At about 4:30 or so that afternoon Lieutenant General James Longstreet, commander of the Confederate 1st Corps, found General Lee on Seminary Ridge just west of Gettysburg. Longstreet arrived in time to hear Hill's report to Lee on the days fighting and in time to see the Federals falling back onto their ever strengthening position south of town.

Generals Lee and Longstreet talked about what to do next. Longstreet urged Lee to move the army around the Federal left get between Washington or Baltimore and Meade's army which would be forced to pursue and attack. "...we shall beat them, as we proposed to do before we left Fredricksburg, and the probabilities are that the fruits of our success will be great."

"No," replied Lee, "the enemy is there and I am going to strike him there."

Longstreet reminded his commanding general that he had thought that they had agreed to a campaign that was "offensive in strategy but defensive in tactics."

"No, they are there in position and I am going to whip them or they are going to whip me." Lee said as he pointed across the field, "If the enemy is there tomorrow, we must attack him."

"If he is there," said Longstreet shaking his head gravely, "it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him - a good reason in my judgement for not doing so."

Between 5:00 and 6:00 Lee asked Colonel Armistead H. Long, of Lee's staff, to reconnoiter the enemy's position. No one knows the type of reconnaissance that Long made but he reported the obvious - the Federal position was occupied in force. With this report Lee turned to Generals Hill and Longstreet and said, "Gentlemen, we will attack the enemy in the morning as early as practicable." Lee then asked them to make the necessary arrangements. Longstreet recalled later that he received no other orders.

Lee later wrote in his Official Report, "It had not been intended to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy, but, finding ourselves unexpectedly confronted by the Federal Army, it became a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountains with our large trains. At the same time, the country was unfavorable for collecting supplies while in the presence of the enemy's main body, as he was enabled to restrain our foraging parties by occupying the passes of the mountains with regular and local troops. A battle thus became, in a measure, unavoidable. Encouraged by the successful issue of the engagement of the first day, and in view of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of the army of General Meade, it was thought advisable to renew the attack."

I wonder just how much in this report is CYA? Lee did not want to bring on a general engagement so far from his base? Then why did he take the entire Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania? The whole point was to take the war out of Virginia and on ground of his choosing fight and defeat the Federal army. Lee had received a report the night of June 30 that there was Federal cavalry in Gettysburg and there was infantry, a division or more, within easy supporting distance of that cavalry. Lee also knew of Hill's decision to send Heth's division onto Gettysburg, in what Hill later described as, "a reconnaissance in force". What about withdrawing the supply wagons back through the mountain pass. This is exactly what he did on July 5th. As an example of how lightly pressed his army was after the battle at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia waited 5 days to get across the Potomac back into Virginia because of high water. Foraging parties would have trouble with local troops? Local troops...Militia. Militia that was made up of untrained shotgun and muzzleloader wielding old men and boys. Surely they were no match for the trained and battle hardened men of the Army of Northern Virginia. I believe it was Stonewall Jackson that had said, militia may have kept me out of a position, but they never drove me out of one either. Since the southern army did not get back into Virginia until the 14th of July, foraging in the presence of the northern army could not have been that big of a problem. What is comes down to is that Lee was spoiling for a fight and he found one at Gettysburg.