The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [119]
The Proclamation also helped the Union cause within the United States. It gave the Union something more to fight for, because “maintaining the Union” could not carry the weight of the war much longer. The body count required to maintain the Union was already too high for some. However, the proclamation changed the war aims of the Union. Now the federal forces were fighting to set men free and the South to enslave men. This allowed the Union to withstand much higher casualties and keep fighting. In this Emancipation Proclamation stratagem, Lincoln showed himself to be a masterful politician achieving several significant goals at one stroke.
In the west, Union forces were attacking down the Mississippi River, and the Union Navy seized New Orleans cutting off a major supply route for the South. Ulysses S. Grant, placed in charge of the Western Theater of War, took the vital Mississippi River link of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 in what was probably Grant’s best campaign. Now the Mississippi River was totally Union, and Texas, Arkansas, and nearly all of Louisiana were cut off from the rest of the South. The Union blockade was stopping all supplies flowing to the Confederate states from overseas. The South was finished, but its leaders demanded it fight on, ignoring the fact there was nothing left to win.
Gettysburg
The day before the capture of Vicksburg the Battle of Gettysburg ended in the north. Gettysburg’s took place from July 1 to July 3, 1863, and the cost in men and material was enormous. The South lost twenty-eight thousand men (28,000) in the confrontation and the North twenty-three thousand (23,000). The North could afford to lose men at this rate, but not the South. Those twenty-eight thousand southerners were veterans of many battles and impossible to replace.
Gettysburg represents General Robert E. Lee’s second and last invasion of the North, and perhaps the last chance for victory by the battered South. Lee’s men were starving. The entire South was starving, and supplies of clothing, shoes, blankets, food, and other essentials (except gunpowder and bullets) were very low. By invading the North in July, he could forage off Union land rich with crops. In addition, he might be able to draw the Union Army of the Potomac into a decisive battle. Lee realized an overwhelming victory was necessary, one totally overthrowing the Army of the Potomac. Perhaps such a victory would gain foreign support and a peace deal from the Union. If he failed, the South faced grounding down like corn in a mill. After full considerations of the options, the invasion seemed the only reasonable course of action. By just waiting, the Union would come after them again; and Lee’s men and horses would have less food than before. By moving north Lee’s army could at least eat.
Figure 39 Gettysburg,—Pickett’s Charge—arrow labeled 3
Gettysburg was what military men call a meeting engagement; that is, an unplanned encounter where two armies just run into one another. This was the worst kind of battle for the Confederates to fight. Lee faced a much larger army led by George Meade, who was cautious but determined. If nothing else, Meade knew good defensive ground when he saw it, and by taking up positions on Cemetery Ridge and Big and Little Round top he established an impressive defensive situation. At nearly any point before General Pickett’s famous charge Lee could have disengaged and looked for another battlefield. Lee needed to plan what to do before the engagement rather than making quick decisions during the engagement. Lee, however, decided to fight at Gettysburg. Why is not clear.
After a series of poor performances by his junior commanders on the flanks of the Union lines, he made a disastrous decision to attack the center of the enemy line on the high ground at Cemetery Ridge. Robert E. Lee had observed the results of mass assaults on prepared positions throughout the war. This decision to assault a dug in position on high ground defies comprehension.
Lee seldom made mediocre decisions.[137] Now he made a move that put an