The Battle of Gettysburg
The American Civil War is referred to as, the Ancient Wars and the start of the Modern Wars. When the Civil War began, all types of weapons were in short supply. Many Soldiers were given some out of date and nearly obsolete weapons at the time of The Battle of Gettysburg. The Forces involved in the Civil War were clearly fighting for the rights of their people. The North “Union Army” wanted to abolish slavery and the South “Confederate Army” wanted to maintain their rights to own slaves and expand their territories. Many of the ancient battles of the Civil war provided some key advantages for the Northern forces. A couple of them were simply quantity and quality in regards to the Battle of Gettysburg. As opposed to the Confederates in the South, General Meade’s Army of the Potomac had more cannons used for artillery, and was in overall better quality than those that assisted General Lee’s Army into Pennsylvania.
Strategic / Operational Overview
The Battle of Gettysburg is probably known as, the most famous battle of the American Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought between July 1st, 1863 and July 3rd, 1863 near the town of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
In May 1863, General Robert E. Lee (Confederate Army Commander) moved his Army North once again due to his success at The Battle of Chancellorsville. General Lee and his men were motivated and ready to move on to the next battle. General Lee was hoping to pressure President Lincoln into a peaceful resolution. The Union Army looked to be in a difficult situation at this time due to Major General Joseph Hooker (The Union Army Commander); the current leader of the Washington D.C. Army was relieved and replaced with General Meade. General ...
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McPherson, James M. “Bruce Cotton’s The Civil War”. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1960. Print
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Both Armies repositioned their artillery to the most advantageous position but it appeared that the Army of Northern Virginia had surrounded the Army of the Potomac but in a less defensible position. When two Armies meet on a battlefield the overall objective is to eliminate the opposition, so one of them would have to make a move. Lee ordered Generals Longstreet and Ewell to attack but due to a lack of decisive action on Longstreet’s part, the day would end in the bloodiest offensive of the battle and Longstreet would suffer great losses by Cemetery Hill .
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...
One of the best commanders in the Confederate army was Lee still; the Union stood at a better standpoint during the battle. “Perhaps the most significant lesson from July 3, 1863, concerns the method of decision-making. Though he may not have seen it as such, Lee’s decision to attack was at best a close call.” (Gompert 2006, pg.7). The battle of Gettysburg did not happen intentionally, planned however Lee did an astounding job and his best to defeat the Union army. Ultimately Robert E. Lee was responsible for the South’s loss
The famous Battle of Gettysburg was a major part of the Civil War. Before the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate army had the advantage. Although the casualty tolls of both armies were relatively close in numbers, the North and the South’s attitudes towards the war completely differed after the Battle of Gettysburg. The events occurring in the months following the historic battle were what gave the Union Troops the greatest advantage leading to their victory at the end of the Civil War.
...e Confederate forces. A Union attack on Petersburg on April 2, 1865 forced Lee to retreat from Richmond and go west. His forces were surrounded. Lee with overwhelming odds surrendered to Grant on April 9th 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After Lee surrendered to Grant other Confederate armies followed and the war came to an end.
The battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the civil war because a lot of the generals lost their lives from the great wars. According to the letters (Doc C) from General Robert E. Lee states “ General Barksdale is killed. Generals Garnett and Armstead are missing. Generals Pender and Trimore wounded in the leg. General Heth injured in the head. General Kemper is feared.” This shows that the battle of Gettysburg changed from that point on because the less generals that they had the harder it would be to train their soldiers, the less soldiers that know what to do it will be harder fight in the civil war. This connects back to why the
Union Commander Meade, out of fatigue and caution, did not immediately go after Lee, getting President Lincoln very angry who wrote a mad letter to Meade, which was never delivered, saying he missed an opportunity to end the war at this instance (The History Place Battle of Gettysburg 4). Although the casualties were basically equal, the Battle of Gettysburg was the second and last great invasion of the of the North, for the South had neither arms nor numbers to continue an assault, but the War dragged on for two more years. On November 19, President Lincoln went to the battlefield to dedicate it as a military cemetery. He spoke for a short period of time delivering what is called the Gettysburg Address, surprising many present in the audience with its shortness and leaving others quite unimpressed, but over time the speech has come to symbolize democracy as we know it today (Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia Vol. 11 385.
Every war, though happens for a reason and bring a better change, is often gruesome. The Civil War broke America in two groups and, at the time, was the war with the most casualties and injured men. As the fight to preserve the Union progressed, so did a number of other areas, such as weaponry and artillery. The advanced technology produced through the Civil War assisted in increasing number of casualties. The North was more fortuitous than the South in multitudinous ways. One of which includes the fact that their industrial society allowed them to produce a larger amount of weapons of a higher quality. One of the major reasons the Union triumphantly defeated the Confederate army was because of their more superior types of weapons.
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..
"Battles of the Civil War". Civil War. 2013. Civil War Trust. Web. 9 Dec 2013.
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.
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