A decisive battle at York?
Several accounts exist that indicate or suggest that Robert E. Lee had given considerable thought to making York his place of concentration should the Federal army pursue him northward. One can only imagine what might have happened should that event have occurred, and the Federal Army of the Potomac have tried to attack Lee on the hills and ridges south and west of York. Confederate artillery crowning the bastion of Webb's Hill? Pickett's men in a defensive posture guarding the western approaches from Gettysburg? The decisive Confederate victory that Lee dreamed of happening here in York? Millions of visitors a year and way too many tourist traps in York, while Gettysburg remains as just another obscure Pennsylvania county seat? The Battle of York????
Colonel W. H. Swallow was the Adjutant General of Robert Rodes' Confederate division of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, a rather powerful position with access to the inner circles of the Rebel high command. Well after the war, on November 7, 1886, he wrote a letter to author Jacob Hoke in which he claimed that Lee indeed planned to rendezvous at York, but the Federal army's hasty approach precluded that plan.
"General Ewell, and Colonel [T. T.] Turner of his staff, both told me in confidence at Berryville [Virginia], before crossing the Potomac, that York, Pennsylvania, or that vicinity, was to be the ground where Lee expected to concentrate his army. I believe that if Longstreet had not tarried so long at Chambersburg, York would have been the point of concentration on the 30th, instead of Gettysburg."
Rob Wynstra · January 7, 2008 11:41 AM
Scott--Swallow was not AAG with Rodes' division as best I know. I see him listed in one book as an engineer with Early's Division. I have not looked closely at his post-war writings, but I believe the name he uses is a pseudonym.
Scott Mingus · January 8, 2008 6:54 PM
Rob,
Jacob Hoke, a 19th Century historian, mentioned in his book on the Gettysburg Campaign that "Swallow" was Rodes' adjutant, but no one by that name appears on Confederate muster lists. From his writings, it is clear he had access to the highest levels of the corps, particularly Ewell, Rodes, and Early. Whoever he was, he was a prolific writer.