View single post by pamc153PA
 Posted: Sat May 30th, 2009 07:25 pm
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pamc153PA
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Joined: Sat Jun 14th, 2008
Location: Boyertown, Pennsylvania USA
Posts: 407
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Mana: 
 I agree with the rest that had Lee won at Gettysburg, it would have been a small victory in that he hadn't the military strength to press on, to Philadlephia or anywhere else. It might have been a psychological punch in the nose to the Union Army and the North (We came onto your soil and beat you--ha!), but not one I think Lee could have followed up on. He'd have to go back south.

Which makes one wonder why exactly the push was made in the first place. I've heard that Lee wanted to take his army out of Virginia to let the farmers in that state plant/harvest. But July is really the time for neither of those. There wasn't really much to take, harvest-wise, from PA (cherries?). So perhaps the head game of winning on the other side's soil was the point. But after that. . . the impact would have been pretty much nullified when Lee had to go back to Virginia.

Pam