What were key reasons for the way the battle of Gettysburg turned out?

Answer 1

1. The Union held the high ground throughout the battle, placing Lee at a tactical disadvantage.
2. Lee's experience in the Mexican War, and his campaigns in Virginia while on the defensive, led him to believe that his troops could overcome numerically superior forces.
3. Without Stuart's cavalry to reconnoiter, Lee could not make intelligent decisions based on the best possible information. He was fighting blind.
4. Northern troops were fighting on their own territory, for once, and had the advantage in knowing the terrain, access to reinforcements and resupply, fighting along interior lines, good defensible positions, superior equipment, and, by 1863, equal training and experience against the enemy. They were determined, trained, and had high morale.
5. Custer's led desperate cavalry charges to prevent the South from turning the Northern flanks.
6. Joshua Chamberlain Maine Volunteers held back an attack by the Alabama Militia that threatened to take the high ground.
7. Lee depleted his forces in the unnecessary and vain attempt to break the center of the Union line, called Pickett's Charge.