Battle of Gettysburg

2 Key excerpts on "Battle of Gettysburg"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Republic of Nature

  An Environmental History of the United States

  • Mark Fiege(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • University of Washington Press

    (Publisher)

  2

  A stunning moment when the clash of titanic forces decided the shape of the future, Gettysburg had all the makings of a national epic. The Army of Northern Virginia's long march out of the South, its fateful meeting with the Army of the Potomac in the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside, the awesome power and destructiveness of the fighting, the climactic Rebel charge, and the shifting momentum of the war gave the battle enormous historic and emotional significance. Gettysburg's epic quality, however, did not derive from the collision of Union and Confederate armies alone. Implicit in the massive struggle was an equally epic encounter between Americans and nature, between two armies, two societies, and the American land.3

  Every part of this drama turned on the inescapable ties between people and the material world in which they lived. North and South had evolved in separate environments, and those unique experiences fostered economic, social, political, and cultural differences that eventually impelled the two sections into conflict. The ability—or inability—of each side to procure resources from nature, furthermore, powerfully shaped the course of the war; thin Rebel bodies and bare Rebel feet had everything to do with the bold Rebel presence in Pennsylvania in spring 1863. Then there were the problems of weather and disease, which both armies had to endure and overcome in the course of the fighting. Finally, the campaign, the battle, and ultimately the war centered on the use and control of terrain, especially the highest ground; it was no accident that the fighting on July 3 culminated in an uphill charge. In these and so many other ways, the connections between humans and their physical environment gave rise to and drove the Battle of Gettysburg. Nature was at once a cause of conflict, an object and instrument of conquest, and a powerful antagonist against which both North and South struggled.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Civil War Journal: The Battles

  • William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don Troiani(Authors)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • Thomas Nelson

    (Publisher)

  Forced to do battle before he had the information he needed, Lee threw what forces he had at Gen. John Buford’s Union troopers and arriving units of the Union First and Eleventh Corps. By the end of the day, the commander of the Federal army, Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, was concentrating all his soldiers at Gettysburg. The largest battle ever fought on American soil was underway.

  º Many thousands of men were involved on both sides, and tens of thousands were killed, wounded, or missing. At first the Confederates had the upper hand, and over the course of the first day they made the most of their good fortune. •

  GWG

  Overwhelmed by surprise attacks on their flanks by large numbers of Southern reinforcements, the Union force had retreated and regrouped along the hills and ridges south of town by the end of the afternoon on July 1. º On the night of July 1 through the early morning hours of July 2, the Federals deployed along a strong ridge line and along the hills, from Culp’s Hill on the right, or north end of the ridge, behind the town and toward the wooded hills called the Round Tops on their left flank, south of Gettysburg.• The longest ridge between the two hills went by a name that would prove prophetic. Since it commenced at the town’s cemetery, it was known as Cemetery Ridge.

  KGH

  Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was not unlike Gettysburg except that twice during the summer of 1863 the town had been visited by Confederates. In late June a Georgia brigade from Richard Ewell’s Second Corps camped on the lawn of Dickinson College while Ewell requisitioned fifty thousand dollars’ worth of medicines and provisions. On July 1 Confederate cavalry deployed to the east of town and demanded its surrender, threatening to shell the area. The Union commander recently arrived on the scene sent word back, “Shell away.” Rebel artillerymen opened fire, but before they could claim the town, the cavalry received orders to move toward Gettysburg.

  Under Brig. Gen. John Buford’s guid–ance Union cavalry deployed about a mile west of Gettysburg near McPher–son’s Ridge. Using trees, fences, or lying prone for cover, the outnumbered cavalrymen (left) hindered the approaching Confederates for approxi

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book