In August the Army of the Potomac was transported by water back to Washington to support Pope’s campaign in Northern Virginia. McClellan’s failure to capture the Confederate Capital, combined with Lee’s failure to destroy the Union Army, assured the nation a long, bitter war that became one of the great turning points in American history.
The Years Between
Richmond, summer of 1862. From a contemporary sketch.
In August 1862 Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis: “If we are able to change the theater of the war from the James River to the north of the Rappahannock we shall be able to consume provisions and forage now being used in supporting the enemy.” So Lee moved into Northern Virginia to meet Pope’s threatened overland campaign against Richmond. At Second Manassas (Bull Run) the Union army was defeated again and withdrew into the fortifications around Washington.
Lee took advantage of this opportunity and made his first invasion north into Maryland, only to be defeated by McClellan at Antietam (Sharpsburg) in September. Lee then withdrew into Virginia, and at Fredericksburg in December he severely repulsed Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s move on Richmond. In the spring of 1863 the Union army, now under Hooker, attempted to flank Lee’s left and rear to cut him off from Richmond, but it was decisively defeated at Chancellorsville and driven back across the Rapidan. Lee then made his second thrust north, penetrating into Pennsylvania, but was beaten back by Meade at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 and, once again, retired into Virginia.
These gallant armies fought each other across the fields of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia before they clashed again in the outskirts of Richmond 2 years later.
Part Two
THE FINAL STRUGGLE FOR RICHMOND, 1864-65
Lincoln’s New Commander
In March 1864 President Lincoln appointed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as commanding general of all the Union armies. Said Grant: “In the east the opposing forces stood in substantially the same relations toward each other as three years before, or when the war began; they were both between the Federal and Confederate Capitals. Battles had been fought of as great severity as had ever been known in war * * * from the James River to Gettysburg, with indecisive results.” He hoped to change this situation by putting pressure on all Confederate armies at the same time, something that had never been done before.