The Confederate's Defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg Essay

In the battle of Gettysburg, strategies were an important factor. Both of the sides had very good strategies. The union’s plan was to attack the confederates out of nowhere. The south’s plan was to defend using their land. There were many advantages and disadvantages for both the union and the confederacy. The unions advantages were that they had better leadership, access to supplies because of their factories, and a bigger population. Their disadvantages were that they in unknown territory, and high pressure. The confederates advantages were home court advantage, they had a skilled army, and they had good terrain to help them. Their disadvantages were that they had a smaller population and they had lots of land to cover. In this battle the union won.

No other war seems to hold our focus like the Civil War. Scholars have chosen to make it their life's work, authors have written reams about it, and we all feel some kind of connection to the Civil War. This paper was created to highlight some of the major battles that took place during that conflict. Major battles usually marked a drastic change in the momentum from one side to the other or led to massive losses of troops. These battles and their results all played a huge part in the outcome of the war.

Of that total loss, 12,800 were wounded, 5,250 were missing and 2,600 to 4,500 were killed. At the end, both sides lost nearly the same amount of men. The North started with thousands of more troops than the South. Therefore, compared to the North, the South was the size of a pea. This wouldn’t be a problem for the South if they had enough eligible men to serve, but their numbers, once again, were millions of men short from the North. This evidence shows that the numerous losses were a reason that the Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point because the South couldn’t afford to take another major loss of men without knowing they were going to lose and that they would not have enough men to replace.

The focus of this investigation will be, “To what extent was Robert E. Lee an effective leader of the Confederate Army?” The investigation will analyze Lee’s strengths and weaknesses that contributed to his effectiveness and the overall loss of the Confederacy in the Civil War. The overall character of Lee throughout his lifetime is too broad, therefore, this investigation will focus solely on the testimony of his military background, and the personality traits that led to Lee’s decisions during the Civil War. As a result, Lee the American by Gamaliel Bradford Jr. and Robert E. Lee: The Soldier by Sir F. Maurice are important sources to this investigation, due to the background they give on Lee’s military training, personality, and victories in the battles leading up to Gettysburg.

The three-day Battle of Gettysburg, starting on July 1st in 1863, would be known to be one of the most memorable and important battles in history. It would become the major outcome of the Civil War. The day of the outburst of the Battle of Gettysburg was a hot humid day on the first of July. It was between two sides. One side was the Union, which was the Army of Potomac Commanded by General George G. Meade, along with other notable commanders such as John F Reynolds, Winfield Scott Hancock, Daniel E. Sickles, George Sykes, John Sedgwick, Oliver O. Howard, Henry W. Slocum, and Alfred Pleasonton (“Battle of Gettysburg,” 2016). The other side was the Confederate Soldiers called the Army of Northern Virginia who was commanded by General Robert E. Lee, along with other notable commanders as well, which were James Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, A. P. Hill, and J.E.B. Stuart (“Battle of Gettysburg,” 2016). Between these two sides, the Army of Potomac had a great advantage with 93,700 men and 372 guns, while the Army of Northern Virginia were outmanned and outgunned with only 70,100 men and 280 guns. The Army of Potomac’s mission was to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia as well as to make sure Washington, D.C. remained safe. It may seem like the Army of Potomac would be the clear winner at the Battle of Gettysburg yet the Army of Northern Virginia had a strategy that would help to attempt to beat the Union which was to go on the aggression and confront them. This would

This is a brief thought of the events that came to unfold. Some say that Gettysburg was the battle that stopped the confederate advance to the north. In addition, that Lee only wanted to take the battle out the state of Virginia that had been hit rather hard by the unions Army . In this review of the Battle of Gettysburg, we will discuss the key events that people believed that allowed the Union Armies to cause the retrograde actions of the confederate forces. In addition, what each side wished to accomplish. And how the wished to accomplish these tasked the imagined

The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the American Civil war. General Robert E. Lee was the commanding officer of the Confederate army. During the battle of Gettysburg Lee’s military strategy was to fight offensive. Lee’s goal during the battle was to seize the high ground and out last the union army. The Union army had outnumbered the Confederate soldiers. General Lee’s first hand man was General James Longstreet. Longstreet believes the new technology in warfare would make attacking the Union army bloody for the Confederate soldiers. Longstreet suggests to Lee that defensive warfare tactics such as using trenches and rocks for cover and concealment would be the Confederacy’s best fighting chance. Lee denies Longstreet’s ideas and continued with the plan to fight out in the open and attack the enemies head on. After three days of fighting the Confederate army lost the battle at Gettysburg. Lee’s tactical approaches that led to this lost included the lack of communication and the absence of and with General J.E.B Stuart, Lee’s continuation to pursue offensive attacks and Pickett’s charge.

The entire truly tragic sense of the Lost Cause was that the South’s men knew their cause was lost, they knew there was really no way they could possibly win, and yet they fought on with tremendous bravery and dedication. The Civil War was such a poignant and even heart-wrenching time (Bowman, 2006, p.756). Despite the long-held notion that the South had all of the better generals, it really had only one good Army commander and that was General Lee. The rest were second-raters, at best (Donald, 1996, pp. 9-21). The North, on the other hand, had the good fortune of bringing along and nurturing people like Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, Philip Sheridan, George Thomas, and others.

Civil War historians view the Battle of Chancellorsville as General Robert E. Lee’s “greatest and most remarkable” victory (Sears 1). Lee, facing an army twice his size, defies all military doctrine and divides his army multiple times in order to out-maneuver and surprise the Union forces. The daring maneuver succeeds and ultimately forces the Union’s Army of the Potomac to retreat. The victory was another major blow to Union troops, but it came at a huge cost to the Confederacy: the loss of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. By evaluating the battle through the lens of the mission command activities, one can see how Lee’s daring maneuver was actually very calculated and his only option for victory. Throughout the rest of this paper, I will describe the timeline of the battle and how General Lee used the mission command activities of understand, visualize, assess, and lead to ultimately achieve victory at Chancellorsville.

As for General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, following the intense defeat of General Hooker and the Union at the hands of General Lee and the Confederates at the battle of Chancellorsville, General Lee was booming with confidence, with the exception of “losing his right arm” (the loss of his most trusted General, “Stonewall” Jackson at the Battle of Chancellorsville) and decided to invade the North for a second time, (the first had ended last fall at the battle of Antietam). Lee succeeded in bringing the conflict out of Virginia and diverted northern troops away from the town of Vicksburg which was under siege by northern troops, (Vicksburg will become important on July 4, 1863). General Lee was also trying to take pressure off the farms in the Virginia, most importantly in the “Breadbasket of the Confederacy” The Shenandoah Valley. Another plus to the invasion of the North, if Lee and his Army were able to achieve and victories it could put pressure on President Lincoln to try to create a settlement to the war, additionally Lee hoped that a victory in the North could potentially lead to an alliance between his army and either the British or the French. With the loss of his top general, Lee had to merge his Army from two corps to three, with General Richard Ewell taking over second corps after the death of Stonewall, with the newly formed third corps in the

74). The Confederate troops had taken significant casualties, specifically in the officer ranks, and Lee sought to motivate them as he took command. He reminded them to “maintain the ancient fame of the Army of Northern Virginia and the reputation of its general and to conquer or die in the approaching contest” (Davis, 1956, p. 77). It was his actions here, and subsequent victories in June, that later became known as the Seven Days. Due to his ferocity in leadership, and several hard won battles, he routed the Union and drove their troops back towards Washington, firmly establishing his reputation among Union leadership as a fierce opponent (Rhea, 1994, p.

In many historian’s eyes, James Ewell Brown Stuart holds the blame for the South’s lack of reconnaissance at the battles in Gettysburg. He did show up two days late to the event, with news that was no longer as pertinent as it was before. But, what if I told you that the fault did not rest with him? I feel that the blame is more widely dispersed. J.E.B. Stuart was a scapegoat for the blame that may have, nay, rightly should have been placed on the infallible General E. Lee or Longstreet. He was the scapegoat because he wasn’t alive to defend himself. The chain of command wasn’t designed in a manner by which all the blame rest on J.E.B Stuart. J.E.B Stuart received conflicting information from both Longstreet and Lee, having to make

This is only two battles in the whole Civil War yet countless lives were lost in each one. These battles were only two months apart. The goal of this paper is to give information on these two Civil War battles Chancelorsville and Gettysburg.

The United States Civil War can be considered as one of the darkest times in American history. The Southern states were fighting for their way of life, and the Northern states were fighting to preserve the Union. The war had begun in the year of 1861, and it would end in 1865 with the capture of Jefferson Davis and surrender of Robert E. Lee. The war had begun at the battle of Fort Sumter. After this battle, the newly elected Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to join the Union forces. In 1862, Union and Confederate forces would meet again at the battle of Fort Henry and Donelson. With the Union succeeding at pushing the Confederate forces further back into the South, General Grant and his army made their way down the Tennessee River. The forces would meet again at the Battle of Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing. There have been many arguments supporting the theory that the Confederacy did in fact win at the Battle of Shiloh. Although the Union lost more troops at this battle, the Confederacy failed in many ways. In order to determine how exactly they failed, it is important to study what the goal of the Confederacy was at Shiloh and whether or not they accomplished this goal. In this essay, the Confederacy’s goals for attacking Grant’s troops at Shiloh and their failure to accomplish those goals will show just how unsuccessful the Confederate army truly was at this battle.1

Gettysburg was fought during the Civil War between the Union Army of the Potomac led by General Meade, and the Confederate Army commanded by General R.E. Lee. The battle only was waged over the course of three days, but it would prove to be the most costly of the entire Civil War. In this paper, we will show how the Confederacy failed to identify certain principles of war, which lead them to incorrectly conduct a center of gravity and critical vulnerability analysis on the Union. Because of this failure, the Confederacy opened the door for the Union to score a decisive victory.