Gettysburg

The battle of Gettysburg was the largest battle of the Civil War. It was fought on July 1st through 3rd, 1863. The battle was a huge loss for the Confederates. They lost a large amount of men, shattering their biggest army. Their surrender was known as the turning point in the war.

General Robert E. Lee led his confederate troop to the North, hoping for a successful invasion. Lee intended to collect supplies in the Pennsylvania farmland and take the fighting away from Virginia. He wanted to threaten Northern cities, weaken the North's positive attitude for war and especially win a major battle on Northern soil and strengthen the peace movement in the North.\

General Joseph Hooker led the Union troop in pursuit, but he was laid off just three days before the battle. General George Gordon Meade took over as his successor and kept his army between Lee's and Washington D.C.

On the third day of the battle, Pickett's charge ended the battle as well as thousands of lives. General George Pickett along with General James Johnson Pettigrew's charge was a huge fail. The charge's division was very weak and it had a lot of open ground. Pickett's 6,000-man division left more than half of its men dead, bleeding or captured on the field at Gettysburg, including all 15 regimental commanders. The Union fought back with their rifles and artillery fire. 

In the end, the Union was granted victory that could have been easily the Confederate's. A total of 51,112 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded. The Union had 23,049 casualties, and the Confederate had 28,063. Although a winner came out, both sides suffered huge losses. 


Source: www.cilvilwar.org