Opposing presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, kept a close watch on the latest and often conflicting military intelligence gathered in the field. As the Virginia army moved north, the Army of the Potomac responded by protecting the vital roads to Washington, D.C., in case Lee turned to threaten the capital. The bold movement would trigger extensive cavalry fighting and a major battle at Winchester before culminating in the bloody three-day battle at Gettysburg. Jefferson Davis that his offensive would interfere with the Union effort to take Vicksburg in Mississippi. Transferring the fighting out of war-torn Virginia would allow the state time to heal while he supplied his army from untapped farms and stores in Maryland and the Keystone State. Lee believed his army needed to win a major victory on Northern soil if the South was to have a chance to win the war. Lee began moving his victorious Army of Northern Virginia from the Old Dominion into Pennsylvania on June 3, 1863. This first installment covers June 3-22, 1863, while the second, spanning June 22-30, completes the march and carries the armies to the eve of the fighting. This compelling study is one of the first to integrate the military, media, political, social, economic, and civilian perspectives with rank-and-file accounts from the soldiers of both armies as they inexorably march toward their destiny at Gettysburg. Wittenberg, the authors of more than forty Civil War books, have once again teamed up to present a history of the opening moves of the Gettysburg Campaign in the two-volume study "If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania": The Army of Northern Virginia's and Army of the Potomac's March to Gettysburg.
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