Aaron Smith
Battle of Gettysburg 
The battle of Gettysburg was the most important battle fought in the Civil War. It all started on July 1st, 1863 in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. This battle had the largest numbers of casualties out of all the battles throughout the whole war. What makes this war so significant is the fact that it was the turning point in the war. It was a union victory under the leadership of General George M. Meade and his Army of the Potomac against the Confederate forces, The Army of Northern Virginia, under the leadership of General Robert E. Lee. Lee had one main objective in this battle and that was to crush the union army and get as far as Harrisburg or even Philadelphia. The second day of the battle is when things really picked up with both armies being a little more built up. Lee’s plan for day 2 was to just attack Meade’s men all around. Lee would take Culp’s hill and Cemetery Hill to get better ground but started hearing gunfire from one of his other men’s positions and assumed they started battle but what he didn’t know was that the gunfire was not in his favor. The Union is ready to fight lined up in a fishhook formation whilst Lee is on the attack starting battles at places like Little Round Top and Culp’s Hill amongst other places. The third day is where the main event took place. Consisting of 12,500 Confederates an attack was launched on Union front lines and is known as Pickett’s charge. At around 3 when cannon fire was quiet the 12 thousand men walked about 3-quarters of a mile into Cemetery ridge. What people don’t really know is what really messed up the confederates is a loss of ammunition, when the men were charging, they were receiving heavy fire. The fire received in the charge led to about half the men dying and when they arrived at front lines there was acts of hand to hand combat. What was supposed to really help the Confederates out was cannon fire from 2 cannons they captured but they had already used all the artillery. The attack was stopped and neutralized by Union gun fire from rifles and artillery. This loss led Lee to retreat into Virginia. The battle was supposed to work in Confederate favor after they pulled off a victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville. This led Lee to want to migrate North and gain more control but as he did so something that really stumped them was the Battle of Antietam which was a very important fight for the union being that the Union won off a strategic victory, which sets the victor up for success. If it were not for the fight and all the preparations taken and managed for it then the Civil war easily could have been a Confederate win changing the course of history as we know it. All in all, between the wounded the missing and the killed there was roughly between 46,049-51,049 people who were involved in this war making it the bloodiest and war with the heaviest loss of life in US history.
Coddington. 2018. Wikipedia. November 18. Accessed Febuary 2, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleofGettysburg