retreated from Centerville in 1862, he put quaker guns in his field works to delay the Union. The Confederacy would use this tactic a number of times throughout the war, with the more well-known situations being at the Siege of Corinth and the siege of Petersburg.
But they would be facing General George McClellan, entrenched with upwards of 30,000 men in Arlington. Today, McClellan is known as someone who couldn't move quickly, who didn't take advantage of his numerical superiority, and who was never happy with his logistics. In a fight for Washington, most if not all of his disadvantages would have been nullified. He would be facing an enemy that was coming directly to him. He would be fighting from a prepared defensive position, not out in the open field. And he would be fighting with the entire might of the Army of the Potomac.
An attack against Washington in the fall of 1861 would still be a ferocious fight. But it would be a Union victory. Fighting from prepared positions, with greater numbers of soldiers and artillery, and with a firm supply line, it would be a massive victory for the North. It would completely shift the momentum of the early months of the war, and might deal a death blow to the Confederacy. With their largest army destroyed, it would be difficult to continue the fight against the already numerically superior Union.
It was a risk not worth taking. And after all, their war was a primarily defensive one. The South could win simply by continuing to exist. It did not need to take Washington to win. It was the North that had to go on the attack, which it did with the Peninsula Campaign during the spring of 1862. That campaign would in turn spark the next chance for the Confederacy to attack Washington The 1862 Maryland Campaign.
The Maryland Campaign
In the fall of 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Robert E. Lee, crossed the Potomac and invaded Maryland. The invasion had many purposes, Jefferson Davis and Lee both hoped that a major victory on Union soil would bring France and Great Britain into the war on the side of the Confederacy. Barring that, Lee hoped to cut the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which supplied Washington and Baltimore and be able to threaten if not outright capture Baltimore. In the process, he might succeed in spurring Confederate sympathizers in Maryland to make more overt efforts against the Union or possibly even get Maryland to join the confederacy.
Lee wanted no part of attacking the heavily-defended city of Washington. But let's imagine that Lee believes he can take Washington in the wake of a successful Antietam. After all, marching on Harrisburg, Philadelphia, or Baltimore would extend Lee's supply lines possibly beyond the breaking point and leave him vulnerable to encirclement from the state defenders and departments that would buzzing all around.
Moving south after the Antietam-like battle, Lee would have faced a hostile countryside and scattered Union units that would slow his army's progress. The vast majority of Marylanders were staunch Unionists, and in OTL's campaign, Lee had to forcibly requisition much of his army's supplies. This would be the case in this scenario as well. The end result is that his progress will be slowed, allowing for the Army of the Potomac, which would have retreated east or south, to regroup and resume the pursuit. Lee figured that he would be able to gain many volunteers into his army but only about 200 men actually signed up. A fair portion of his army refused to go into Maryland, either because of them being unfit (most of the solders didn't even have proper shoes) and many of them refused as they signed up to protect their homeland, not to invade another.
If Lee chooses to attack Washington in this scenario, he will do so against a defensive presence that is fully aware and ready to meet him. In OTL's Battle of Antietam, Lee could muster 45,000 troops compared to nearly 90.000 union troops. If we imagine around 10,000 casualties at our Antietam, which is the lower estimate of what the Confederacy ended up receiving. that would leave 35,000 able-bodied men to face Washington, a city with 25,000 defenders. Add in the 5,000-15,000 Union army soldiers present in the city but not assigned to it, and Lee will be facing between 30,000 and 40,000 entrenched, forewarned soldiers defending their capital city. This also does not include the various departments that existed within the north with their own defenses. Pennsylvania raised 40,000 men (albeit militia) that would also be used against the Confederates nor does it include the Army of the Potomac itself which would have at least 65,000 able-bodied men under it's command. In OTL, the army still had two whole corps numbering some 24,000 men that had not been thrown into battle. Lee's army had been nearly bled dry and it had only been the timely arrival of A.P Hills brigade of 1,800 men arriving from Harper’s Ferry that prevented a collapse during the battle.
This will not be a surprise attack as was at Fort Stevens (hint hint, watch my video). The defenders will be alert, waiting, and have numbers greater than those of Lee's forces. They will be somewhat demoralized, and will no doubt have a new commander following McClellan's defeat, but after they regroup, they will be a force to be reckoned with, particularly if Lee is involved in a lengthy struggle to capture Washington.
At the time, the rule of thumb taught at West Point was that an attacking force should have double or more the strength of the defending force in order to successfully attack and hold a position. It wasn’t a fast rule by any means, but it’s an example of the type of thinking that went on during the war. In this case, Lee would be going up against a heavily-fortified position occupied by numbers greater than his own. For all his expert generalship, even Robert E. Lee would be hard-pressed to outflank a circle. Lee's army had 246 guns during the Antietam battle, 82 of these guns were rifled, with 112 of them were smooth-bores, the remaining 52 were of unknown type. The Potomac army had 293 guns of which 166 of them were rifled. The union tended to rely more on massive smooth-bore fire compared to more accurate rifled fire by the Confederates.
In order to capture Washington in the Maryland Campaign, Lee would have had to meet and defeat the Union army in an Antietam-like battle, advance south, break through the massive defenses protecting Washington, and defeat the 35,000 defenders of Washington, all before the onset of winter, scarcely two months away. Lee would have to defeat over 120,000 men in two battles, with fewer than 45,000 of his own men. The Potomac river would still be an open avenue for supply and reinforcement. The CSS Virginia had been scuttled before lee's Maryland campaign and even if it wasn't, couldn't have assisted in the siege. The Potomac river was 17 feet at low tide and 21 feet at high tide. The Virginia’s draft was 22 feet after the battle with the Monitor and while it's two 7-inch Brooke rifles, two 6-inch Brooke rifles, and six 9-inch Dahlgren smooth-bore broadside would have been very effective against the forts, trying to keep it at anchor would have been near impossible. She was badly ventilated, very uncomfortable, and very unhealthy. There was an average of fifty or sixty at the hospital, in addition to the sick list on board.
Gettysburg
Lee's final opportunity to take Washington would be in the wake of a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. If Lee could somehow win at Gettysburg without taking overwhelming casualties (no small feat), the door might be open for an advance on Washington but even that would be an impossible task.
Lee's invasion had three main goals. The first one was to upset any summer plans that the Union may have for action in the east and encourage the growth of the peace movement in the north which was met with some success. The second was to relieve pressure indirectly from Vicksburg. Lee assumed that if he invaded then forces from all over the Union would be called back to the east, including significant numbers from Grant's veteran army. This ploy ended up failing, as Grant lost not a single regiment and actually received some reinforcement during this period of time. Thirdly, Lee wanted to be able to have his men be able to live off the rich Northern farmland and give the farms and farmers in Virginia a much needed break. This he also accomplished, driving over 20,000 cattle and 22,000 sheep back into Virginia after the Gettysburg battle.
Many of the problems that face Lee in the 1862 scenario are still present in the post-Gettysburg campaign. Any prolonged attempt to take Washington brings the threat that the Army of the Potomac will regroup and take Lee in the rear, or any other massed amount of men that the North could rather easily put forth would bleed his army dry. The amount of artillery for the Army of the Potomac numbered some 360 pieces, while the Confederates had 270 pieces, on both sides, half of these were rifled iron pieces, and of the remainder, all but four were smooth-bore bronze Napoleons. The Confederates did have two whit-worth breech-loading pieces that were also used at Fredricksburg. However, the gunners didn't exactly know how to best use it's ability of such a long range, and used it more as a highly accurate skirmishing piece.
The defenses of Washington are simply too strong to take in a single quick stroke, and with the threat of the Army of the Potomac, Lee cannot afford to be pinned down in a protracted campaign for the city. If he hurts the Army of the Potomac badly enough, a city like Baltimore might be open to his troops for a short period of time, but not Washington. The battle of Gettysburg wasn't actually planned in the first place. It was a mere encounter between Northern men and Southern men that wanted shoes..
Many would say that having Stuarts Calvary not being taken on such a long detour would have changed the outcome of the battle even though I myself am more skeptical of that. Lee did not need to fight at Gettysburg at all, it was his change of mind set of the objectives of his invasion that made him. Lee's original plan was a mere raid, evade his opponent and strike a weaker spot, cause trouble and panic, then retreat. Once he changed his thought to fighting a pitched battle then his chances of failure where all that much higher. That's not saying that it would be impossible for him to have won such an engagement but it wouldn't be the most productive unless he won a Fredrickburgs style battle and managed to capture important cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh. Just winning a battle for the Confederates was rarely enough. Ad the casualties taken by both sides would normally leave them within the same sort of force ratio as before, but both sides needing to re-group and tend to their wounds.
Lee's best hope would have been to avoid a pitched battle anyway. The Army of the Potomac was in a bit of leader trouble at the moment. Hooker had just been replaced by Meade the army was spread over thirty miles and his orders were to follow Lee and protect Washington. Meade was tempted to establish a defensive line along Pipe Creek, covering Washington, Baltimore and if need be Philadelphia. Lee's first objective was Harrisburg, where he planned to destroy the bridges and rail connection, plus get whatever artillery, munitions and supplies that were located within the city then retreat back into Virginia through the Shenandoah.
As to whether or not Lee would be able to take over Harrisburg is dubious. Along with the Army of the Potomac. The department of the Susquehanna had 33,000 men centered around the city and were in the process of building earthworks and other fortifications. Skirmishes broke out from June 28th-july 1st around Chamsburg, a few miles from Harrisburg proper. Harrisburg is located across a mile wide river so unless Lee could manage to somehow have one of the two bridges be kept intact for him, he would need to bring up or create pontoons to cross over and major pontoon actions always seem to produce problems in this war...
Throughout the war, the defenses of Washington never stopped growing. New blockhouses were built monthly, and forts popped up wherever there was a dead spot in the terrain. In April 1865, even when it was clear that the Confederacy couldn't threaten the city, new blockhouses were constructed, and at the time of Lee's surrender, four more were being built. Forts were under constant remodeling and expansion from the time they were constructed to the time of the armistice.
The logistical and manpower problems that face the Confederates form the third problem facing any attack on Washington. Even if the Army of the Potomac is defeated, it will inflict heavy casualties on the opposition. The South does not have an unlimited supply of soldiers or equipment, and if the battle is costly enough, an attack on Washington may very well be impossible given the numbers involved. At the battle of Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia could muster just under 72,000 troops. It suffered roughly 23,000 casualties in that fight, as did the Union Army, which was in a defensive position. Attempting to take Washington so soon after even an alternate Gettysburg could well mean the complete collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia. Unlike the Union Army, the South could not afford the loss of the Army of Northern Virginia, and that's exactly what would have happened if the Confederacy attempted to take Washington at any of these three points.
I was going to make a video short series about the main difficulties with the Confederates trying to capture Washington D.C This isn't an alternate history scenario but I wanted other people's opinions on what more I should add/focus on. I'm making this into three videos (one for each battle).
In 1863, just two years after the fall of Fort Sumter, Washington boasted over 60 forts and 840 guns manned by over 25,000 men. The defenses of Washington contained more artillery than the combined total of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. 13 miles of trenches supported the forts, which were arranged in a supporting structure. Rather than standing alone, the forts of Washington contributed to each others' defense, and were positioned so they could cover the dead spots in their neighbors' fields of fire. This was the technique used in the lines of Torres Vedras by Wellington to protect Lisbon from French forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Each fort would have at least the cover of three others, as the range of these guns were massive, being able to hit a target from nearly a mile away.
With a massive ring of forts protecting the city constantly manned by Union troops, taking the city in a lightning stroke would be impossible. An army would be forced to besiege, batter, and wear their way through the defenses in a costly, years long campaign. During that time, the attacking army would be vulnerable to the Union forces outside the defenses, while the city's defenders would continue to receive supplies via the Potomac River as the Confederates could never blockade the river, or produce enough naval ships to even attempt such a thing. The entire perimeter of the defenses was over 37 miles, meaning that any attacking army would be required to guard that whole distance. The sheer logistics of a siege make it impossible for the Confederacy to even attempt.
It wasn't until the victory at Fredricksburg in late 1862, that the confederacy was able to fully equip it's men with rifled Muskets. The shortage of weapons wasn't limited to rifles either. The Confederacy had a severe lack of artillery as well and had a much inferior quality of fuses and of gunpowder. The fuses would more often then not prematurely explode or not explode at all. Meaning that any attempt to dislodge fortifications were much harder, as the shot was to explode over the heads of the entrenched enemy. Glancing shots weren't as effective. . In 1861, more guns were produced in the state of New York alone than in the entire Confederacy. This lack of heavy artillery would hamper Confederate armies at every turn, and if the Army of Northern Virginia had attempted to capture Washington, this lack would have been a massive disadvantage in a lengthy siege. While they had a large amount of heavy guns, a lot of them had little ammunition throughout the war, and more often then not, guns of different calibers would be mixed together to form a battery. The confederates got nearly 2/3rds of all their artillery from the Union, and had to make due with what they had.
During the entire course of the war, Washington came under direct, large-scale attack only once. In July 1864, 20,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of General Jubal Early snuck across the Potomac and attacked the northwestern defenses of the city at Fort Stevens. After trying to force the defenses for two days, Early's force retreated. Confederate forces never even reached the walls of Fort Stevens, the main fort under attack. I've already done a video on this topic which is why it will not be covered in this series. Having the Confederates win at Fort Stevens is a pipe dream, and wouldn't have been all that realistic. I admit that more now then when I made the video.
Though this was one isolated event, the Army of Northern Virginia did have chances to attack the capital. In every instance, it chose not to do so — deterred, by the city’s defenses. Three main opportunities stand out: in the wake of the Battle of Bull Run, during Lee's Maryland invasion, and during the Gettysburg Campaign.
The Battle of Bull Run
At the start of the war, The Confederacy had nearly 3,000 guns at it's disposal but they could only muster 60 field guns in the east. I wasn't able to find any numbers for the west. The army classified its artillery into three types, depending on the gun's weight and intended use. Field artillery were light pieces that often traveled with the armies. Siege and garrison artillery were heavy pieces that could be used either in attacking or defending fortified places. Seacoast artillery were the heaviest pieces and were intended to be used in permanent fortifications along the seaboard. They were primarily designed to fire on attacking warships. The distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, as field, siege and garrison, and seacoast artillery were all used in various attacks and defenses of fortifications. All the guns gotten were from the federal forts simply given to the Confederates before the main fighting started. However, most of the guns were heavy guns or seafortress guns. When Norfolk VA was captured, nearly 1,000 had been left, but the vast majority of them were 24 or 32 pounders with some sprinkling of massive calibers. However, these guns weren't exactly fit for field use, and instead were better for defensive, seafaring or fortress protection. The Union at the start of the war had nearly 5,000 guns but only about 250 were actual field pieces. The cannons built in the South often suffered from the shortage of quality metals and shoddy workmanship. Napoleon guns and the 12 and 24 inch howitzers were originally cast out from bronze, but after the capture of New Orleans and the nearly 500 bronze bells within the city, the guns were created out of wrought iron. Another disadvantage was the quality of ammunition. The fuses needed for detonating shells and cases were frequently inaccurate, causing premature or delayed explosions a lot of the time the charges wouldn't even go off. The union had the same issue but it wasn't nearly as bad. They had an especially hard time trying to have the charges explode over fortifications and trenches, as glancing shot wasn't very effective.
Even before the Battle of Bull Run, work had begun on the defenses of Washington, D.C. Initial barricades had been prepared within the city, and in May, work began on forts to protect the Virginia ends of the Aqueduct Bridge and Long Bridge. These works were expanded in the seven weeks between the time Union troops marched into Virginia and the Battle of Bull Run. More than half a dozen forts and batteries sprang up along the banks of the Potomac. They were small, independent works intended to defend the bridges across the river, and didn’t constitute a self-supporting defensive line.
The work was interrupted by the Battle of Bull Run. Engineers working on the fortifications were sent south with the Army of Northeast Virginia. In the wake of the disastrous battle, Washington was terrified by the fear that the Confederate Army was about to sweep down upon the city. Contemporary newspaper accounts reveal wild rumors of Confederate forces advancing on the city, of Confederate cavalry crossing the Potomac to strike at the city’s undefended rear, and of Confederate supporters rising up across Maryland. This last point is the one that most believed as the Boston riots were still very fresh in people's minds.
We know that the Confederate forces involved in the first major battle were in no condition to conduct a pursuit of the disorganized Union troops. The initial stages of the battle had badly shaken the Confederate regiments, and only the intervention of Gen. Jackson and his Virginians that prevented a Confederate defeat. From a force of 33,000 at the beginning of the battle, the Confederates could muster fewer than 30,000 troops in still-green regiments. Most of the losses came from desertions with fewer than five hundred confirmed dead, a showcase of the inexperience on each side.
But what if the Confederate forces had engaged in a pursuit immediately after the battle? The answer is that they couldn't. This was the first battle the soldiers had fought in, and many were suffering from what would later become known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Limited fighting had taken place in the Shenandoah with Jacksons men as well as a few hundred men that had fought in West Virginia under Robert E. Lee, however, the experience that they gained was limited and had little effect of the men at large. In addition, the companies and regiments involved in the fighting had become disorganized. Any immediate pursuit would have resulted in a Confederate force no more coherent than the Union men they were chasing. Any exhausted Confederates arriving at Washington in fighting order would then face the Potomac forts and a handful of fresh (though green) regiments bivouacked in and near the city, in addition to whatever veterans of the battle had managed to reform. This also doesn't include the 15,000 men under General Patterson that were in the Shenandoah valley, the army that was supposed to keep the 9,000 men of Joseph Johnston from linking up at Bull Run.
Had the Confederates waited and taken time to re-group then they would be facing even more problems. They'd be facing a new Union commander — General George McClellan, and a new series of earthworks, which McClellan had ordered in the first days after assuming command. The Union forces would've had time to regroup as well, and would have been bolstered by fresh regiments brought in by train from the north. The new Army of the Potomac that replaced the Army of Northeast Virginia was stronger and more experienced than its predecessor.
But the odds would be far better than those later in the war. An advance on Washington in August or September would have been the Confederates' best chance to capture Washington. By Christmas of that year the forts begun by General McClellan were finished, so any successful attack on the city would have had to have taken place before that date. The Confederates would have had the momentum provided by victory at Bull Run, better odds, and would avoid the need to break through the massive defenses that would later protect the city. Side note, when Joseph Johnston retreated from Centerville in 1862, he put quaker guns in his field works to delay the Union. The Confederacy would use this tactic a number of times throughout the war, with the more well-known situations being at the Siege of Corinth and the siege of Petersburg.
But they would be facing General George McClellan, entrenched with upwards of 30,000 men in Arlington. Today, McClellan is known as someone who couldn't move quickly, who didn't take advantage of his numerical superiority, and who was never happy with his logistics. In a fight for Washington, most if not all of his disadvantages would have been nullified. He would be facing an enemy that was coming directly to him. He would be fighting from a prepared defensive position, not out in the open field. And he would be fighting with the entire might of the Army of the Potomac.
An attack against Washington in the fall of 1861 would still be a ferocious fight. But it would be a Union victory. Fighting from prepared positions, with greater numbers of soldiers and artillery, and with a firm supply line, it would be a massive victory for the North. It would completely shift the momentum of the early months of the war, and might deal a death blow to the Confederacy. With their largest army destroyed, it would be difficult to continue the fight against the already numerically superior Union.
It was a risk not worth taking. And after all, their war was a primarily defensive one. The South could win simply by continuing to exist. It did not need to take Washington to win. It was the North that had to go on the attack, which it did with the Peninsula Campaign during the spring of 1862. That campaign would in turn spark the next chance for the Confederacy to attack Washington The 1862 Maryland Campaign.
The Maryland Campaign
In the fall of 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Robert E. Lee, crossed the Potomac and invaded Maryland. The invasion had many purposes, Jefferson Davis and Lee both hoped that a major victory on Union soil would bring France and Great Britain into the war on the side of the Confederacy. Barring that, Lee hoped to cut the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which supplied Washington and Baltimore and be able to threaten if not outright capture Baltimore. In the process, he might succeed in spurring Confederate sympathizers in Maryland to make more overt efforts against the Union or possibly even get Maryland to join the confederacy.
Lee wanted no part of attacking the heavily-defended city of Washington. But let's imagine that Lee believes he can take Washington in the wake of a successful Antietam. After all, marching on Harrisburg, Philadelphia, or Baltimore would extend Lee's supply lines possibly beyond the breaking point and leave him vulnerable to encirclement from the state defenders and departments that would buzzing all around.
Moving south after the Antietam-like battle, Lee would have faced a hostile countryside and scattered Union units that would slow his army's progress. The vast majority of Marylanders were staunch Unionists, and in OTL's campaign, Lee had to forcibly requisition much of his army's supplies. This would be the case in this scenario as well. The end result is that his progress will be slowed, allowing for the Army of the Potomac, which would have retreated east or south, to regroup and resume the pursuit. Lee figured that he would be able to gain many volunteers into his army but only about 200 men actually signed up. A fair portion of his army refused to go into Maryland, either because of them being unfit (most of the solders didn't even have proper shoes) and many of them refused as they signed up to protect their homeland, not to invade another.
If Lee chooses to attack Washington in this scenario, he will do so against a defensive presence that is fully aware and ready to meet him. In OTL's Battle of Antietam, Lee could muster 45,000 troops compared to nearly 90.000 union troops. If we imagine around 10,000 casualties at our Antietam, which is the lower estimate of what the Confederacy ended up receiving. that would leave 35,000 able-bodied men to face Washington, a city with 25,000 defenders. Add in the 5,000-15,000 Union army soldiers present in the city but not assigned to it, and Lee will be facing between 30,000 and 40,000 entrenched, forewarned soldiers defending their capital city. This also does not include the various departments that existed within the north with their own defenses. Pennsylvania raised 40,000 men (albeit militia) that would also be used against the Confederates nor does it include the Army of the Potomac itself which would have at least 65,000 able-bodied men under it's command. In OTL, the army still had two whole corps numbering some 24,000 men that had not been thrown into battle. Lee's army had been nearly bled dry and it had only been the timely arrival of A.P Hills brigade of 1,800 men arriving from Harper’s Ferry that prevented a collapse during the battle.
This will not be a surprise attack as was at Fort Stevens (hint hint, watch my video). The defenders will be alert, waiting, and have numbers greater than those of Lee's forces. They will be somewhat demoralized, and will no doubt have a new commander following McClellan's defeat, but after they regroup, they will be a force to be reckoned with, particularly if Lee is involved in a lengthy struggle to capture Washington.
At the time, the rule of thumb taught at West Point was that an attacking force should have double or more the strength of the defending force in order to successfully attack and hold a position. It wasn’t a fast rule by any means, but it’s an example of the type of thinking that went on during the war. In this case, Lee would be going up against a heavily-fortified position occupied by numbers greater than his own. For all his expert generalship, even Robert E. Lee would be hard-pressed to outflank a circle. Lee's army had 246 guns during the Antietam battle, 82 of these guns were rifled, with 112 of them were smooth-bores, the remaining 52 were of unknown type. The Potomac army had 293 guns of which 166 of them were rifled. The union tended to rely more on massive smooth-bore fire compared to more accurate rifled fire by the Confederates.
In order to capture Washington in the Maryland Campaign, Lee would have had to meet and defeat the Union army in an Antietam-like battle, advance south, break through the massive defenses protecting Washington, and defeat the 35,000 defenders of Washington, all before the onset of winter, scarcely two months away. Lee would have to defeat over 120,000 men in two battles, with fewer than 45,000 of his own men. The Potomac river would still be an open avenue for supply and reinforcement. The CSS Virginia had been scuttled before lee's Maryland campaign and even if it wasn't, couldn't have assisted in the siege. The Potomac river was 17 feet at low tide and 21 feet at high tide. The Virginia’s draft was 22 feet after the battle with the Monitor and while it's two 7-inch Brooke rifles, two 6-inch Brooke rifles, and six 9-inch Dahlgren smooth-bore broadside would have been very effective against the forts, trying to keep it at anchor would have been near impossible. She was badly ventilated, very uncomfortable, and very unhealthy. There was an average of fifty or sixty at the hospital, in addition to the sick list on board.
Gettysburg
Lee's final opportunity to take Washington would be in the wake of a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. If Lee could somehow win at Gettysburg without taking overwhelming casualties (no small feat), the door might be open for an advance on Washington but even that would be an impossible task.
Lee's invasion had three main goals. The first one was to upset any summer plans that the Union may have for action in the east and encourage the growth of the peace movement in the north which was met with some success. The second was to relieve pressure indirectly from Vicksburg. Lee assumed that if he invaded then forces from all over the Union would be called back to the east, including significant numbers from Grant's veteran army. This ploy ended up failing, as Grant lost not a single regiment and actually received some reinforcement during this period of time. Thirdly, Lee wanted to be able to have his men be able to live off the rich Northern farmland and give the farms and farmers in Virginia a much needed break. This he also accomplished, driving over 20,000 cattle and 22,000 sheep back into Virginia after the Gettysburg battle.
Many of the problems that face Lee in the 1862 scenario are still present in the post-Gettysburg campaign. Any prolonged attempt to take Washington brings the threat that the Army of the Potomac will regroup and take Lee in the rear, or any other massed amount of men that the North could rather easily put forth would bleed his army dry. The amount of artillery for the Army of the Potomac numbered some 360 pieces, while the Confederates had 270 pieces, on both sides, half of these were rifled iron pieces, and of the remainder, all but four were smooth-bore bronze Napoleons. The Confederates did have two whit-worth breech-loading pieces that were also used at Fredricksburg. However, the gunners didn't exactly know how to best use it's ability of such a long range, and used it more as a highly accurate skirmishing piece.
The defenses of Washington are simply too strong to take in a single quick stroke, and with the threat of the Army of the Potomac, Lee cannot afford to be pinned down in a protracted campaign for the city. If he hurts the Army of the Potomac badly enough, a city like Baltimore might be open to his troops for a short period of time, but not Washington. The battle of Gettysburg wasn't actually planned in the first place. It was a mere encounter between Northern men and Southern men that wanted shoes..
Many would say that having Stuarts Calvary not being taken on such a long detour would have changed the outcome of the battle even though I myself am more skeptical of that. Lee did not need to fight at Gettysburg at all, it was his change of mind set of the objectives of his invasion that made him. Lee's original plan was a mere raid, evade his opponent and strike a weaker spot, cause trouble and panic, then retreat. Once he changed his thought to fighting a pitched battle then his chances of failure where all that much higher. That's not saying that it would be impossible for him to have won such an engagement but it wouldn't be the most productive unless he won a Fredrickburgs style battle and managed to capture important cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh. Just winning a battle for the Confederates was rarely enough. Ad the casualties taken by both sides would normally leave them within the same sort of force ratio as before, but both sides needing to re-group and tend to their wounds.
Lee's best hope would have been to avoid a pitched battle anyway. The Army of the Potomac was in a bit of leader trouble at the moment. Hooker had just been replaced by Meade the army was spread over thirty miles and his orders were to follow Lee and protect Washington. Meade was tempted to establish a defensive line along Pipe Creek, covering Washington, Baltimore and if need be Philadelphia. Lee's first objective was Harrisburg, where he planned to destroy the bridges and rail connection, plus get whatever artillery, munitions and supplies that were located within the city then retreat back into Virginia through the Shenandoah.
As to whether or not Lee would be able to take over Harrisburg is dubious. Along with the Army of the Potomac. The department of the Susquehanna had 33,000 men centered around the city and were in the process of building earthworks and other fortifications. Skirmishes broke out from June 28th-july 1st around Chamsburg, a few miles from Harrisburg proper. Harrisburg is located across a mile wide river so unless Lee could manage to somehow have one of the two bridges be kept intact for him, he would need to bring up or create pontoons to cross over and major pontoon actions always seem to produce problems in this war...
Throughout the war, the defenses of Washington never stopped growing. New blockhouses were built monthly, and forts popped up wherever there was a dead spot in the terrain. In April 1865, even when it was clear that the Confederacy couldn't threaten the city, new blockhouses were constructed, and at the time of Lee's surrender, four more were being built. Forts were under constant remodeling and expansion from the time they were constructed to the time of the armistice.
The logistical and manpower problems that face the Confederates form the third problem facing any attack on Washington. Even if the Army of the Potomac is defeated, it will inflict heavy casualties on the opposition. The South does not have an unlimited supply of soldiers or equipment, and if the battle is costly enough, an attack on Washington may very well be impossible given the numbers involved. At the battle of Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia could muster just under 72,000 troops. It suffered roughly 23,000 casualties in that fight, as did the Union Army, which was in a defensive position. Attempting to take Washington so soon after even an alternate Gettysburg could well mean the complete collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia. Unlike the Union Army, the South could not afford the loss of the Army of Northern Virginia, and that's exactly what would have happened if the Confederacy attempted to take Washington at any of these three points.
