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Anonymous
The American Civil War 2016-07-11 19:43:58 Post No. 1400279
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The American Civil War 2016-07-11 19:43:58 Post No. 1400279
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What else could Lee have done at Gettysburg? If he maintained a defensive position, all the Union army had to do was wait and starve him out. Vicksburg was also about to fall to Grant's forces, so the South needed a major victory that would've made the Union's victory in the West meaningless. If Lee simply moved his forces back behind the lines in Virginia, the public probably would've viewed it as a Southern defeat. From my point of view, the man had little choice but to attack.
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>>1400279
Lee could've pulled his troops out of Gettysburg in the dead of night and moved them up towards Philadelphia or Washington and forced the Union to chase after them as Longstreet repeatedly suggested.
>Alternatively, he could've moved his army to retake some of the Virginian ports like Norfolk or forgone an offensive altogether and sent part of his Army to deal with Grant at Vicksburg (he did just that at Chickamunga).
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>>1400279
Probably nothing that /his/ armchair generals could figure out
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literally nothing
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Attacked culp's hill on the first day
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>>1402189
Give me one division, and I will take that hill.
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Concentrate on taking the hills? Not a full frontal assault on foe that out numbers, out guns and is fortified. Perhaps just fall back and scorch earth to harm morale?
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>>1402219
Give me one brigade and I will take that hill.
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>>1402703
Give me one regiment and I will take that hill
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Gettysburg is largely irrelevant, the war was lost at Antietam, Lee's retreat from both the battlefront and the North gave Lincoln the confidence to finally put the emancipation proclamation on the table, after previously suffering a string of defeats since 1861.
Lee's retreat shattered British confidence in the Confederacy, when they were weeks from attempting to begin negotiating a settlement along with France, and the Emancipation Proclamation furthered this by being bake to portray the war intentionally as an anti-slavery war, where the largely anti-slavery British public would never agree to intervention on the side of slavery. Eventually the Confederacy was denied British material aid entirely.
If anything the Battle of Atlanta proved to be more decisive, owing to how close the victory was to the 1864 elections.
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