After It the South Never Again Tried to Invade the North
In the first days of July 1863, two great armies converged at the small boondocks of Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Begun as a skirmish between Spousal relationship cavalry and Confederate infantry scouting for supplies, the boxing escalated into one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
The Union's eventual victory in the Battle of Gettysburg would give the North a major morale boost and put a definitive end to Confederate Full general Robert Eastward. Lee'south assuming programme to invade the Due north. Widely viewed as a primal turning point in the state of war, the boxing would take on fifty-fifty more importance after that year, when President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate the battleground's cemetery.
Lee's 'Invincible' Army
By June of 1863, having merely led his Army of Northern Virginia to a stunning victory in the Boxing of Chancellorsville, Lee was riding high. From this position of strength, he convinced Confederate leaders to approve a bold strategy of invading Pennsylvania, hoping to deal the Yankees a burdensome defeat on their dwelling turf.
"Lee says more than in one case that he believes his men would be invincible," explains Jennifer Murray, a history professor at Oklahoma State University and the writer of On A Keen Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013. A successful invasion of Marriage territory, the Amalgamated general hoped, would convince Northerners to abandon their support for Lincoln's state of war endeavour in droves.
Accidental Meeting at Gettysburg
On June 28, with Lee'due south army on the motion in Pennsylvania, Lincoln removed Joseph Hooker equally commander of the Ground forces of the Potomac, replacing him with George G. Meade. This marked the 3rd change of command seen by the Army of the Potomac in 1863.
"The Union soldiers are confident in themselves," Murray says. "But they're a picayune more questionable about their leadership, and about this cord of commanders coming in again and again."
Full general George Gordon Meade.
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Along with the news of the command change, Lee shortly learned that the Union troops were closer than he expected them to exist. "[Lee'south] cavalry, led by J.Eastward.B. Stuart, is out sort of joy riding, and not doing a actually expert task of bringing intelligence over to Lee," Murray points out. Abandoning his programme to bulldoze deeper into Pennsylvania, toward Harrisburg, Lee ordered his regular army to concentrate at Cashtown, a tiny boondocks located most eight miles west of Gettysburg.
With nearly a dozen roads leading into and out of boondocks, Gettysburg was a cardinal destination for moving troops. On June 30, a few Amalgamated divisions headed there in search of shoes and other supplies, and encountered two brigades of Union cavalry.
Facts About the Battle
Though the bulk of the Army of the Potomac was still in Maryland, fulfilling Lincoln's orders to stay between Washington and the rebel ground forces, the cavalry units were scouting ahead to find out intel about the enemy position. After initially pulling back to Cashtown, the Confederate soldiers decided to become back to Gettysburg the next day (July 1) and go the supplies they needed, fifty-fifty if it meant confronting the Wedlock troops.
"The first shot of the battle is fired a trivial bit later 7:00 in the morning," Murray says. "Neither Meade nor Lee wait to Gettysburg on a map and say, we're going to fight there. Information technology begins as an blow, and so it escalates."
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The first day of fighting appeared to exist another Confederate victory, as the rebels collection their Yankee counterparts into retreat through the town of Gettysburg. Only Matrimony troops even so held the high ground south of town, on Cemetery Ridge, which would show crucial in the days to come.
On July 2, Lee sought to press his advantage, launching massive assaults on both sides of the Matrimony line. The hesitance of his subordinate generals allowed more Union reinforcements to go far, strengthening their defensive positions and enabling them to stall the insubordinate onslaught. With over 20,000 casualties, the 2d day at Gettysburg would stand as one of the war'due south bloodiest days of fighting.
Lee tried once again on July 3, believing his "invincible" army could triumph with just one more than push button. Simply the attack, by fewer than 15,000 Confederate soldiers led by George Pickett, was a "catastrophic failure," says Murray, with nearly 5,600 insubordinate soldiers killed, wounded or captured. The post-obit day, Lee began preparations to move his army south, with Meade in pursuit. Ultimately, with the Confederates dug in along the Potomac, Meade decided against an assail, giving Lee'due south forces time to cross the river dorsum into Virginia (and earning Lincoln's ire).
A slain soldier at Devil'due south Den on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
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How Many Died and the Touch of Gettysburg
Casualties were loftier on both sides at Gettysburg, merely the Confederates undoubtedly suffered more lasting damage. In all, some 28,000 Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded or missing, comprising ane-third of Lee's entire regular army, and including several of Lee's trusted subordinates. Though the Confederate general would go on to other military victories south of the Mason-Dixon line, he would never over again lead an invasion of the N.
On the other hand, Gettysburg reinvigorated the Union war effort, especially when combined with Ulysses S. Grant's near-simultaneous capture of Vicksburg in the state of war'due south western theater.
"Iii days after the battle, the headline of the Philadelphia Enquirer reads 'Waterloo Eclipsed,'" says Murray. "But days after it ended, Philadelphians and Northerners are thinking of the Boxing of Gettysburg every bit comparable to the battle that defeated Napoleon and completely reshaped the geopolitical situation of western Europe."
For Union troops, stopping Lee's invasion, and defeating insubordinate troops on northern soil, provided a much-needed surge in morale that would sustain them into the next grueling phase of state of war.
The Gettysburg Address
Merely the clash took on fifty-fifty more significance in Nov 1863, when President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. In 1 famously brief speech, Lincoln consecrated the battlefield, honored the cede of the soldiers who died in that location and redefined the state of war as a struggle not just for the Union, but for the nation.
As Lincoln said, "...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, nether God, shall take a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall non perish from the globe."
Source: https://www.history.com/news/battle-gettysburg-turning-point-civil-war
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