Battle of Gettysburg

Lee commanded the Confederate forces.

George meade was the Union's Commander and General Lee was the Confederates Commander

The ending of prisoner-exchange.

Grant saw that the Confederates would run out of men first. They did - at terrible cost in death, disease and starvation in many camps on both sides.

But this did bring the war to an end sooner than would have happened otherwise.

U.S. Grant - though it is still debated whether Grant (General-in-Chief) or George Meade (Army commander) should have taken the surrender of Lee.

Lee never was a drinker, it was Grant that drank. But historians say Grant drank no more than his peers, and it was blown out of proportion about his drinking.

The Union ran out of food, were outgunned, and Fort Sumter was on fire.

This question could be answered in a couple of different ways, but I believe the best answer would be to say that the campaign containing the battle of Gettysburg was Lee's proposed invasion of the North.

In the Summer of 1863, the South is starving. Virginia has been the setting for most of the major battles fought thus far, and her farms have been supporting, in some cases, two armies. Aside from the depletion of Virginia's crops, much of the landscape has been destroyed by constant battle. There has been no break in the action for Virginians to rebuild their land. Also, many of these people are starving because of the lack of food.

Robert E. Lee is mindful of this. He knows that if the focus is not taken off of Virginia soon, the starvation could eventually result in forcing his army to surrender. The focus must be taken off of Virginia, and the war must be brought to the North.

He also sees the wavering support for the largely unsuccessful Union army, and knows that if he can win a major victory on Northern land, the government will have to come up with some sort of peace treaty, which would mean recognition as a country for the Confederacy. Indeed, any sort of negotiations would mean that the North recognized the South as a separate government. This is Lee's goal in his invasion.

As soon as he moves into Pennsylvania, his starving army begins to revitalize, as it feeds off of the abundance of the rich farming state. They stock up on supplies, getting new clothes and shoes, as well. Going into the battle of Gettysburg, Lee's army is in the best shape it has been in since the start of the war. Henry Heth, believing Buford's Union cavalry to be militia, ignores orders by Lee to avoid engagement, and soon after Reynolds's Union infantry joins the battle, and the armies become entangled just west of Gettysburg.

George Gordon Meade, after taking command of the Northern Army of the Potomac from Joseph Hooker, realizes that he needs to make some serious miles from Maryland to catch Lee and close off his open road to Washington. He marches his men up to 35 miles a day to the area of the Confederates. Gettysburg happens to be near the border of Maryland, and Meade had his sights set on choice ground in Maryland, where a stream cut across the landscape and he could mount a great defensive position. He sent General Reynolds's corps in advance to Pennsylvania with orders to fall back when engaged, drawing the Confederate army back to the position held by Meade in Maryland. For some reason, Reynolds gets tangled up at Gettysburg, leading us to believe he saw something vitally important there. Word gets back to Meade, who must march right on through is intended position and move into Pennsylvania to support Reynolds. Thus, the battle of Gettysburg begins, almost entirely by accident.

I hope that was the answer you were looking for.

Chancellorsville - a brilliant tactical triumph that completely wrong-footed the Union General Joe Hooker.

But it was also the beginning of the end for Lee. His 'right arm', Stonewall Jackson, was mortally wounded in this battle, and this is given as a major cause of Lee's defeat in the next big battle, Gettysburg.

Also this was when Lee's health started to fail - possibly because of this psychological blow.

Manassas/Bull Run (1st & 2nd)

The Seven Days Battles (Peninsula campaign, Virginia)

Fredericksburg

Chancellorsville

Chickamauga

The Wilderness

Spotsylvania

Coldharbour

No fat chicks

The usual pattern was of confusion (even confusion over which side whole battalions and even regiments were on); Union attacks on Confederates with poor planning and outdated tactics; Confederates holding on despite losses; and the Union forces falling back but not retreating with heavy losses. This pattern held for nearly every battle in the east for the first two years. Battles in Kentucky and Tennessee, however, resulted in heavy losses for both sides and a fairly steady Union advance.

No. It was a major reason they fought the war, but not a reason they lost. The North's industrial superiority was the main reason the South lost. Actually you could say yes. Davis, the president of the Confederacy had zip power because of the state's righters, so he couldn't get anything done. Davis even found it difficult to get troops to fight outside their home state. Some states within the Confederacy even threatened to secede even further such as Georgia.

The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) occurred as a result of an ambitious plan by Confederate general Robert E. Lee to force Lincoln to keep large numbers of troops in the North to prevent attacks by Southern armies. This would have reduced the forces available to invade Virginia and the rest of the South.

Crossing from Virginia (through West Virginia and Maryland) into southern Pennsylvania, Lee forced Lincoln to send the Army of the Potomac north from Washington in pursuit. The two armies collided when Lee's forces turned south seeking supplies. (The story that there were large numbers of shoes that he needed was apparently circulated at a later date.)

Vicksburg, MS - July 1863 Gettysburg, PA- July 1863 Chickamauga, TN- Sept 1864 Battles of Chattanooga, including Missionary Ridge, Tenn- November 1863 Chancellorsville, VA - May 1863 Fredericksburg, VA - May 1863

Meade's Army of the Potomac blocked the line of retreat and communication of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, forcing Lee to give battle in order to continue his invasion of the North. After three days of hard fighting, unable to break the Union line on the well-defended high ground, Lee was forced to retreat, but Meade was not able to mount a vigorous pursuit that may have cut Lee's forces off from gaining the safety of Virginia, and, possibly, bring about an early end to the war.

Robert E. Lee, for most of the Civil War the commanding general of the Confederate Army, was in command at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863). His forces failed to defeat the Union's Army of the Potomac and retreated back to Virginia.

To convince the British that the Confederates had a good chance of winning, and were worth backing.

Lee attended the US Military Academy at West Point, New York from 1825-29, graduating second in the Class of 1829. For the next thirty-two years Lee was an officer in the US Army. Graduates who did well at West Point were often assigned to the Corps of Engineers, and this was Lee's first work as an army officer. He made improvements to the waterfront in St. Louis and worked for several years building Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, Georgia. The army was small and there was no system of retirement pay. This meant that officers stayed in the service until they died or were very old. Promotion was possible only when someone left the service, creating an opening. After twenty years in the army Lee was still only a captain. He served brilliantly in the Mexican War on the staff of the Commanding General of the Army, Winfield Scott. Scott led an expedition of only 9,000 troops from Vera Cruz, on the Mexican east coast, over the mountains and into the great central valley of Mexico. Scott's small army had to several times defeat the Mexican army, which was two to three times as large, and then fight their way into Mexico City, which had a quarter million people. Scott captured Mexico City and dictated peace terms to the defeated Mexicans. Twice on this campaign Lee scouted and found a path by which American troops were able to outflank (get around) the Mexican Army in prepared defenses, which it would have been very costly to attack head on. Scott was so impressed with Captain Lee that fifteen years later (Scott was still commanding the US Army, after fifty-three years in the service) Scott offered Lee command of the US field army which was to do battle with the Rebels. A large amount of territory was taken from Mexico in the peace settlement of the Mexican War, and the US had to create two new cavalry regiments to patrol this new region, full of hostile Comanches and Apaches. This was an opportunity for promotion, and the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis (later Confederate president, and himself a West Point graduate) was able to select the best officers from the army to fill these new positions. Lee was promoted from captain to lieutenant-colonel, and was second in command of the new Second Regiment of US Cavalry. This regiment is legendary - of the eight men who became four star Confederate generals, four served in the Second Cavalry in the years just before the war. Lee had to take an extended leave in the late 1850s to administer the estate of his wife's mother. Lee's wife was a great granddaughter of Martha Washington and she had inherited Arlington, an estate, later confiscated by the US government and turned into Arlington Cemetery. Lee was at Arlington when John Brown made his raid on Harper's Ferry. The Secretary of War sent a young lieutenant, JEB Stuart, who was in Washington awaiting orders, across the Potomac River to fetch Lieutenant Colonel Lee. Lee and Stuart then took some Marines from the Washington Navy Yard and went to Harper's Ferry and captured John Brown and his group. This was the first time Lee and Stuart worked together, but Stuart would soon be a Lieutenant General commanding all the cavalry in Lee's army.

In 1870 at the age of 63, Robert E. Lee died. The date was October 12, 1870. He suffered from a stroke and later pneumonia. He was laid to rest at the chapel of Washington & Lee University.

He believed in quick, bold thrusts that would take the enemy by surprise.

He made a speciality of refusing to be shunted towards a battlefield of his enemy's choosing.

He was felt to embody the spirit of the Confederacy - a noble aristocratic leader with an outstanding war record.

He inspired fanatical loyalty - his men followed him till they were barefoot and starving.

He maintained a dignified outward bearing - except at Fredericksburg, where his victory was so decisive that he was seen dancing around, hugging other officers, for the only time in his life.

African-American regiments were usually better fighters in battle because they were trying to fight for the freedom of slaves and equal treatment were white regiments were fighting for honor. Since African-Americans were good at fighting they could help win battles and altogether win the Civil War.

The stated (and primary) goal for the Union side (the United State of America) was to retain the union - that is, prevent the Confederate states from leaving (seceding) the U.S.A. After the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, the abolition of slavery was added as a war goal. /// 1) Preserving the Union? A union which is enforced at the barrel of a gun? It seems that that only creates it's own subjugation. 2) Emancipation Proclamation? That document was purely a political/diplomatic instrument intended to keep Britain from more strongly supporting the Confederacy. If the war were suddenly all about freeing the slaves,that would create a morally untenable situation for Britain. If the document's true purpose were moral in nature,it would have "proclaimed" freedom to all the slaves in every state. It only proclaimed free the slaves in the "states in rebellion" not mentioning Delaware,Maryland, Kentucky,or Missouri, all were slave states. Lincoln simply did not want to drive four more states out of the Union. It was known even then that if Lincoln had stated the North's purpose for the war as being to free the slaves, half of the soldiers in the Union army would have thrown down their weapons and gone home. Preserving the Union sounds so much more noble. A book titled "When in the Course of Human Events" by Charles Adams should be read by anyone who wants a comprehensive understanding of the causes and motivations of the war.

The battle was fought in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

it was fought on the moon and mars

It was about the future of the United States. In making it, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality as set out in the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, and that would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant.