PART ONE
THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, SUMMER, 1862
(continued)

Richmond, summer of 1862.
From a contemporary sketch.

The Years Between

In August 1862 Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis: "If we are able to change the theater of the war from the James River to the north of the Rappahannock we shall be able to consume provisions and forage now being used in supporting the enemy." So Lee moved into Northern Virginia to meet Pope's threatened overland campaign against Richmond. At Second Manassas (Bull Run) the Union army was defeated again and withdrew into the fortifications around Washington.

Lee took advantage of this opportunity and made his first invasion north into Maryland, only to be defeated by McClellan at Antietam (Sharpsburg) in September. Lee then withdrew into Virginia, and at Fredericksburg in December he severely repulsed Gen. Ambrose Burnside's move on Richmond. In the spring of 1863 the Union army, now under Hooker, attempted to flank Lee's left and rear to cut him off from Richmond, but it was decisively defeated at Chancellorsville and driven back across the Rapidan. Lee then made his second thrust north, penetrating into Pennsylvania, but was beaten back by Meade at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 and, once again, retired into Virginia.

These gallant armies fought each other across the fields of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia before they clashed again in the outskirts of Richmond 2 years later.