re: June 28, 1863 - "The whole Yankee army is comin' this way..."

quote:

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New York in 1860 had a million people. Philadelphia 600,000. Baltimore 250,000.

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Are you suggesting the civilian populations of those cities were going to resist a military occupation by portions of the army of northern Virginia? Because no city in the south did at any point in the war in any meaningful way. They were far more likely to panic and try to buy off the southern troops as they did before the engagement at Gettysburg than plan some guerrilla insurrection. I’d also point out the NYC riots were soon to pop off so it’s not as though this was a popular war in many sections of the north to begin with.

Even raiding and burning would worked while also returning unlimited amounts of supplies and impacting war production while spreading chaos and war fatigue across the north in an unprecedented way.

As far as the rest well given what Sherman did anyway and the northern politicians did during reconstruction I don’t buy the “north took it easy on them” argument.

And again, it wasn’t a perfect option but if my choices are send Longstreet up little round top and Pickett at superior numbers at cemetery hill or slide out and force the Union to attack me while I raid, resupply and sow chaos put me down for option B in a heartbeat.