Edward Porter Alexander, Military memoirs of a Confederate: a critical narrative

It was now for Lee to take the offensive — a role appealing strongly to his disposition. The defensive was to invite the enemy to accumulate his resources to the point at which their very weight would crush us. But, for a brief period, we enjoyed a choice of the field of action. It was a fatal mistake that in this choice we failed to utilize the single advantage in the game of war, which the Confederacy enjoyed.

We occupied the ‘Interior Lines,’ and could reinforce from one flank to the other, across our country, more quickly than the enemy could discover and follow our movements by roundabout routes. Only by such transfers of her armies could the South ever hope to face her adversaries with superior, or even with equal, numbers— by demanding double duty of her regiments, fighting battles with them alternately in the east and in the west. In Lee we had a leader of phenomenal ability, could this policy have been once adopted under his direction. Here in May, 1863, was presented a rare opportunity to inaugurate what might be called an ‘Army on Wheels’ within the Confederate lines, as distinguished from an Army of Invasion beyond them. The situation was this. Grant was investing Vicksburg with 60,000 men, and we were threatened with the loss of the Mississippi River, and of 30,000 men at Vicksburg under Pemberton. At Jackson, Miss., Johnston, with scarcely 24,000 men, was looking on and begging vainly for reenforcements.

At Murfreesboro, Tenn., Bragg, with about 45,000 Confederates, confronted Rosecrans with about 84,000. Neither felt strong enough for the aggressive, and the whole spring and summer passed idly. At Knoxville were about 5000 Confederates under Buckner, and there were also scattered brigades in southwest Va. and eastern N. C., from which reinforcements might be drawn. In this state of affairs, Longstreet, with Hood's and Pickett's divisions, arrived in Petersburg, under orders to rejoin Lee at Fredericksburg. Hooker had just been driven across the Rappahannock, and his army was soon to lose largely from the expiration of terms of service of many regiments.

Nothing aggressive was probable from him for many weeks.