Gettysburg

Background• Chancellorsville

– Hooker vs Lee– April 1863

– Hooker planned to surprise Lee

• One part of army would attack at Fredericksburg

• Cavalry would attack against supply lines

• Main part of army would attack across Rappahannock River

• Lee sent Jackson to attack at Hooker’s weak spot– Hooker thought Jackson

was retreating– Totally surprised Union

forces

‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker

Results of Chancellorsville

• Confederates– Jackson is

mortally wounded, accidentally, by his own troops

– 13,000 troops kwm

– Seen as Lee’s greatest victory

• Union– Hooker is relived of

command– Replaced by George

G. Meade– 17,000 kwm

**Lee is given permission to attack into the North once again

The Confederate Leaders

• Robert E. Lee– 75,000 troops

James LongstreetRichard Ewell

A.P. Hill

J.E.B. Stuart

The Union Leaders

• George Meade– 85,000 troops

Joshua Chamberlain

John Buford

Daniel Sickles

July 1, 1863

• Hill’s men searching for shoes– In reality, doing

reconnaissance– Report that town is

occupied by Buford’s cavalry

• A. P. Hill engages Buford’s cavalry– Union hold until

afternoon• Driven back to

Cemetery Hill

• Lee orders Ewell– “to follow if

practicable”– saw it as a suggestion

and he didn’t– “If I had Stonewall

Jackson at Gettysburg, I would have won that fight”

• Meade arrives at midnightRichard

Ewell

July 2

• Conf forces on Seminary Ridge

• Union forces on Cemetery Ridge

• In upside-down J formation

• 3 miles long

Conf attack Union flanks• Union northern lines

hold– At Culp’s Hill

• Ewell came late– was ineffective

Little Round Top

• Union southern lines start to bend

Devil’s Den• Joshua Chamberlain

and 20th Maine– Told to hold ground ‘at

all hazards’– Men nearly out of

ammunition– Ordered bayonet

charge• Saved line from

collapse

July 3

• Lee thought one last attack would finish Union army– 2 hour bombardment

from nearly 140 cannon

– Stuart would ride east and attack Union rear guard

– Frontal assault into Union artillery

Pickett’s Charge• Conf attack the center

of the line– Frontal assault

• March over a mile in open

• Up slopes of ridge straight at Union artillery

• Hand-to hand fighting

– 15,000 troops– Only portions of Conf

made it through• High Water Mark

Pickett’s Charge

• Union line begins to break– Officers drove them back to lines– Order given to charge Conf

advance

• “Men fire into each other’s faces not five feet apart. There are bayonet thrusts, saber strokes, pistol shots, men going down on their hands and knees, spinning round like tops, throwing out their arms, gulping blood, falling, legless, armless, headless. There are ghastly heaps of dead men.”

July 4

• Lee retreats– “It’s all my fault”– Conf never recovered– Last invasion of North

• Meade didn’t pursue– Needed time to

recover

Union Results

23,000 kwm

Confederate Results• 28,000 kwm

– 7,000 badly wounded– Left for Union doctors

Jennie Wade– Only civilian killed– Was baking bread for

Union soldiers– Shot in back through

kitchen door

Gettysburg Address• November 19, 1863

– 20,000 people– To dedicate ground as

a cemetery

The Speakers

• Edward Everett– Important scholar and

president of Harvard– Gave 2 hr long speech

• President Lincoln– Invited as an afterthought– Wrote 5 copies of speech

• 272 words

• 3 minutes long

– People applauded five times

The Address

• Lincoln underestimated the value– “The world will little note, nor

long remember what we say here, but it cannot forget what they did here…”

• Accomplished two things– Connected birth of US to

Declaration • “four score and seven years

ago”• “all men are created equal”

– Nation vs. Union• UNITED States of America

We Do Remember

Then What?• Joseph Hooker

– Died in New York in 1879• George G. Meade

– Died in 1872 from pneumonia and old war wounds

• John Buford– Died within 6 months of typhoid fever

• Daniel Sickles– Leg was amputated; he donated it to a

museum and continued to visit it• Joshua Chamberlain

– Wounded twice; suffered from malaria– Received Congressional Medal of

Honor– No statue of him was ever erected at

Gettysburg

• Robert E. Lee– Became President of Washington

College– Never officially received amnesty

• George Pickett– Worked after the war in insurance in

Virginia• James Longstreet

– Told after the war that he would never receive amnesty, he did and went into business in New Orleans until his death in 1907

• J.E.B. Stuart– Mortally wounded in 1864 at

Spotsylvania Courthouse• A.P. Hill

– Killed one week before surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in fighting at Petersburg

• Richard Ewell– Captured just weeks before the war

ended– Lived out his life on his Tennessee

farm, until his death in 1872

Vicksburg• May 22, 1863

• Ulysses S. Grant begins siege– Cut off all supplies

– Constant shelling of city

– People forced to live in caves

• July 4, 1863– Pemberton

surrenders after 40 days

• 30,000 troops

• RESULTS– Union

• 3,200 killed

• Gained control of Mississippi

– Split Conf in half

– Conf• 500 killed

• Didn’t celebrate 4th of July until after World War II

A Brother’s War

• In the Army– Union Brigadier General Philip St.

George Cooke assigned to hunt down J.E.B. Stuart, his son-in-law

• Son, John Rogers Cooke, was Conf Brigadier General

• Nephew, John Esten Cooke, rode with JEB Stuart

• Battle of Ironclads– Frank Buchanan

• Commander of Merrimac (Virginia)

– McKean Buchanan• On board Congress, sunk during

battle• In the White House– Mary Todd Lincoln

• Aristocratic slave holding family from Kentucky

– Lincoln’s 4 brothers-in-law• Served in Confederate

army• General Ben Hardin Helm

– Killed at Chickamunga

• Border states– Henry Clay

• Grandsons serving on both sides of War

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/gettysburg/dead-little-round-top-gettysburg.htm

Remember the Titans

• Anybody know what this place it? This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fightin’ the same fight that we’re still fightin’ amongst ourselves today.

• This green field right here was painted red, bubbin’ with the blood o young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin’ right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men:

• “I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.”

• You listen. And you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together, right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed – just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe – I don’t know – maybe we’ll learn to play this fame like me.

Resources

• Don’t Know Much About the Civil War– Kenneth C. Davis

• With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln– Stephen B. Oates

• The American Nation– Stoff and Davidson

• www.us-civilwar.com• www.gettysburg.com• www.civilwarhome.co

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