Gettysburg (History Channel's Civil War Week)

Gettysburg was important for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't the mortal blow. It did end forever any hopes of the Confederacy invading the Union again, but that was a small threat. The starving, ill-equipped Army of Northern Virginia was not capable of either conquering the North or destroying the Army of the Potomac, which numbered 122,000 as early as 1862 under Gen. McCellan.

The loss of Vicksburg was far more strategic. With the exception of Port Hudson, it cut the Confederacy in half and Grant's Vicksburg Campaign rendered most of Mississippi either unfit to help supply Confederate armies with foodstuffs and manufactured goods or directly under Union control.

Pemberton's conduct of the V-burg Campaign was pathetic. Grant outclassed and outmaneuvered him at every turn. He should've fought a Fabian campaign, picking off pieces and bits of Grant's army to weaken him before the final kill. Grant's only mistake was a frontal assault at Vicksburg, after a big charge was detonated beneath the Confederate earthworks, that was intended to break the siege. He apparently didn't learn the lesson well, because he repeated the same mistake at Petersburg (the infamous Battle of the Crater, which is a crazy story) and his underling Sherman did the same thing at Kennesaw Mountain. According to one Confederate at Kennesaw, "all that was required was to load and shoot."

The Confederacy took a big uppercut at Gettysburg, but cutting the country in two at Vicksburg (more correctly, Port Hudson) was a knockout blow.

 

I always thought Little Round Top on day 2 was the critical point of the battle. If Chamberlain hadn't held the Rebs there, seems like the Confederate would have been in good position to win the battle.

And while I do consider myself pretty educated on the Civil War topic, I always find I learn more from reading the contributions made on the threads here.

 

Actually very early in the show one of the historians said, flat out, that all of the root causes of the Civil War trace directly back to slavery.

This was part of a discussion of the economic factors of the war -- including the fact that a huge part of the South's actual GDP and wealth was tied up in slaves.

 

I always check to see who is involved in something like this. That James McPherson participated gave it some cred. That it was filmed in South Africa - where History shot their History of US last year - is kind of lame.

But one thing I've learned about the study of history, is that the enjoyment of it is understanding there is no "definitive history." You can learn more things all the time.

Gettysburg gets a lot of attention due to the battle's scope, where and when it took place and the fact that Lincoln's prospects looked uncertain at best before Vicksburg and Gettysburg. It was the high water mark of the Confederate campaign - but economic factors would have ultimately doomed the South.

 

Fair point. It's certainly understandable why they didn't pursue them. It's more like one of those "what if?" points of the war.

 

Call me contrarian, but I've always felt that the most decisive battle of the Civil War was Antietam (or Sharpsburg, as it is also known).

That battle was tactically a draw, but it blunted Lee's initial foray into Union territory at a time when he was at the top of his game and Union generalship was at a particularly low point. Lee could very well have ended the war right then, but instead the opportunity slipped away.

Also, at that time France and Great Britain (especially) were prepared to recognize Confederate independence, but after Antietam, they held off and decided to wait on further developments.

Finally, it was after Antietam that Lincoln decided to write and present the Emancipation Proclamation, which lent a higher moral purpose to the Union cause.

Gettysburg, IMO, was simply the last chance the South had of salvaging anything positive out of the war, and when they were beaten - and when Vicksburg fell the next day - they were finished.

 

I'd say it would be tough to call Sharpsburg the most decisive. Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville were two of the biggest Confederate victories and Second Murfreesboro was a draw all between Sharpsburg/Gettysburg.

 

Newt Gingrich, yes that Newt Gingrich, actually wrote a historical fiction trilogy in which Lee listened to Longstreet and they circled back and took a defensive position. The South destroyed the Army of the Potomac (I believe) in the next battle, literally destroyed it, but that only caused Lincoln to promote Grant sooner. The war still ended the same way, but it was really interesting reading.

He tried to stay as true to timelines of deaths, etc. for major players.

 

So Antietam was the Union's Saratoga? Interesting theory. I like it.

 

Albert, I have always seen the Civil War in terms of a series of increasingly decisive gains for the North, of which Antietam and the Emanicipation Proclamation are one. First would be Lincoln's ability to keep Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri in the Union, which meant the war would be fought primarily in the South. Then came Antietam. Then came Vicksburg and Gettysburg, which meant the South had no tenable means of avoiding defeat EXCEPT if the North accepted a peace settlement. Than came Atlanta, which meant Lincoln would be re-elected, and it was lights out.

 

I enjoyed it, and in a way it was nice to learn about some other players outside of the one's in Shaara's book and the accompanying movie.

But I don't know how you can make something on Gettysburg and not even mention the calvary guys, Stuart and Buford.

I think Buford is one of the more underrated figures in history, and if Stuart had done his job...

 

Overall - I thought the presentation was long on personal color and short on overall scheme. It's one of the problems with some Civil War history - sure there are countless diaries and first-person recollections that help make it real - economics and technology might not be as interesting to talk about, but they tend to cover up for a lot of mistakes, as we saw in the Civil War.