The Gettysburg Address is a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the brief but momentous speech during one of America&#8217;s darkest periods, just a few months after the bloodiest battle of America&#8217;s bloodiest war. Army War College Professor Doug Douds explains in a new <a href="http://www.prageru.com/videos/how-lincoln-changed-world-two-minutes">Prager University video</a> how the speech helped restore the &#8220;enduring national values&#8221; of a war-torn and divided America.
&#8220;President Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s Gettysburg address is one of the most famous speeches ever given. It is stunning in its brevity: ten sentences, 272 words, and delivered in just over two minutes &#8230; few have said more with less,&#8221; says Douds.
&#8220;Lincoln delivered the address on November 19, 1863,&#8221; Douds explains. &#8220;He was in Gettysburg to dedicate a national military cemetery to the Union soldiers who fell at the Battle of Gettysburg four months earlier. The North&#8217;s victory here was one of the pivotal battles of the American Civil War.&#8221;
The primary reason Lincoln&#8217;s speech resonates so strongly, Douds suggests, is that the president reiterates in a concise and profound manner the &#8220;enduring national values&#8221; expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
&#8220;Lincoln goes back in time, not to the signing of the Constitution, but to the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution, in forming our government, was the product of many compromises &#8230; most notably, slavery. In contrast, the Declaration of Independence declares our enduring national values. In one sentence, Lincoln summarizes the American project: liberty for all and equality of all,&#8221; says Douds.
&#8220;Lincoln&#8217;s assertion is two-fold. First, the United States is unique. No nation was ever founded on a commitment to liberty and equality. And the Civil War was a trial to see if a nation based on such lofty ideals could survive,&#8221; he says.
Watch the video below:
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PragerU: How Lincoln Changed The World In Two Minutes

Abraham Lincoln

American History

Dennis Prager

Gettysburg

Making History

Prager University

&#8220;This has been all my fault,&#8221; Lee admitted about his failed July 3 assault at Gettysburg, adding that &#8220;it is a sad, sad day for us.&#8221; But Lee did not have time to wallow. In the aftermath of the disaster that would go down in history as &#8220;Pickett&#8217;s Charge,&#8221; it was now time to assess the situation and make decisions. It soon became apparent that Meade was not going to counter-attack. But it was obvious to Lee that, with so many wounded and dead, with so many of his best field officers lost, with ammunition reserves dangerously depleted, and with a supply line stretched to the limit in the face of a numerically superior and well-supplied Army of the Potomac, he had to get his damaged army back to Virginia and quickly. His great gamble had failed. It was time to go home. 
The bright sunshine and stifling heat broke on July 4 when a torrential downpour swept over the field littered with the bloating bodies of a combined 8,000 Union and Confederates killed outright and tens of thousands more wounded, many still being located. (The bodies of 1,800 slain horses added to the stench). Although victorious, Meade felt that the Army of the Potomac&#8212;battered, bloodied and exhausted from the long marching and then three days of intense fighting, with three of its corps severely damaged, so many officers down including five generals killed or mortally wounded&#8212;was in no condition to strike back at a Confederate army waiting to exact revenge from its still strong position on Seminary Ridge. And so the two armies spent Independence Day either savoring victory or licking the wounds of defeat&#8230;all the while being pelted by a pouring rain that made the ground beneath their feet run red with rivulets of blood being washed away from the field. 
On July 5th the Army of Northern Virginia began its tormented nine-day retreat through the intermittent rain, the heat, and harassing Union cavalry back to Virginia. Meade has been criticized for letting Lee escape&#8212;Lincoln privately agonized over his not destroying the Army of Northern Virginia. But these criticisms came from politicians and generals far removed from the scene. To bona fide heroes of the battle like Warren, Hancock, and Hunt, Meade&#8217;s conduct was exceptional, especially considering he had been in command less than a week. The fact is George Meade, in his first battle as Army Commander, beat Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg and handed the legendary Southern captain his first defeat. A defeat made painfully evident by a miserable seventeen-mile long wagon train of wounded Rebels headed back to Virginia along with the remainder of Lee&#8217;s once invincible army. 
Lee&#8217;s foray into Pennsylvania&#8212;which included smaller battles along the route in Virginia at Brandy Station and Winchester and then culminating in the three-day blood-letting at Gettysburg, plus a sharp rear guard engagement at Falling Waters, MD (where Johnston Pettigrew, who&#8217;d survived so much, was killed)&#8212;had cost the Confederacy a staggering 27,000 men killed, wounded, missing or captured out of the 77,000 he took north, including six generals killed in action or mortally wounded and two captured. These losses were magnified by occurring in enemy territory, which meant that any wounded men who could not be evacuated would end up as prisoners and lost forever to the rolls. For a fledgling Confederate nation of just 5.5 million whites (Blacks were not permitted to serve until a month before the war ended) such casualties represented a much more severe blow than did the 23,000 casualties suffered by Meade, who could draw from the Union&#8217;s population of 22.5 million for quick replacements.
The blame for the Army of Northern Virginia&#8217;s first defeat would come in time and be a source of much debate among contemporaries and then military historians to the present day. On the Confederate side there was certainly plenty of blame to go around: Stuart&#8217;s ill-fated ride, Lee&#8217;s overconfidence, Ewell&#8217;s failure to take Culp&#8217;s Hill, Longstreet&#8217;s foot-dragging, and Hill&#8217;s illness are among the most common culprits mentioned in Civil War round tables. But this puts forth a narrative that the South lost the battle rather than the North won it. Certainly mistakes were made on both sides as always happens in war. It&#8217;s how a commander handles inevitable missteps, be they failure to take key high ground (Ewell) or leaving your main line of defense wide open to attack (Sickles), and makes adjustments to unfolding events so as to avoid disaster that makes the difference. In this capacity, on this battlefield, Meade prevailed. 
Ultimately, though, it is the men on the ground&#8212;exhausted, hungry, sleep-deprived, covered in grime, terrified out of their wits, slugging it out in the dirt, the filth, and the blood&#8212;who win battles. For the first time in its checkered past the Army of the Potomac was properly led by a competent officer corps and thus finally able to show its true mettle. George Pickett himself had the best explanation of all for why the South was defeated at Gettysburg: &#8220;I think the Union army had something to do with it.&#8221;
The Civil War was far from over after Gettysburg. It would last another twenty-one months until April 1865&#8212;and some of the heaviest fighting was still ahead. But with the surrender of the Southern fortress city of Vicksburg 1,000 miles to the west on the Mississippi on that same Independence Day that Lee mapped out his retreat from Pennsylvania, the fate of the self-described &#8220;Slave-Holding Confederacy&#8221; was sealed. The Yankee general who captured Vicksburg, effectively cutting the South in two and bringing the entire Mississippi River under Union control, would be brought east by Lincoln and placed in overall command Union forces, east and west. He would then co-ordinate an all-out blitz of the South that would destroy the armies of the rebellion and then burn out the civilian economies that supported them once and for all. The Union man&#8217;s name was Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. After Gettysburg, total war would come to the South. 
In November 1863, President Lincoln was invited to the dedication of the military cemetery set atop Cemetery Hill to inter and honor the Union dead at Gettysburg. The keynote speaker for the ceremony was the noted orator Edward Everett, who would give a two-hour allocution. The president was asked, almost as an afterthought, to say &#8220;a few appropriate remarks.&#8221; When Lincoln concluded his mere 268-word reflection on the meaning of the Republic, the trial it was enduring, and the &#8220;new birth of freedom&#8221; that a Union victory promised, he sat down to a smattering of polite applause. He thought his speech a failure. (The anti-Lincoln Chicago Times berated him for his &#8220;silly, flat, dishwatery utterances.&#8221;) Only later would his words be pondered, read and re-read, and eventually exalted for their eloquence and extraordinary insight and power. Edward Everett himself said it best in a note he sent to Lincoln aptly praising his address: &#8220;I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.&#8221; 
In case one wonders what the dead, the wounded, the suffering all meant, not just at Gettysburg but at all the 6,221 recorded engagements of our costliest war, I offer President Lincoln&#8217;s &#8220;few appropriate remarks&#8221; below as a reminder:
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Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate &#8212; we cannot consecrate &#8212; we cannot hallow &#8212; this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us &#8212; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion &#8212; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain &#8212; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom &#8212; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
</blockquote>

GETTYSBURG: Retreat – JULY 4 … “A New Birth Of Freedom” (Part 8 of 8)

The night of July 2nd into the 3rd Meade held a counsel of war with his generals in the tiny two-room farmhouse of the widow Leister on the eastern slope of Cemetery Ridge that served as his headquarters. Crammed in her tiny parlor, their bearded and grimy faces glowing with the light of a single lantern, the Union generals reviewed the past two days&#8217; fighting and discussed what to do tomorrow should Lee once again offer battle. Given the heavy casualties, it was decided to stay on the defensive for now. Based on prisoners taken, it was apparent that Lee had committed every unit he had to the engagement except one&#8212;George Pickett&#8217;s division of Longstreet&#8217;s 1st Corps. If Lee&#8217;s losses were as severe as his, Meade reasoned, then the smaller Army of Northern Virginia was nearing the end of its tether. If the fight resumed, so long as they committed no blunders, the Union men felt they would carry the day. Hancock summed it up: &#8220;We&#8217;ve got &#8216;em nicked!&#8221;
Meade fully anticipated another attack. He knew Lee was committed now. He also figured that since both flank attacks had failed, Lee might strike his center on Cemetery Ridge, held by Hancock&#8217;s II Corps; Meade made plans to have reserves ready to meet him if needed. The next day would be the decisive day.
The contrast between Meade&#8217;s relationship with his senior generals and Lee&#8217;s by this point is telling. Whereas Meade gathered them all together to hear them out and formulate a cohesive strategy to which all were committed, Lee never even bothered to summon Longstreet before issuing orders for the coming attack. &#8220;The plans have not changed,&#8221; was all Lee had to say that night, by courier, to his second in command. For his part, Longstreet was equally stubborn and made no call to Lee&#8217;s headquarters. 
The one senior officer Lee did meet with, in private, was his long-lost cavalry commander Jeb Stuart, who finally rode into camp just before Longstreet&#8217;s offensive began with his complement of exhausted horse soldiers due to arrive that night. His ride around the Union army had become an albatross around his neck. He had nothing to show for it but 140 captured wagons&#8212;hardly a good trade for the intelligence black-out his raid created. Deprived of any reliable information at the most crucial moment of the campaign, Lee was in a foul mood when the flamboyant Stuart, with his thick beard, plumed hat, and rattling sabre, rode into camp. No one knows what was said between them. Lee was certainly upset with Stuart for leaving him blind in enemy country. But, to be fair, Lee had approved the raid. Like everything else, it seemed Lee&#8217;s grand battle was slipping out of his control. Stuart was a personification of this deteriorating state of affairs. 
July 3 did not start off well for the Confederates. At first light, Genl. Slocum&#8217;s Union XII Corps troops on Culp&#8217;s Hill opened up with artillery, then leapt over their ramparts to drive away any Rebels who might have gained a toehold on the position during the previous evening&#8217;s fighting. By 11 a.m. the third struggle for Culp&#8217;s Hill was over; it was obvious now that the hills on the hook and barb of Meade&#8217;s fishhook would never be taken. 
All hope now rested on the mass attack on the center. Lee was going &#8220;all in&#8221; to finish this, the image of Anderson&#8217;s lone brigade briefly piercing the Union line on Cemetery Ridge fresh in his mind.
Finally, in the morning Lee gathered his senior officers, including corps commanders Longstreet, Hill, Ewell and Stuart, and their division commanders, to give them their orders for the day. They would attack again. This time they would hit the enemy&#8217;s center. Ewell would continue to demonstrate on the Union right to keep Meade guessing and pin down any Yankee reinforcements. Stuart, meanwhile, would ride around the Union position and strike it from the rear, cutting off the Baltimore Pike, which was the Army of the Potomac&#8217;s key supply line, and link up with the infantry which would be attacking from the west. 
The main attack was to be a grand assault. The dapper and perfumed George Pickett&#8217;s fresh 1st Corps division of mostly Virginians would lead the charge. They would be supported by two of A.P. Hill&#8217;s depleted divisions that fought on July 1: the wounded Heth&#8217;s, now commanded by Pettigrew, and the dying Pender&#8217;s, now under Maj. Genl. Isaac Trimble. This would be a formation of 15,000 men (actually 13,000). They were to march from Seminary Ridge, across a mile of open ground, to hit Cemetery Ridge and break through the Union center to link up with the cavalry. Their aiming point would be the copse of trees clearly visible along the ridgeline in the distance. 
Preceding the attack would be a massive artillery barrage to hammer the Union positions and soften it up for the charge. The bombardment would begin at 1:00 p.m. The infantry attack would follow when it was determined they&#8217;d damaged the Yankees enough to move forward. Although Hill&#8217;s corps was committing two of the three divisions to the attack, Lee wanted Longstreet to be in charge. All differences aside, Lee still knew who was his best general.
But Longstreet was horrified. Staring at the solid blue wall of men and guns that awaited them on the high ground across the broad exposed valley, then peering at the batteries glaring down on them in from the flanks on Little Round Top and Cemetery Hill, he tried one last time to convince his commander to reconsider his plans: &#8220;General,&#8221; he said earnestly, &#8220;I have been a soldier all my life&#8230;and I should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.&#8221; But Lee&#8217;s mind was set in stone at this point. He believed if any men could take that position, it was his. He&#8217;d come to see his veteran troops as almost super-human given their record of victory upon victory. This catalogue of unbroken success ironically would pave the way for ultimate defeat.
The men themselves understood the risks. &#8220;This is a desperate thing to attempt,&#8221; commented one of Pickett&#8217;s brigade commanders, Brig. Genl. Richard Garnett. One of Garnett&#8217;s men added: &#8220;This is going to be a heller! Prepare for the worst!&#8221; A member of Anderson&#8217;s division which had fought its way up to Cemetery Ridge the day before cautioned the troops waiting in defilade before the attack: &#8220;Boys that&#8217;s a hot place. We were there yesterday!&#8221; 
At 1:00p.m., the peace of the oppressively hot July afternoon was shattered by the roar of over 150 Confederate cannons lined from Seminary ridge in a sweeping three-mile arc to the heights north of Gettysburg opposite Culp&#8217;s Hill opening fire on the center of Meade&#8217;s line. The air was thick with projectiles whistling toward the startled Union men stationed along Cemetery Ridge. A shell tore through Meade&#8217;s headquarters, ripping an orderly in two. Men dove to the ground or crawled under wagons, against fence rails, behind barns, anywhere to find shelter from the storm. Ammunition caissons exploded, terrified horses broke their harnesses galloping off in all directions, many a man and animal fell prey to the indiscriminant solid shot bounding through the lines or shrapnel lashing down from above. Hancock, in an incredible display of bravery, sought to embolden his prone men by remaining on horseback throughout the barrage. When a staffer pleaded with him to take cover, Hancock replied: &#8220;There are times when a corps commander&#8217;s life does not count!&#8221;
The cannonade was continuous, and the noise so voluminous it could be heard resembling a distant thunderstorm as far away as Harrisburg thirty-seven miles distant. But impressive as the deafening display of power was, the grand barrage was mostly ineffective. The Union lines were soon obscured with smoke preventing the Confederate gunners from following where their rounds were hitting. They therefore could not tell their aim was, in fact, too high, and though the shells played havoc with the Union rear, the front lines remained intact. Union guns on Cemetery Ridge that had been firing back in reply slowly stopped shooting, giving the Rebel artillerists across the smoky valley the false impression that these batteries had been put out of action. But the Union Chief of Artillery, the coldly calculating Maj. Genl. Henry Hunt, had ordered them to go silent, both to lure the Rebels in and, more important, conserve ammunition for the infantry he knew would be upon them directly. 
With their own artillery ammunition running low, it was time for the Confederate attack to commence. Pickett, thrilled to finally be in the fight, galloped up to Longstreet requesting permission to advance. Longstreet, convinced the charge was folly, was unable to bring himself to speak the order. He only nodded. 
Pickett then rode to his men and roused them to their feet: &#8220;Up men and to your posts! Let no man forget today that you are from Old Virginia!&#8221; The time had come. 
At about 2:00 p.m. the weary Union men rose up from the ground, brushed themselves off, their ears still ringing, and gazed across the mile-wide valley at a sight that would take their breath away. As the bombardment ceased, the smoke cleared to reveal a magnificent formation of infantry crowded shoulder-to-shoulder in a martial scene reminiscent of Napoleonic days emerging from the woods that covered Seminary Ridge. vThe mass of men in grey and homespun butternut marching silently in parade ground precision, their battle flags snapping in the warm summer breeze, formed a line of attack over a mile wide and many ranks deep. It was what one Union observer on Cemetery Ridge called &#8220;an ocean of armed men sweeping upon us!&#8221;
Another Union soldier would simply remember it as &#8220;the most beautiful thing I&#8217;d ever seen.&#8221; But Mars is not an aesthetic god. General Hunt waited patiently until the enemy formations were within range of his guns. And then the cannons the Rebels thought were silenced unleashed a torrent of deadly iron into the packed formations. Shells came screaming at them from three sides&#8212;from Cemetery Hill to their left, Little Round Top on their right and Cemetery Ridge straight ahead. Great gaps were torn through Pickett&#8217;s, Pettigrew&#8217;s and Trimble&#8217;s ranks. Whole companies seemed to melt into the high grass. Soon the smoking field was littered with dead and wounded. Some artillery rounds took out a dozen men at a clip. With incredible discipline the Rebels would then re-form to fill the gaping holes and keep marching&#8230; forward&#8230;forward&#8230;covering one hundred yards a minute&#8230;forward&#8230;forward. Entire regiments were quickly annihilated. Yet forward&#8230;forward&#8230;they marched, shoulders hunched and heads turned to the side like men breasting a hailstorm. Forward&#8230;forward&#8230;&#8221;Right on they came,&#8221; observed a mesmerized Union officer, &#8220;as if with one soul.&#8221;
When the Confederates reached the Emmitsburg Road, which ran parallel to and roughly two hundred yards from the crest of Cemetery Ridge, the Union infantry raised their muskets and began blasting away. Rebels, either caught out in the open or exposed as they tried to climb the fences that lined the road, were shot down by the hundreds. Now at close range, the Union gunners switched to double charges of canister and raked the ground with deadly hissing balls, sending wooden fence post splinters and body parts spiraling high into the air. General Garnett was gone&#8230;his body was never identified. The attack began to stall in the face of the murderous sheet of Union lead and iron and most of the men not already cut down in the firestorm turned back. It was not cowardice that compelled them to withdraw. These were tough veterans of many battlefields. It was experience telling them this attack was doomed. 
In a forlorn act of poetic gallantry, one of Pickett&#8217;s brigadiers, General Lewis Armistead, placed his hat on the tip of his sword, held it high above his head, and urged a handful of men over the fences and toward the Union line shouting &#8220;For your home, your friends, your sweethearts!&#8221; Only a few hundred men managed to follow Armistead the last two hundred punishing yards and actually penetrate the Yankee positions. They managed to get past some Union guns but the blue troops soon overwhelmed them and they were all killed or captured. In retrospect they would reach farther than any other Confederate units, the place where they fell to be remembered as the &#8220;High Water Mark of the Confederacy.&#8221; Armistead was mortally wounded. Dying, he summoned for Hancock, his dearest friend from the happy pre-war army days, to be by his side&#8230;but a sympathetic Union officer informed him that General Hancock too was down, shot through the groin, though he would survive his wound. Those Rebels who were not casualties eventually made their way back in small groups or one by one, helping along wounded comrades as they retraced their long bloody steps to their starting point. 
The attack was over in an hour. It had been a Southern catastrophe. Lee had lost another 6,600 irreplaceable men. When he advised a dismayed George Pickett to re-form his division in case of a Union counter-attack, Pickett replied grimly, all previous hunger for glory washed away in the reality of what just happened to him: &#8220;General Lee&#8230;I have no division!&#8221; (Pickett never forgave Lee. Years later he would say bitterly: &#8220;That old man had my division slaughtered.&#8221;) 
As if to compound Lee&#8217;s failure, Stuart&#8217;s flank attack got nowhere. It was in part thwarted by a series of aggressive charges led by a brash young Union cavalryman, 23-year-old Brig. Genl. George Armstrong Custer.
As the ear-splitting noise of battle faded, and yet more cries and moans of another day&#8217;s reaping echoed over the valley, from the crest of Cemetery Ridge&#8212;clearly audible to Longstreet&#8212;could be heard the victorious Union soldiers chanting in a moment of sweet revenge: &#8220;Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!&#8221; The battle had unfolded just as Longstreet feared. 
&#8220;That day,&#8221; he would later write, &#8220;was the saddest day of my life.&#8221;
[Next Segment: Retreat &#8211; July 4&#8230;&#8220;A New Birth Of Freedom&#8221;]

GETTYSBURG: Day Three  — July  3 … “An Ocean Of Armed Men” (Part 7 of 8)

Wednesday morning, July 1, 1863, began with a gentle rain, but the clouds soon gave way to sunlight that promised a typical hot and humid summer day. Heth&#8217;s men started off from Cashtown at sun-up. Despite his firm belief that only Sunday-soldier militia were in front of him, corps commander Hill (who would remain behind sick in his tent) was taking no chances. Instead of just one brigade, this time he sent Heth&#8217;s entire division, most of the corps artillery and then a second division commanded by Maj. Genl. Dorsey Pender in support&#8212;a full 14,000 men&#8212;back to Gettysburg. That was two-thirds of his 3rd Corps for what was ostensibly a reconnaissance en force. The shoes themselves now seemed incidental.
By 7:30 a.m. Heth&#8217;s lead element was nearing the outskirts of Gettysburg when a mutual sighting was made about three miles west of town. An outpost of the 8th Illinois cavalry atop Herr&#8217;s Ridge led by Lt. Marcellus Jones spotted a dust cloud to the west about 1,000 yards distant along the Chambersburg Pike. Lt. Jones sent word back to Genl. Buford of the approaching enemy. Then he asked a sergeant for his carbine and requested &#8220;the honor of opening this ball.&#8221; He fired toward the Rebel column, the first shot at Gettysburg. Although at that long range his bullet hit no one, it did serve to put all elements in the area on alert that fighting was underway.
The Confederates, still believing they faced nothing more than untrained militia, fired a cannon shot toward Herr&#8217;s Ridge hoping to disperse the impudent rabble and move on into town. But when the Union forces did not run&#8212;even after several more projectiles were lobbed their way&#8212;Heth soon realized that he was in a fracas. 
The fighting soon spread like a wildfire as every Union and Confederate unit in the area now converged on Gettysburg. Having delayed the Rebels a good hour and a half, forcing Heth to halt his advance and shake out his tight marching columns into a line of battle over a half-mile wide, the cavalry pickets bugged out and formed up with Buford&#8217;s main line of defense on McPherson&#8217;s ridge closer to town. From the crest of Herr&#8217;s Ridge, gazing east through the battle smoke towards Buford&#8217;s defiant blue line of dismounted horse soldiers and Gettysburg in the hazy distance beyond, Harry Heth took in the scene and made an impetuous decision. With no knowledge of what other Yankees may be in the vicinity, he ordered his division to &#8220;advance and take the town.&#8221; 
But just as Heth&#8217;s men began to press Buford&#8217;s out-numbered cavalry to the breaking point, the 9,000 men of the Union I Infantry Corps under the hard-fighting Maj. Genl. John Reynolds arrived from the south to relieve the beleaguered horsemen whose stance had saved the town from falling into Rebel hands&#8230;for now. Reynolds, a Pennsylvanian furious over the invasion of his state and itching to get at the Rebels, was nonetheless as surprised as everyone else that a battle was underway. But he took stock of the situation, and quickly grasping the defensive value of the terrain, acted decisively to launch the I Corps into the fight. After urging his men forward to form up on McPherson&#8217;s Ridge, he sent word to Meade (who was with the middle of the army at Taneytown, MD nine miles south) that he would fight the Rebels for the town street-by-street if need be. &#8220;Good,&#8221; declared Meade when he received the dispatch. &#8220;That is just like Reynolds!&#8221;
Having made the decision to commit the Union Army to battle, Reynolds did not live long enough to see it play out. While encouraging his men to strike the Rebels with &#8220;Forward men! Forward, for God&#8217;s sake and drive those fellows from the woods!&#8221; he fell from his horse, killed instantly by a bullet through the back of the head. Though only on the field an hour, John Reynolds had left the Battle of Gettysburg as his legacy. Maj. Genl. Abner Doubleday took over I Corps command and, despite having a reputation for timidity, led the men quite ably throughout the morning.
As the unexpected conflict escalated, the outcome would depend upon who got to the scene the fastest with the most men. Here the Confederates had the advantage of proximity and that would ultimately be the deciding factor. Fighting was ferocious as more opposing infantry units arrived on the scene, colliding in the fields, woodlots and farmsteads along the length of McPherson&#8217;s Ridge. Of the Union brigades present that morning none was more famous than the one made up of rugged westerners from Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana nicknamed the &#8220;Iron Brigade.&#8221; Seasoned veterans of many battles and distinctive in their high black Hardee hats, they were immediately recognizable to the Confederates&#8212;one of whom was heard to say &#8220;&#8217;Tain&#8217;t no militia. It&#8217;s those damned black-hatted fellows!&#8221; 
The battle lines rolled back and forth in the heat of the sweltering summer sun and dense smoke hung thick in the humid air that reverberated with the steady crackle of musketry and the deep roar of cannons. The fighting took on new violence with the appearance of reinforcements from both sides&#8230;ironically the North coming in from the south and the South coming in from the north.
The Union XI Corps under Maj. Genl. Oliver O. Howard arrived on the heels of the I Corps. With Reynolds dead, the senior Howard took command of all Union forces in the area, which was a tragedy for the North. Having lost an arm in combat, no one doubted Howard&#8217;s courage but his judgment was less sound. He arrived on the scene just as Doubleday&#8217;s men led by the 6th Wisconsin regiment of the Iron Brigade launched a furious counter-attack, repulsing some of Heth&#8217;s division and inflicting heavy casualties on the surprised Rebels, many of whom were trapped within the steep railroad cut and either shot down in droves or forced to surrender. 
By noon it had grown eerily quiet as a lull in the battle occurred&#8230;the armies acting like two exhausted prizefighters retreating to their corners after a mutually punishing first round. 
But it was a faux peace, for Howard knew from intelligence that Pender&#8217;s fresh division of Hill&#8217;s 3rd Corps would soon be pounding down the Chambersburg Road from the west and, more ominous still, Ewell&#8217;s entire 2nd Corps of three additional infantry divisions and their artillery was fast approaching from the north. The heavily bloodied Union I Corps and the undermanned XI Corps combined would field less than 15,000 uninjured men to face the majority of two full Confederate corps, or nearly 30,000 Rebels. Furthermore, Howard stubbornly refused Doubelday&#8217;s pleas to take advantage of the pause in the fighting to withdraw his depleted I Corps to a stronger position on Seminary Ridge. Then, to compound the error Howard positioned two of his three divisions in a broad fan north of Gettysburg in flat, open terrain that was indefensible against Ewell&#8217;s superior force bearing down on them from the north and northeast. The seeds of a Union disaster had been sown.
Farther west, riding with Longstreet and 1st Corps, General Lee was surprised to hear the distant rumble of what sounded like a pretty serious engagement and spurred his horse toward the front to see what was happening. When he arrived on the field he was given a report. Though no doubt furious with Heth for starting a fight against orders, he was intrigued by the opportunity Dame Fortune now presented to him. From the beginning of the campaign, Lee envisioned stretching out the numerically superior Union army and then pouncing upon pieces of it with his entire force and crushing it corps by corps. Now, completely by accident, he had stumbled into just such a scenario. Here he had a good portion of his army coming down in a huge arc from the west to the northeast&#8212;perfectly positioned to fall upon and destroy the Union I Corps and especially the exposed XI Corps. Lee could see that a major battle was already underway. A.P. Hill (who was now on the scene though pale and weak) was heavily engaged west of Gettysburg and Ewell was already striking south with the bulk of his newly arrived 2nd Corps. Thus Lee accepted that this was the showdown he&#8217;d sought, albeit sooner than he&#8217;d planned, and ordered an all-out attack. 
Two-thirds of Howard&#8217;s XI Corps was decimated within an hour by the irresistible tide of Ewell&#8217;s massed battalions in butternut and grey screaming the Rebel yell as they surged over the open fields in unstoppable waves, halting only to deliver punishing volleys while their artillery raked the desperately fleeing Union men. Those hapless Yankees who hadn&#8217;t been killed, wounded or captured in the collapse scrambled in headlong flight back down into the narrow streets of Gettysburg through which they&#8217;d just passed the other direction on their way to the front but two hours before. The Union survivors were seeking the shelter of the XI Corps&#8217; one still uncommitted division, held back in reserve by Howard south of town on the crest of Cemetery Hill. 
With support from Howard&#8217;s men quickly crumbling on their right, the gallant Union I Corps stubbornly fell back to the line of Seminary Ridge contesting every inch of ground. But as Pender&#8217;s fresh Confederate division laid into them, they too began to be cut down from three sides as the Rebels overlapped their shrinking perimeter. Finally what was left of the Union I Corps fell back through the smoke-filled town, whose walls echoed with the screams of shot and shell ricocheting off buildings and smashing through windows while terrified civilians huddled in their cellars as if seeking shelter from a raging storm passing overhead. 
When the exhausted Yankees reached the high ground of Cemetery Hill, they at last found relative safety under some forty-three surviving guns of the I and XI Corps, lined hub-to-hub in a solid wall of artillery. They were also heartened to see the rock steady figure of Maj. Genl. Winfield Scott Hancock, commander of the II Corps still on its way, organizing the defenses south of the town. He&#8217;d been ordered by Meade to ride ahead to take over the battle from the incompetent Howard until the army commander himself arrived on the scene. The unflappable Hancock, profanely shouting instructions and encouragement, inspired confidence in the surviving men who in turn steeled themselves for the final Confederate onslaught. It never came.
At the same time Hancock and Howard sat on a fence rail lining the Evergreen Cemetery and pondered the Rebels&#8217; next move, the Confederate flag was hoisted in triumph over Gettysburg&#8217;s main square. Cheers and Rebel yells rang out from Lee&#8217;s troops who could justifiably claim another battlefield success to add to their unbroken winning streak. But victory can be as chaotic as defeat; his corps having taken Gettysburg, Ewell was unsure what to do next so he sent word for guidance from General Lee. Lee, peering through his spyglass at the high ground where the blue-clad enemy was reorganizing, sent a message back that Ewell was to take Cemetery Hill &#8220;if practicable.&#8221; Jackson would have understood this language as Lee&#8217;s polite way of issuing a direct order, but Ewell was used to specific instructions (his former commander Jackson never minced words when giving orders). Even though his 2nd Corps had suffered far fewer losses than Hill&#8217;s 3rd, Ewell decided it was not &#8220;practicable&#8221; to assault Cemetery Hill. 
In hindsight, considering the powerful line of artillery frowning down from the crest, the still untouched division of XI corps, and the superb Hancock now in charge, Ewell probably made the right call to leave Cemetery Hill alone.
But Culp&#8217;s Hill, taller and farther east, was, at the time, undefended. And here Ewell made the first major mistake of the Rebel high command by failing to seize it immediately when it was his for the taking. He instead waited for fresh troops who were still en route to the battlefield. By the time they arrived, the astute Hancock had sent remnants of I Corps, including the battered Iron Brigade, to defend its wooded summit. In the fading twilight, some of Ewell&#8217;s men at last attempted to storm Culp&#8217;s Hill but were beaten back violently. The opportunity to take the hill with little bloodshed was gone. With the arrival of Hancock&#8217;s II, Sickles&#8217; III and Slocum&#8217;s XII Corps during the night, both Cemetery and Culp&#8217;s Hills would become Union citadels, anchoring the northern flank of the solidifying Yankee position. 
Had Jackson been present it&#8217;s very likely he&#8217;d have sprung to occupy Culp&#8217;s Hill post haste making the Union lines on the lower Cemetery Hill untenable and forcing the Yankees to retreat yet again. But Ewell, one-legged from a wound at 2nd Bull Run, in his first combat in a year, and new to independent corps command, was less confident. Though handpicked by Jackson to be his successor, Ewell, it turned out, was no Jackson. 
And so, as night fell, the clatter of muskets and boom of cannons dissipated and then ceased altogether. The deafening roar of battle gave way to the melancholy moan of thousands of horribly wounded men lying on the fields, in ravines, woodlots and barns, in the streets and alleyways of the town itself or writhing in agony in the many make-shift hospitals visible in the dark summer night by the soft yellow glow of lantern lights&#8212;a scattering of bright pinpoints dotting the landscape. The first day of a battle that neither side had expected was over. 
Gathered by the light of campfires that now ringed the town for miles around, or lying among the dead and staring up reflectively into the starry night sky, the survivors contemplated the fighting just ended as commanders tallied the casualties of the day&#8217;s action. The North had suffered grievous losses. Calvary losses were minor; not so the I and XI Corps, which counted 9,000 killed, wounded, captured or missing out of 18,000 engaged: 50% losses. But they held the high ground that Buford and then Reynolds so presciently committed to defending that morning&#8212;and for which Reynolds paid with his life. The South, for its part, had scored another victory, suffering 7,000 losses out of 27,000 engaged. But in leaving the high ground to their enemies, the Confederacy lost its best chance at achieving a decisive outcome at Gettysburg that first crucial day. . .one that started out so promising for Lee despite his wishing to avoid any combat at all.
[Next Segment: Day Two: July 2&#8230; &#8220;The Best Three Hours&#8217; Fighting&#8221;]

GETTYSBURG: July 1– Day One … “Tain’t No Militia!” (Part 5 of 8)

The spear-point of the Army of Northern Virginia, currently hoofing it all over southern Pennsylvania in an effort to reunite as quickly as possible, was Maj.Genl. Henry Heth&#8217;s division at Cashtown. Heth&#8217;s was one of the three divisions in the army&#8217;s newly formed 3rd Corps commanded by Lt. Genl. A.P. Hill. Heth chose to use his time by sending a raiding party to Gettysburg eight miles further east. There was rumored to be a stock of some 2,000 shoes there and he was determined to commandeer them for his soldiers, some of whom were barefoot. He assigned the task to one of his four brigades led by Brig. Genl. Johnston Pettigrew. Although only local militia was believed to be in the area, Pettigrew was under strict instructions by Heth, as per General Lee&#8217;s orders, to withdraw without a fight if he encountered any resistance. At first light, Pettigrew set off with roughly 1,800 men on his trek to Gettysburg with a complement of empty wagons for hauling away the spoils.
On that same day at about mid-morning, in Gettysburg town itself, a column of 2,900 Union horsemen of Brig. Genl. John Buford&#8217;s cavalry division rode noisily through the streets to the relieved cheers of the residents who were noticeably agitated. Buford soon found out why. There was a force of Rebels bearing down on them from the west in the direction of Cashtown along the Chambersburg Pike. Buford had been sent to scout ahead of the Union army heading this way and he immediately ordered his men to fan out into the surrounding countryside to size up the incoming enemy. 
As Pettigrew&#8217;s column approached Gettysburg, Buford&#8217;s men were clearly visible as the cavalrymen aggressively probed along the ridges west of town. Following his orders not to start a fight, the Rebel brigadier dutifully turned the brigade around and marched the eight miles back to base, his wagons still empty.
That night, back at the Confederate camp in Cashtown, Heth and Hill listened to Pettigrew&#8217;s report with incredulity. They doubted that what his expedition ran into was anything but local militia. Pettigrew was not a professional soldier but he was highly intelligent and he insisted he knew the well-trained Army of the Potomac when he saw it. Regardless, Heth asked for permission to try again for the shoes in the morning. Corps commander Hill gave his blessing.
As this first chance meeting came and went, forced marches in both armies were underway. Lee&#8217;s three corps were racing to reunite. Ewell&#8217;s 2nd Corps was marching south toward Gettysburg from Harrisburg. Longstreet&#8217;s 1st Corps was headed east from Chambersburg to hook up with Hill&#8217;s 3rd Corps at Cashtown. Meanwhile, Meade&#8217;s Union army, spread out in seven (smaller) corps across Maryland was marching steadily north toward the Pennsylvania border. Two of them, the I and XI Corps, fielding a combined 18,000 men and several dozen artillery pieces, were headed straight for Gettysburg and would arrive in the morning. 
What made Gettysburg suddenly so important wasn&#8217;t its shoes or its 2,400 residents or its principal business at the time, which was carriage-making and blacksmithing. It was that it just happened to be where twelve roads converged from all directions. This made it a natural hub of concentration for any army in the area. On June 30, 1863 there were two of them. Big ones. The respected Union cavalryman Buford understood this. His trained eye also took note of the topography, which was highly favorable for defense. He vowed to defend it as best he could. 
West of town, where Buford planned to fight a holding action until the two infantry corps arrived, running along north-south parallels to each other, were three modest ridges. Two miles west of town ran Herr&#8217;s Ridge, then a mile closer in was McPherson&#8217;s Ridge, and then three-quarters of a mile from town ran Seminary Ridge upon which a Lutheran seminary had been constructed atop its wooded crest. The most striking feature of the terrain was the deep gouge of a steep railroad cut hacked through the ridgelines to accommodate an unfinished rail bed running west by northwest out of town. 
Immediately south of Gettysburg itself sat two prominent hills: 100-foot Cemetery Hill, site of the gated Evergreen Cemetery, and the steeper, heavily wooded and more rugged Culp&#8217;s Hill a half mile east of it. A mile and a half farther south rose up two higher hills called the Round Tops. There was the steep and treacherous Little Round Top, whose western face was clear-cut and strewn with boulders; it was ideal for defense and provided a commanding view of the entire battlefield. Little Round Top bumped up against the higher but thickly forested Big Round Top. Connecting these two pairs of hills ran the gentle rise of Cemetery Ridge. Neatly fenced farmsteads, wheat fields and orchards dotted the gently undulating picturesque landscape. The hilly formation taken together resembled a backwards &#8220;?&#8221;or, as has often been said, an inverted &#8220;fishhook&#8221; with Cemetery and Culp&#8217;s Hills the hook and barb, Cemetery Ridge the shank, and Little Round Top the eye.
Buford spent the last night of June 1863 fretting over how best to defend Gettysburg in the morning when he, unlike anyone else, expected fighting to come down on the peaceful village. Eight miles south, the bivouacking I and XI Corps were to march to Gettysburg at first light, and that gave him his mission: hold the town until the infantry arrived; keep the Rebels from taking the high ground to the south. When one of his colonels tried to assure the anxious Buford that they would handle anything the &#8220;Johnnies&#8221; threw at them in the morning, he replied grimly: &#8220;No, you won&#8217;t. They&#8217;re going to hit you tomorrow and they&#8217;ll come booming. You&#8217;ll have to fight like the devil until supports arrive.&#8221;
[Next Segment: Day One &#8230;&#8220;Tain&#8217;t No Militia!&#8221;]

GETTYSBURG: June 30 – The Armies Make Contact (Part 4 of 8)

The story of the Battle of Gettysburg began not in July 1863 in Pennsylvania, but really two months earlier and 130 miles farther south in Virginia. It began at a grand estate called Chancellorsville, situated in a clearing hacked out of the nearly impenetrable region of forest below the Rappahannock River known as &#8220;The Wilderness.&#8221;
On May 2nd, in a maneuver that now looms as a military classic, Robert E. Lee&#8217;s Army of Northern Virginia counter-attacked the much larger federal Army of the Potomac, then under the command of Maj. General Joseph Hooker. Flying in the face of all convention, Lee divided his already numerically inferior force and hit the Yankee army hard on its exposed flank in a surprise dusk attack that sent his enemy reeling. The man in charge of the assault was the gifted Rebel Lieutenant General Thomas J. &#8220;Stonewall&#8221; Jackson, who was the fiercest of Lee&#8217;s two corps commanders. (A large portion of his other corps, commanded by Lt. Genl. James Longstreet, was in the southern part of the state on a supply gathering mission and would not get back in time to participate in the battle). 
Chancellorsville was Lee&#8217;s most astonishing victory to date in a string of astonishing victories. But it was also one of his costliest. Not only did his army suffer 13,000 casualties out of 60,000 he put in the field, but Jackson was wounded, shot by his own men in the confusion of battle, and suffered the amputation of his left arm. &#8220;He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right,&#8221; Lee lamented. Jackson died a week later from pneumonia exacerbated by his weakened condition. His death was a terrible blow to the Southern cause that clouded the victory and would have a profound impact on the decisive campaign to come.
For Lee, Chancellorsville, though brilliant in its tactical daring and execution, was a strategically inconclusive battle that did nothing more than repel yet another Union thrust at the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia while draining his ranks of invaluable veterans, especially infantry. It resolved nothing. Lee knew he needed to win decisively. And so he gathered all his strength, re-organized his army after Jackson&#8217;s death into three more manageable corps of roughly 23,000 men each (the three corps were neatly subdivided into three divisions of 3-5 brigades each) and a combined artillery with 280 guns, plus 12,500 cavalry. 
On June 3, 1863, he disengaged from Hooker&#8217;s recuperating army on the opposite bank of the Rappahannock and set off to invade the North. 
Lee hoped that by threatening Washington, D.C. he could lure the Union forces away from Virginia and, on ground of his choosing, inflict a crushing blow on the North&#8217;s principal army, compel foreign recognition of the Confederacy, and force Lincoln to sue for peace. He was looking for a Southern version of the 1777 Battle of Saratoga that brought France to the side of the American Colonists in their own struggle for independence a mere eighty-six years before&#8230;a battle that would turn the tide and end the war. 
Lee had actually tried moving up into enemy territory the previous summer after his smashing victory at 2nd Bull Run. But then his army was only half the size, depleted by battle losses and straggling, exhausted from two months of constant marching and combat in the heat of summer and malnourished. His expedition only got as far as western Maryland before being confronted by a Union Army of the Potomac two and a half times larger than his own. 
On September 17, 1862, Lee made a defiant stand on Antietam creek. Once again he fought a brilliant action against a completely out-classed Union General McClellan (the third in a string of five commanding generals Lincoln tried out as head of his largest army). But Lee&#8217;s vastly outnumbered force was not strong enough to achieve anything but a tactical stalemate. The chaotic 12-hour slaughter produced the bloodiest day in American history, and ended Lee&#8217;s first invasion of the North. Lee returned to Virginia determined to try again when the time was ripe. 
In June 1863 the moment had come. The Army of Northern Virginia was double the size it was at Antietam and flush with victory. Momentum favored bold action. Lee was determined to strike at the heart of the enemy&#8217;s country again; this time he would be victorious. This would be the final battle. 
And so began the second Rebel invasion of the North. So began a campaign that would result in the climactic battle of the Civil War. . .the after-effects of which are still with us today.
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18168/gettysburg-war-comes-north-part-3-8-brad-schaeffer">[Next Segment: War Comes North: Coming Sunday</a>]

GETTYSBURG: Prelude To Invasion (Part 2 of 8)

This July 1-3 will mark the 154th anniversary of the biggest, bloodiest, and most decisive battle ever fought in North America. I hope in the coming days to spark your interest by relaying this most amazing story. 
* * *
In the summer of 1863 the United States, just shy of eighty-seven years young, was deep into its third year of a horrific Civil War that appeared to have no end in sight. Far from having crushed the agrarian Southern states&#8217; rebellion, the much more populous and industrialized North instead found themselves on the defensive, facing a victorious, seemingly invincible, Rebel Army of Northern Virginia, 77,000 men strong and at the height of its power, that was invading Pennsylvania. Its legendary commander, General Robert E. Lee, was seeking a showdown fight that would earn for the fledgling Confederate States of America its independence from the rest of the United States. 
Shadowing Lee&#8217;s invasion force, staying between them and the capital Washington, D.C., was an even larger USA Army of the Potomac, fielding 95,000 men anxious to eject the Rebel invaders from their soil. Unlike Lee, who had delivered four victories to the Southern cause in one year, the man at the head of President Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s primary army, Major General George G. Meade, had been in command for just four days. Though untested, Meade, a native of Pennsylvania, was not intimidated by Lee&#8217;s reputation as a &#8220;grey fox.&#8221; He saw his task as simple: hunt down Lee&#8217;s army, engage it in battle and destroy it. 
But as it turned out, neither Lee nor Meade but rather a chance encounter would end up deciding when and where the great battle would be fought. On July 1, 1863, almost by accident, the two armies collided violently in and around a sleepy little town in southern Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. 
The stakes were as high as on any battlefield in which any Americans have ever fought in any war. On the line was nothing less than the question of the Republic&#8217;s future itself. Were we to remain one federal Union: a united, powerful, trans-continental nation of free citizens from the Mexican to Canadian borders and sea-to-sea and beyond? Or would the territory of the USA be balkanized into two or more independent countries, including one whose economy and culture was built upon the labor of 3.5 million African-American slaves? 
But what was the fighting all about in the first place? At the beginning of hostilities in April 1861, both sides insisted with mutual delusion that slavery was not the war&#8217;s casus belli. The division between them, they vehemently declared, was about &#8220;States&#8217; Rights&#8221; for the South, preserving the Union for the North, and sprinkled with sectional economic grievances from tariffs to free navigation of the Mississippi&#8230;but not slavery. 
That was utter nonsense&#8230;
This is like insisting that an argument is only about the sunrise and has nothing to do with the rotation of the earth. After all, if slavery was not the core source of contention between North and South, how come not one free state felt compelled to secede and join what three rebellious states even referred to in their articles of secession as the &#8220;the Slave-Holding Confederacy&#8221;? (Georgia mentions slavery 35 times in its 3,300 word declaration!) More revealing, why then just ten years prior to war did the South, whose passion for &#8220;States&#8217; Rights&#8221; was a fetish, nonetheless demand a strict Federal Fugitive Slave Law that gave the central power in Washington D.C. a draconian override of any Northern states&#8217; policies re: harboring run-away slaves? The fact is, when faced with a choice between preserving the institution of slavery or defending the sacrosanct (albeit Northern) &#8220;States&#8217; Rights&#8221;, the South came down hard for the former while trampling on the latter. 
This doesn&#8217;t mean that many Southern soldiers in the rank and file&#8212;few of whom owned any slaves at all&#8212;were insincere in their belief that they were fighting solely for &#8220;States&#8217; Rights,&#8221; but this invites the question: the right to do what exactly? The CSA&#8217;s own vice-president, Alexander Stephens, provided the answer:
<blockquote>
Our new Government&#8217;s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. &#8211; March, 1861
</blockquote>
There is no doubt that slavery was a wicked institution and the great stain upon this nation, but did Americans really need to slaughter each other wholesale to decide the issue? Could the abolitionists not just have let it die naturally as other nations had? 620,000 lives lost. How could such bloodshed be justified? I think the answer lies in the Southern mindset itself at the time. Yes, slavery had died a natural death elsewhere, but no region on earth was so completely dependent upon slave labor as was the Antebellum South. (Mississippi&#8217;s Articles of Secession called slavery &#8220;The greatest material interest of the world.&#8221;) It was not just indispensable to their entire economic system but it was also a deeply interwoven, complex social and cultural institution. In 1860, fully one-third of the Confederacy&#8217;s population were slaves&#8212;in some states slaves actually outnumbered free men. If the subsequent century of Jim Crow oppression, segregation and disenfranchisement of Blacks in the South is any indication, slavery as an institution was not going to just die away peacefully &#8230; certainly not any time soon and as such far too late for generations of millions who deserved better than to be condemned to endure such a monstrous injustice. 
No modern nation which, as Lincoln declared, was &#8220;conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal&#8221; could allow such a government, whose most vital pillar was the very antithesis of freedom, to exist within its sphere of influence. It is certainly true that many in the North held Blacks in as much contempt as did any Dixie plantation overseer and I have no intention of holding up the Union as a land of racial harmony and virtue (Google &#8220;New York Draft Riots&#8221;). But that does not alter the higher idea that the South&#8217;s overt slave-state rebellion deserved to be crushed. And so it was. And the beginning of the end of the Confederacy began at Gettysburg. 
Lincoln would also say: &#8220;The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.&#8221; So long as we remember the sacrifices made by a generation long past to preserve the nation that has been so good to us, their efforts and suffering will not have been in vain. So long as we treat with solemnity the memories of the Confederates to whom, though rejecting their cause, we look with deep admiration for their awe-inspiring battlefield successes and esprit de corps, then the story of America endures. At Gettysburg and other battles, Americans be they &#8220;Johnny Reb&#8221; or &#8220;Billy Yank&#8221; committed acts of bravery and self-sacrifice so astounding that, when looking back on their deeds later in life, they could hardly believe themselves what they had done.
And so I&#8217;d like to present to you the story of the Gettysburg as it unfolded just over a century-and-a-half ago during the hot and humid summer of 1863. Perhaps you will be prompted to hop in your car and take the family to the nearby battlefield when you&#8217;re done reading this series of dispatches from the front if you will. If so you will be doing your part to preserve our national heritage. You will be resisting what the author Lee Harris calls a &#8220;collective forgetfulness that over time settles over peaceful societies.&#8221; We must never forget. 
Besides, it&#8217;s one heck of a story, more compelling and dramatic than the wildest fiction. 
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18167/gettysburg-prelude-invasion-part-2-8-brad-schaeffer">[Next Segment: May 1863 &#8211; Prelude To Invasion</a>]

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