Existing comment:
1864: Confederates Desperate:
"If victorious, we have everything to live for. If defeated, nothing will be left for us to live for."
-- General Robert E. Lee, summer, 1864
Lee Seeks a Plan:
Summer, 1864: Union troops held the Mississippi River, effectively dividing the Confederacy. Gen. William T. Sherman was in Georgia, threatening Atlanta. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had Robert E. Lee and his Confederate army pinned around Petersburg, Virginia, 20 miles south of Richmond. Other Union forces rampaged in the Shenandoah Valley.
The Confederacy needed a victory. Lee's army needed relief. Lee hoped to gain both by dispatching a force under General Jubal Early to the Shenandoah Valley. Defeat the Federals there, Lee proposed, and then use the Valley as a corridor into Maryland. Once in Maryland, perhaps lightly-defended Washington could be attacked.
Washington Unguarded:
With the main Federal armies positioned in Virginia, 120 miles from Washington, Lee knew the Union capital would be lightly defended. Any Confederate move against Washington would have to be a surprise. It would take Early's army nearly a month to move through the Shenandoah Valley and Maryland, while Grant could send troops to defend the capital city within two days.
On the 12th of June,
I received verbal orders from General Lee... to strike Hunter's force in the rear, and, if possible destroy it... then to move down the valley... and threaten Washington City. Hunter's force was considerably large than mine would have been, had it all be up (part of infantry was late arriving into Lynchburg on June 18th)... I did not feel justified in attacking him until I could do so with a fair prospect of success... As soon as the remainder of my infantry arrived by the railroad, arrangements were made for attacking Hunter at daylight on the 19th, but some time after midnight it was discovered that he was moving... I had seen our soldiers endure a great deal, but there was a limit to the endurance even of Confederate soldiers. A stern chase with infantry is a very difficult one, and Hunter's men were marching for their lives.
-- Lieutenant General Jubal Early from his memoirs |