Gettysburgh

Gettysburg

The battle at Gettysburg is said to be one of the most significant battles throughout the Civil War. Lee and his Confederate army suffered conflicting view among leaders and underestimated the Union forces. Besides President Lincolns famous "Gettysburg Address" speech, that reevaluated Americas purpose for fighting this war, and hoped to reunite the country by restated the Constitution through his own words. This is one piece of history that every soldier, Union or Confederate, could identify. It can be argued that the defeat at Gettysburg cost the Confederate army the Civil War. Due to a misunderstanding between General Lee and Longstreet, the Confederate army placed their victory at Gettysburg in jeopardy.

First, General Longstreet's plan was to march into the Pennsylvania, draw the superior Army of the Potomac out of its fortifications around Washington; then, outmaneuver the larger, slower Union force and get between them and Washington. Lastly the confederate army would, find some high ground between the Army of the Potomac and Washington to defend, so the Union would be forced to attack in order to rescue their lines of communication with the capital.

The fighting at Gettysburg began largely as an accident when, on July 1, a column of Confederate troops moving south ran into and engaged the forward cavalry elements of the Union army. The Confederate generals, mistaking the Union forces for militia, attacked, hoping to secure supplies and requisitions from the town. The Union, however, saw this as the beginning of a larger battle and rushed regular infantry troops north to the battlefield. The Confederates, then, were forced to rush their forces to the field so that the Union army could not dismem...

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...ffensive mounted by the Confederates in the war.

Ironically, before the campaign, Lee had outlined a battle plan along the lines of Longstreet's suggestions, offensive strategy and defensive tactics. The core logic was that the smaller Confederate force was not capable of attacking the larger Union force; moreover, it was the Union's imperative to push the Confederates back out of Pennsylvania to protect their capital. The plan called for a series of maneuvers in which the Confederates would get behind the Union, and then, and only then, fight a pitched battle on ground of their choosing. When the medium-sized battle of the first day of Gettysburg broke out, Lee believed that it necessitated the alteration of the war plan, while Longstreet thought it actually strengthened the plan because now the Union forces, well-entrenched, would be so reluctant to move.