The Civil War was fought between the Northern and Southern parts of the United States of America, since there were many disputes between the two regions. The South called themselves the Confederates, while the North called themselves the Union army.2
The battle of Gettysburg was one of the most horrific battles of the Civil War. Over fifty thousand soldiers were found dead, wounded, or went missing in a period of three days, July 1-3 of 1863. That is the most number of casualties that has occurred during any battle in American history.3 The battle took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where President Lincoln made a speech entitle the Gettysburg Address five months later, on November 19th of 1863.4
General Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, decided to invade the North in June of 1863. Thus, Lee and his seventy-five-thousand-man army began to march towards Gettysburg, coming from Fredericksburg, Virginia. In order to make his troops more manageable, General Lee divided his army of two corps into three corps. James Longstreet was to command the First Corps, Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell was put in charge of the Second Corps, and Lieutenant General A.P. Hill gained control of the Third Corps.5
Major General Joseph Hooker commanded the Union Army of Potomac. There were over ninety thousand men in his army. Later, President Abraham Lincoln would replace Hooker with Major General George G. Meade, since Hooker had proved to be a failure during the previous battles.6
In the middle of June, the Confederate Army crossed the Potomac River and entered Maryland and southern Pennsylvania.7 Hooker's Union Army followed, staying between Washington D.C. and the Confederates, so that in order for Lee's army to attack the c...
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...ivil War Era. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) 653.
12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
13 William L. Barney. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 145.
14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
16 William L. Barney. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 146.
17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
18 Gina DeAngelis. The Battle of Gettysburg: Turning Point of the Civil War. (MN: Bridgestone Books, 2003) 30.
19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
21 William L. Barney. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 147.
From July 1st to July 3rd, 1863, the most famous and most important Civil War Battle took place in the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Confederates under Robert E. Lee advanced on the Union in hopes of taking the major city of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or even Washington D.C. Union commander General George Meade was sent to make sure none of this would happen. General Robert E. Lee was determined to invade the North and win a victory important for southern morale, leads his army toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he hopes to destroy railroad bridges linking east with west. He is unaware that a large union force headed by General Meade is headed in the same direction.
After the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville in May of 1863, General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia embarked on their 2nd invasion of the north. General Lee’s first campaign into the north resulted in the Confederate defeat at Antietam. The failure of Lee’s first northern campaign raises the question of his motives. The Confederate Army was...
Heidler, David Stephen, and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a
McPherson, James M.; The Atlas of the Civil War. Macmillan: 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY. 1994.
From Revolution to Reconstruction.2006. “An Outline of American History (1994).”[Available Online][cited June 20, 2008] http://www.let.rug.nl/
Shenton, James P. The Reconstruction: A Documentary History of the South after the War: 1865
Before the battle, major cities in the North such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, and even Washington, were under threat of attack from General Robert E. Lee?s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia which had crossed the Potomac River and marched into Pennsylvania.
Both forces were moving towards Pennsylvania, when they converged upon Gettysburg. General Lee decided to take the fighting to Northern soil, and moved his troops to Maryland. While heading north, the two forces converged at Gettysburg, and the fighting began soon thereafter. After news of the fighting, General Meade arrived on the battlefield on the second day of battle..
America has gone through many hardships and struggles since coming together as a nation involving war and changes in the political system. Many highly regarded leaders in America have come bestowing their own ideas and foundation to provide a better life for “Americans”, but no other war or political change is more infamous than the civil war and reconstruction. Reconstruction started in 1865 and ended in 1877 and still to date one of the most debated issues in American history on whether reconstruction was a failure or success as well as a contest over the memory, meaning, and ending of the war. According to, “Major Problems in American History” David W. Blight of Yale University and Steven Hahn of the University of Pennsylvania take different stances on the meaning of reconstruction, and what caused its demise. David W. Blight argues that reconstruction was a conflict between two solely significant, but incompatible objectives that “vied” for attention both reconciliation and emancipation. On the other hand Steven Hahn argues that former slaves and confederates were willing and prepared to fight for what they believed in “reflecting a long tradition of southern violence that had previously undergirded slavery” Hahn also believes that reconstruction ended when the North grew tired of the 16 year freedom conflict. Although many people are unsure, Hahn’s arguments presents a more favorable appeal from support from his argument oppose to Blight. The inevitable end of reconstruction was the North pulling federal troops from the south allowing white rule to reign again and proving time travel exist as freed Africans in the south again had their civil, political, and economical position oppressed.
People attending schools before 1960’s were learning about certain “unscrupulous carpetbaggers”, “traitorous scalawags”, and the “Radical Republicans”(223). According to the historians before the event of 1960’s revision, these people are the reason that the “white community of South banded together to overthrow these “black” governments and restore home rule”(223). While this might have been true if it was not for the fact that the “carpetbaggers were former Union soldiers”, “Scalawags… emerged as “Old Line” Whig Unionists”(227). Eric Foner wrote the lines in his thesis “The New View of Reconstruction” to show us how completely of target the historians before the 1960’s revision were in their beliefs.
Perman Michael, Amy Murrell Taylor. Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011.
How did the foundation for such a deep commitment to the Union and the army develop, especially given the decentralized nature of federalism and the relatively small size of national institutions like the army prior to the war? If the war was less transformative of Northern views of slavery and race than previous scholars have supposed, does this suggest that Radical Reconstructionist hopes were largely stillborn? How, then, do we explain the political transformation from a pre-war Thirteenth Amendment that, if ratified, would have all but guaranteed slavery's permanency to a series of postwar amendments that not only ended the institution but expanded civil rights and the franchise to include freedmen? Answering these difficult questions requires an appreciation of the diverse approaches needed to account for the complex intersections of racial ideas and the institution of slavery with republican institutions and political practices. The Union War calls for a reassessment of some of the foundational assumptions that we bring to these and other questions.
McPHERSON, James M. "Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction." (n.d.): n. pag. Rpt. in Major Problems in American History Series. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 10. Print.
Lee is very quick; he organized scattered confederate troops into the famed Army of Northern Virginia in just three weeks. Lee’s wisdom urged him to keep the Union as far away as possible from the armament producing center of Richmond and far away from the northern part of the state where farmers were harvesting crops. Lee knows that defeats of such decisive sports will weaken our will to continue the war, and he prevented this at all costs.
The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, or simply the Civil War in the United States, was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America . The states that remained in the Union were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Foreign powers did not intervene. After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing rights to the freed slaves began.