Clarifying the campaign

As a personal note to the battle at Sharpsburg, I’ll tell you about the class at William and Mary where Professor Ludwell H. Johnson III was describing Lee’s 1862 invasion of Maryland. He mentioned that one of Lee’s strategic intents was to supply his army, since the farms of Northern Virginia had been pretty well destroyed by the various maneuverings between Union and Confederate armies earlier in the year.

Yet he characterized the Army of Northern Virginia’s campaign as being without any looting or stealing. All the undergrads were madly taking notes, not finding discrepancies in this account. Finally one of the two grad students taking the class raised her hand and asked, “Uh, Dr. Johnson, you say that there was no thievery on this campaign, and yet one of Lee’s purposes was to provide food and supplies for his army?”

Professor Johnson fixed his gimlet eye upon the inquirer and replied, “Well, occasionally a high-spirited soldier might steal a watermelon…but Lee’s agents issued (Confederate) scrip for all the supplies they procured.”

Oh, yeah. Right.

The undergrads didn’t really grasp the subtleties of my question and its answer. And fortunately, Professor Johnson is an honorable man and he didn’t hold it against me when time came to grade my thesis.

I just wanted to make sure I understood the situation.