GDG- Pipe Creek

[elcarto at comcast.net]

>>But I don't see Lee hitting Meade against the Pipe Creek line in enemy 
territory.  The line is too strong and Lee has to know he can't overcome such a 
line against Meade even if he thinks his army is invincible.  If Meade falls 
back, Lee is able to gain the initiative and make Meade move to Lee's wishes.  
If Meade falls back, Lee is able to rove again in enemy territory and Lee knows 
Washington won't allow that.   -  Andy

Just by moving forward as he did Meade stopped Lee from 'roving' ; it was the knowledge that the AoP was simply north of the Potomac that forced Lee to order the sudden concentration of his own army east of South Mountain (to keep the AOP east as well, and protect his own LOC down and up the Valley.)  But in doing so, he had to curtail his 'raid' and face battle.

I believe that Lee pretty well spelled out his overall intentions in that famous quote to Trimble, when he said that he wanted to force the AoP to wear and stretch itself out in marching after him, and then, by rapid movement and maneuver, concentrate his own army and destroy the AoP piece by piece as it moved towards him.  And I certainly think that was his intention when he ordered that Concentration on the night of the 28th.  He knew that the AoP have moved forward faster than he (and everyone else wearing gray) had allowed for, but I still don't think that he had any idea that it was actually as concentrated as it already was when Meade took command.  And so I think hew was still hoping to pounce on whatever part of the AoP he ran into first.

Unfortunately, both his lack of familiarity with the terrain (this wasn't Virginia!) and his lack of knowledge of what was in front of him (no Stuart) combined to rob him of the chance of the sort of maneuvering that led to 2nd Manassas.  I think that battle in particular was the 'model' of what he was trying to achieve in PA, and also gives a hint of what might have happened at Pipe Creek.

Had Meade stopped there, he had a very good defensive line covering all the major roads leading to Baltimore and Washington, but covering about 20 miles from Middletown on the west to Manchester in the east.  I agree that Lee wouldn't have just attacked it directly - it IS 'good ground'.  And I don't think he would have maneuvered to the east, as the defensive ground just gets better the further east you go, and Lee's LOC just gets longer and more precarious.  

But Meade's line doesn't cover the main road from Gettysburg down to Frederick, and I think that would have been Lee's best chance to achieve his goal.  My guess is that he might have tried some sort of feint against Reynolds from the north while maneuvering the rest of the ANV around to the west and south, in an attempt to envelop the left wing of the AOP before Meade could get the rest of the troops there.  That's the scenario that I envisioned in designing my Pipe Creek maps for our games.

The problem for Lee is that in trying to take up a position on good ground and then hoping that the AOP would willingly hand him another Fredericksburg, it also requires handing the initiative over to his opponent (and if there's any general who hated to do that, it was Lee!)   He was able to beat both McClellan and Hooker, against worse odds than at Gettysburg, precisely because he grabbed the initiative and never gave it back; never gave his opponent the chance to catch his breath, as it were.  I think that explains Lee's actual actions at Gettysburg, and shows what he might have tried had the situation been slightly different.

Rick Barber