On Independence Day, 1863, the last thing on the
minds of most Americans was celebrating freedom. Just outside a small
town called Gettysburg, in Adams County, Pennsylvania, almost 50,000
men were casualties of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, the
battle that was soon recognized as the turning point of the war.
Confederate
General Robert E. Lee had succeeded in defeating Union General Joseph
Hooker's forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia, in May of 1863. Lee and
his Army of Northern Virginia had managed to repel an army twice their
size. Emboldened by the victory, Lee decided to continue his march
north. His goal was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; if he could make it to
Harrisburg, he hoped to continue on to Philadelphia.
Throughout
the month of June, Lee's army marched north toward Pennsylvania. The
graciousness for which Lee was known was evident during this campaign;
he instructed his troops to treat the civilians on the road well, not
seizing supplies such as food and horses, but rather paying for them.
Several towns such as York, Pennsylvania were made to pay indemnity
rather than supply the Confederates.
However, on July 1, 1863,
Lee's Army of Northern Virginia met Union General George Meade's forces
just outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the battle of Gettysburg
began in earnest.
For three days vicious fighting ensued on the
hillsides of Gettysburg. Over 165,000 men would converge, and before
the fighting ended, the ground would run red with blood. The battle was
fierce, and the casualties proved it. But the casualties that resulted
would not be in vain, at least for the Union; the formidable power of
the Army of Northern Virginia would be stricken a fatal blow, one that
they, and the South, would never truly recover from.
To this
point, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had proved itself a foe to be
reckoned with; more than once they had turned back troops that
outnumbered them significantly. And on the first day of fighting, it
seemed that Lee would again be victorious.
By the second day,
Lee's advantage disappeared. Meade's Army of the Potomac held their
ground, outnumbering the Confederate troops by 20,000. When July 3, the
third day of fighting, was over, more than a third of Lee's army would
be felled.
It was a much needed victory for the North. Hailed as
a Waterloo in the Northern papers, Gettysburg seemed to prove that the
Union was more than a match for the Army of Northern Virginia, hailed
universally as the most accomplished army of either the Union or the
Confederacy.
The defeat was more than stunning for Lee; it shook
the confidence of a man admired by Southerners and Northerners alike to
the core. Still recovering from the recent death of his beloved General
Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, whom Lee referred to as his "right arm,"
Lee seemed more than dejected by the loss at Gettysburg; he was
stricken. He knew now how important Jackson had been to the
Confederacy, and how crippled the Army of Northern Virginia was without
Jackson.
"It's my fault," Lee was heard to say after the battle
of Gettysburg. He blamed himself for the loss, and he was not entirely
mistaken; his decision on the third day of battle to pitch a massive
frontal assault on the center of the Union line, known as Pickett's
Charge, resulted in horrific casualties that paralyzed the Confederate
troops.
Lee's conviction that his orders had resulted in the
heavy casualties - casualties the Confederate troops, already
outnumbered, could hardly afford - drove him to send a letter of
resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a resignation
that was rejected.
Lee's official resignation may have been
denied, but his own resignation was obvious; the Army of Northern
Virginia never again mounted an offensive attack on the U.S. Forces,
nor did they ever attempt any capture of Northern territory on the
scale of the Gettysburg campaign. The glorious reputation of the Army
of Northern Virginia as invincible was tarnished permanently, and the
Union's ultimate victory was only a matter of time.
