Battle of gettysburg
Battle of gettysburgGettysburg was the Army of the Potomac's only great victory on the battlefield.
Antietam, certainly a strategic victory, showed Robert E. Lee's unstoppable killing
machine was indeed stoppable. And the Army of the Potomac did eventually
force Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from its impregnable Petersburg trenches.
But Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse finally came when the Rebel army
was so weakened that surrender was almost a foregone conclusion. Such Union
victories as the ones at Sayler's Creek and Five Forks in the final weeks before
the historic surrender on April 9, 1865 can hardly be called great battlefield
victories. While the AOP can only notch one momentous battlefield win onto their
belt, they were, of course, on the winning side in lesser battles that did not
significantly impact either the tactical or strategic situations. Malvern Hill, the last
major action of the Seven Days campaign where Confederate forces were
severely and boldly repulsed, is one such example. When analyzing Gettysburg it
has become commonplace to ask why Lee and his army failed to win a great
victory. Fewer people look to the other side of the equation and ask why Meade
and the AOP won. What circumstances changed to enable the AOP to transform
a long string of defeats into a great victory? The odds were certainly against them
in many ways. The AOP had become accustomed to losing. Fresh from two
devastating defeats within the past six months, the AOP was chasing a seemingly
invincible fighting machine. To heighten the odds against the blue underdogs,
they were given a new commander, Major General George Meade, only four days
before they were to fight what would become the battle of their lives. So why did
the Union win at Gettysburg? The men in blue fought like demons along their line,
of this there is no doubt. But the Union had fought admirably before. While it was
the 90,000 front-line men who held their own, ultimately giving better than they
got, in the final analysis something else must help explain this rather unusual
occurrence--a spectacular, indisputable Federal victory in the East. The answer is
found in the performance of the AOP's officers. Gettysburg was clearly the
best-led fight the AOP would ever engage in (and this includes later battles when
U.S. Grant would be on hand to conduct the proceedings). Everyone from lowly
Lieutenants to Major Generals performed exceptionally well under the most dire
circumstances. Perhaps even more impressive, the officers in blue were in "top
form" for three consecutive days. A failure or let-down from even one of the
critical players over that three day period could have easily erased R.E. Lee's
only out-right defeat from the history books. Day 1, July 1, 1863 saw the start of
the best three days of the AOP's life. Brigadier General John Buford, recognizing
the fact that whoever held the high ground south of Gettysburg would control the
killing fields, dismounted his cavalry for a showdown with Major General...
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