The Battle of Gettysburg was beginning of the end for Robert E Lee and the Confederacy

It is not only the site of the largest and bloodiest military confrontation in the Western Hemisphere but the place where Abraham Lincoln delivered his brief but perfectly crafted address on November 19 1863.

However, here the focus is on the battle which took place between July 1 and 3 1863 rather than Lincoln’s celebrated address.

After his stunning victory at Chancellorsville (April 30-May 6 1863) Robert E Lee may have concluded that his Army of Northern Virginia was virtually invincible and that it could be relied upon to achieve anything he asked them to do.

Lee then advanced into Pennsylvania where his army and George Meade’s Union army collided at Gettysburg. In retrospect, it was to be the turning point in the Civil War but this was not obvious at the time.

Although neither commander was present on the first day of battle, July 1 1863 witnessed heavy fighting and heavy casualties on each side.

The following day was characterised by desperate attacks and counterattacks to gain control of locations such as Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill, Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard. There were further heavy losses on both sides.

On July 3 Lee was determined to deliver a knock-out blow. Some 15,000 Confederate troops attacked Cemetery Ridge (often described as ‘Pickett’s charge’), held by 10,000 Union infantrymen. The Southern spearhead reached the ridge but could achieve no more.

Historians refer to this episode as ‘the high-water mark of the Confederacy’. Critically weakened by artillery during their advance, lacking reinforcement, and under vigorous attack from three sides, the Southerners retreated, leaving 19 battle flags and hundreds of prisoners.

More than 7,000 of the cream of the Army of Northern Virginia did not return to the Confederate lines. Those who did were greeted without reproach by Lee, who told them that he alone was to blame for their bloody repulse. On July 4 Lee waited to meet an attack that never came. That night, taking advantage of heavy rain, he began the retreat back to Virginia.

Allegedly like Napoleon at Waterloo, Lee was physically unwell and his judgment was not at its best. Lee had invaded Pennsylvania in search of a decisive victory and was reluctant to leave without one but his defeat stemmed in large measure from overconfidence in his troops.

Let us consider too the significance to the outcome of two Ulster-Scots: the absent J E B Stuart and the irreplaceable ‘Stonewall’ Jackson.

Stuart, the commander of the Army of North Virginia’s cavalry corps, was absent before the battle. If Stuart had been present earlier, Lee would have fought a different battle and perhaps won.

Acutely embarrassed and stung by press criticism for being caught off his guard by being surprised by Union cavalry at Brandy Station on June 9, to redeem his embarrassment Stuart took three of his best brigades for a raid around the rear of the Union infantry.

By bringing the war within six miles of Washington, Stuart caused panic in the city. However, far more importantly, he lost touch with the Army of North Virginia for a full week, depriving Lee of vital intelligence as to the whereabouts and movements of Union forces.

Lee’s great strengths were his audacity, his capacity to surprise his opponents, and his ability to read his opponent’s minds but to exploit these strengths he required up-to-date and accurate intelligence.

When Stuart did rejoin Lee’s army at Gettysburg on July 2, the battle had already begun, and Lee was angry: ‘I have not heard from you for days, and you are the eyes and ears of my army.’ ‘I have brought you 125 wagons and their teams, General,’ Stuart replied. ‘Yes,’ said Lee, ‘and they are an impediment to me now.’ Then, seeing Stuart’s anguish, Lee said: ‘Let me ask you for your help … we will not discuss this further. Help me fight these people.’

Stuart’s forces were too exhausted to be of any great assistance. On July 3, the third and final day of the battle, Stuart and his cavalry were supposed to get behind the Union army and attack it from the rear but they were prevented from doing so by a youthful 23-year old general called George Armstrong Custer, yet another Ulster-Scot.

The death of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, because of ‘friendly fire’ after Chancellorsville, deprived Lee of ‘the daring, skill and energy’ of his most talented and aggressive subordinate at Gettysburg. Lee, the strategist, could always see what should be done in battle; Jackson, the tactician could always deliver it.

Almost two years after his surrender at Appomattox, Lee observed: ‘If I had “Stonewall” Jackson at Gettysburg I would have won that fight; and a complete victory would have given us Washington and Baltimore, if not Philadelphia, and would have established the independence of the Confederacy.’

On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg Lee gave General Richard Ewell discretionary orders to seize ‘if practicable’ the crest of the ridge which curled around Gettysburg which ran east to East Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill.

Ewell chose to think it impracticable but Jackson probably would have found it perfectly ‘practicable’. Possession of the ridge would have made all the difference over the next two days.

A North Carolina veteran of Gettysburg made the point quite succinctly: ‘We missed the genius of Jackson. The simplest soldier in the ranks felt it.’ A senior Confederate officer went further: ‘The death of the Southern Confederacy dates from Chancellorsville.’ Quite simply, after Jackson’s death Lee won no further victories.

Certainly, after Gettysburg, taken in conjunction with Grant’s capture of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in the west on July 4 1863, the strategic initiative passed permanently to the North and the defeat of the South was inevitable, subject only to the proviso that the Union’s will to fight held firm, admittedly by no means a foregone conclusion.