Why was Gettysburg such a Pivotal Battle?
Today best remembered for its association with the famous Gettysburg Address where President Abraham Lincoln brilliantly re-justified the purpose of the war, the rural town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was once the site of one of the bloodiest and most pivotal battles in the American Civil War.
Although contemporaries were clearly aware of the importance of the battle given the sheer carnage left in the battle’s wake, the battle of Gettysburg has since grown in importance in the American psyche as it since has become one of the most meaningful events in course of American history.
Pitting the Union Army of the Potomac led by newly promoted George G. Meade against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under lead general, Robert E. Lee, the Union won a strategic victory against its enemy in what is considered by historians to be the turning point of the war.
Spanning three days, July 1st through 3rd of 1863, the devastating loss for the Confederacy precluded any further desires of the Confederacy to maintain its offensive campaign, forcing the defeated Army of Northern Virginia to retreat back across the Potomac river and into Virginia.
The battle began as a small skirmish north of the small hamlet of Gettysburg before escalating into a full blown battle as both generals became aware of the whereabouts of the other ending in a direct collision of both armies in the otherwise militarily nonstrategic town of Gettysburg.
What began as a gamble by General Lee to use Pennsylvania as a springboard to potentially to take much bigger prizes including such cities as Harrisburg or Baltimore and — if circumstances allowed — perhaps even Washington D.C. backfired permanently shifting the tide of war in favor of the Union.
Lee’s aggressive military risk cost some 25,000 casualties — approximately a third of his entire army — a devastating military loss for the South that prevented any further Confederate incursion into Union territory.
Aside from its strategic value in turning the tide of war, the legacy of the battle of Gettysburg extended to the Gettysburg address issued by President Abraham Lincoln some four months later in November of 1863.
Using his invitation to the dedication of a new cemetery in Gettysburg for fallen Union soldiers in battle, President Lincoln took advantage of this opportunity to make a short speech — only about 300 words — to justify the war.
This address, although not intended to be the mainstay of the event, nonetheless has gone down in history as one of the most powerful speeches delivered in American history.
