Gettysburg Turning Point

The battle of Gettysburg was the major turning point in the American Civil War. It was a 3-day engagement. J.E.B. Stuart, chief scout for the Confederate army, failed to do his job for General Lee. Because of this, the Union was able to gain control of the high ground for the remainder of the battle. It was the bloodiest battle of the war, and the bloodiest battle ever fought on North American soil to this day. The bloodiest single-day battle was the battle of Antietam. The first major engagement of the battle was the fight for Cemetery Hill. Union General John Buford’s cavalry scouts reported that the main body of the Army of the Potomac had changed direction. With this knowledge, union troops dug in at Cemetery Hill and fended of General Hill’s Brigade.
The second engagement came a day later when a ragged force of Alabamians attempted to overrun Little Round Top, which was held by Colonel Lawrence Chamberlain’s 20th Maine regiment. At this point, the overarching strategy of Commanding General Robert E. Lee was to capture Little Round Top, reinforce …show more content…
Lee believed he was invincible, so he sent a third of his entire army across an open field, hoping to tackle the center of the Union army head-on. General Longstreet knew this plan would fail; however, he followed Lee’s orders nonetheless. It was General George Pickett who was to send his division across the open plains of Gettysburg right into the arms of heavily-gunned Union troops, commanded by General Winfield Scott Hancock. Led by General Lewis Armistead, Pickett’s division marched slowly across the fields under relentless fire from union cannons. Pickett lost more than half his division by the time it reached the stone wall behind which the Union held. The result of the battle was a Union victory leaving Pickett’s entire division decimated. Lee’s Army of the Potomac would never again be able to invade northern