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View Full Version : Gettysburg 150 years later



pjohns
07-01-2013, 06:59 PM
It is now at the beginning of the three-day event known as the Battle of Gettysburg. And it is certainly arguable that it appeared, after the first day of fighting, that the Confederacy was about to carry the day.

But it was the third day of fighting that really mattered.

Names such as Cemetary Ridge; Culp's Hill; Little Round Top; and the Devil's Den will forever be engraved in the memories of Civil War buffs (as regarding which, I am one).

But the term that we will most easily rememeber is Pickett's Charge. It was that ill-fated military maneuver that sealed the Confederacy's fate on that July day in 1863.

In the end, there were slightly more Union casualties there than there were Confederate casualties (roughly 30,100 to 27,000). But lest anyone should suppose that this meant good things for the Confederacy--well, it meant anything but that.

The only "good thing" for the Confederacy, to arise from this three-day-long battle, was the fact that Gen. George Meade (who had recently replaced Gen. Joseph Hooker at the command of the Union forces there) did not pursue the tattered troops of Gen. Robert E. Lee, following the battle.

But for all its horrendous losses, the Union would persevere. For Lee, this battle (in conjunction with the successful siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi) amounted to the beginning of the end.

Peter1469
07-01-2013, 07:21 PM
It was an amazing battle.

Mister D
07-01-2013, 07:21 PM
That was certainly a one-two punch that set the south reeling. That said, Confederate fortunes in the west were never good. I think the west was indicative of the south's true situation while Lee's genius in the east tended to blur it.