The Battle of Gettysburg , which took place from July 1 to 3, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is considered the turning point of the Civil War (1861-1865). The northerners won on the battlefield a costly but decisive victory over the southerners, who emerged durably weakened and were never able to resume the offensive.
The Battle of Gettysburg
The Army of the Potomac, under Union General George Gordon Meade, numbered about 85,000 men; the Confederate (Southern) Army, under General Robert E. Lee, about 75,000. After his victory at Chancellorsville, May 2–4, 1863, the latter had divided his army into three corps commanded by the three generals, James Longstreet, Richard Stoddert Ewell and Ambrose Powell Hill. Lee entered Pennsylvania where he concentrated his entire army at Gettysburg. His plan was to invade Pennsylvania in an effort to avert another Union offensive in Virginia. He hoped in this way to increase the weariness of the war that the northerners knew, and to force them to recognize the independence of the Confederate States of America.
The battle began on July 1 with a fight between General Hill's forward brigades and the Union cavalry division supported by a corps of infantry. The Confederates forced the Union troops to fall back to Culp's Hill and Cemetery Ridge, southeast of Gettysburg, and took 4,000 prisoners. The next day, Lee attacked the enemy positions; Longstreet took Peach Orchard, and Ewell, part of Culp's Hill, but they could not break through the Union front line. Early on July 3, Culp's Hill was violently attacked and retaken from the Confederates.
The Union held firm and the Confederates had lost their offensive strength. Despite the opposition of the other generals, Lee decided to attack, and General George Edward Pickett then led his troops in a charge on Cemetery Ridge where he was stopped by a barrage of Union artillery and gunfire. of muskets.
A turning point in the Civil War
After this failed charge, the Battle of Gettysburg was all but over. On the night of July 4, General Lee began his retreat to Virginia. During the three days of battle, the Union army had 3,070 killed, 14,497 wounded, and 5,434 captured or missing. The Confederates counted 2,592 killed, 17,206 wounded and 5,150 prisoners or missing.
The Battle of Gettysburg was a decisive engagement in that it ended the second major Confederate invasion of the North, destroyed their offensive strategy, and forced them to carry out a defensive war, in which the inadequacies of their production capacity and their means of transport doomed them to defeat.
Bibliography
- Gettysburg, 1863 by Lee Kennett. Economica, 1997.
- Gettysburg, 1863 by Lee Kennett. Editions du Rocher, 1995.
To go further
- The Civil War, the Civil War:4 DVD set. Arte Video, 2009.