Did the south retreat in the Battle of Gettysburg?

Answer 1

Southern forces retreated after the Battle, which ended July 3. On July 4 it rained all day, and the Confederates remained on the battlefield, hoping the Union army would attack them while they remained on the defensive, which would have been a reversal of what had gone on up to that time at Gettysburg. The Confederates had been the aggressors.

Late on the day of July 4 Lee started his army southward. First went the lengthy ambulance trains - these were wagon trains, not a railroad. Supply wagons and prisoners went too, then the men in the fighting units. The Union forces gave half-hearted pursuit the next day.

When Lee reached the Potomac it was swollen with rain and he could not cross his army right away. The Confederates built miles of very strong entrenchments protecting their bridgehead on the north bank of the Potomac, and once more hoped the Yankees would attack them, but the Yankees did not oblige. The Yankees finally did move against the Rebels when most were over the River, after the water had gone down, and there was a sharp rear-guard engagement, called the Battle of Falling Waters, on July 14.

One of the more valid criticisms of the Confederates and the Gettysburg campaign was that the whole episode was really not an invasion - it was a gigantic raid. There was no intention of remaining north of the Potomac when the Rebels set out northward. The Rebels had only the most tenuous of supply lines back to their territory, by wagon north from the Potomac. When the Union army concentrated against them, the Rebels would be forced to concentrate too, which would mean that there would be no chance to disperse the army over the Pennsylvania countryside and rob the farmers of food to feed the army (a practice called "foraging"). This is what happened at Gettysburg. After three days fighting the Confederates were out of artillery ammunition and low on supplies of all kinds, and this was a foreseeable result of going into the north. So, the Confederates would not be able to stay in the north, and they knew it. And when they left, to go back to Virginia, it was going to look like a retreat and a defeat, no matter what had happened. Lee was determined to do something with his army that summer, to keep a large part of it from being sent to Mississippi to try to help save Vicksburg, and Lee hoped to accomplish something great in the north, perhaps even the complete destruction of the Union Army of the Potomac. But, if that did not happen, Lee was going to have to return south, and it would look like a retreat, and further dispirit the southern people.

Answer 2

General Robert E Lee and the Confederate Army after suffering a terrible loss.

Answer 3

Yes, they fought for almost two more years. Lee did not surrender until April of 1865.
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