Contrary to popular belief, the Gettysburg Campaign did not end at the banks of the Potomac on July 14, but deep in central Virginia two weeks later along the line of the Rappahannock. Once Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped across the swollen Potomac back to Virginia the Lincoln administration pressed George Meade to cross quickly in pursuit—and he did. Rather than follow in Lee’s wake, however, Meade moved south on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains hoping for a chance to capture the strategic gaps penetrating the high wooded terrain and trap Lee in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley where the Federals might spark the potentially decisive victory that had eluded Union arms north of the Potomac.

The two weeks that followed was a grand chess match between Meade and Lee, both of who were operating without firm intelligence on their enemy’s movements and maneuvering with armies mauled by Gettysburg. Lee had to get his army through the mountains back to central Virginia in order to shield Richmond. Meade needed to stop him. The ensuing two weeks of hard marching, cavalry combats, heavy skirmishing, and set-piece fighting threatened to escalate into a major engagement with the potential to end the war in the Eastern Theater. Throughout, two things remained clear: Union soldiers from private to general continued to fear the lethality of Lee’s army and the Gettysburg Campaign was far from over.

Jeffrey William Hunt is Director of the Texas Military Forces Museum, the official museum of the Texas National Guard in Austin, TX and an adjunct professor of History at Austin Community College. He had also served as the Curator of Collections and Director of the Living History Program at the Admiral Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, TX, and is the author of The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch.

Copies of Mr. Hunt's book can be purchased here:

https://www.savasbeatie.com/meade-and...