Battles Of Gettysburg Essay Research Paper The

Battles Of Gettysburg Essay, Research Paper

The Civil War, much like a roller coaster, had several ups and downs that changed the course of events. However, one dramatic turning point in the war stands out above all others, The Battle of Gettysburg. From the beginning, the Union was destined to become victorious through superior military tactics and a more industrialization. However, several things must first happen to lead up to this dramatic battle.

The Civil War began at Ft. Sumter on April 12, of 1861(Military). Negotiations for peace had ended that day and CSA Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard gave the orders for the Southern troupes to fire on the North-occupied Fort. The bombardment continued for 33 hours before Ft.Sumter surrendered (Military). The Civil War of the United States had begun. This was only the beginning of a war that would drag out for years to come.

Immediately after these shots were fired on Ft.Sumter, the recently elected President of the Union, Abraham Lincoln, responded with determination (Nash 502). On April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation that called up a total of 75,000 militia from the states (Military). At the same time, calls for troops were sent to the governors of all states that had remained in the Union. On April 19 a second proclamation announced that Southern ports would be blockaded. A third proclamation, dated May 3, called for 42,000 three-year volunteers for the regular army and for 18,000 volunteers to serve one to three years in the navy (Military).

The South responded with equal determination. Virginia and the rest of the upper South seceded. The Congress of the Confederacy authorized President Davis to wage the war now beginning (Nash 499). The border slave states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware never seceded. However, thousands of men in Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland volunteered for service in the Confederate armies (Military).

Both the North and South raised troops as quickly as possible and struggled with the problem of equipping and training them(Chamberlin 18). The states recruited volunteers and organized them into regiments. Officers were elected by the men and commissioned by the governors(19). In the beginning the length of service was usually short, but as soon as it became apparent that the war was not going to come to an end anytime soon, they changed the term on enlistment to three years(Military).

As the troupes were trained, they were sent to various parts of the country. The Northern troupes were sent to either Washington D.C. or stationed along the Ohio River(Military). In the South, the troupes were mainly concentrated in Tennessee or Virginia where they could threaten the Capital.

Men flooded into armies in both the North and the South. Both sides discussed strategies that they believed would help them to achieve victory (Nash 508). The strategies that each side developed were much different from each other because their goals in the war varied considerably. The South had seceded and desired to create a news nation. Therefore, they had only to defend themselves and wait until the North had tired itself out (Nash 515). The North, on the other hand, had to attempt to restore the Union. This meant that they had to convince the Confederates that they had no hopes in seceding from the Union and forming a new nation. Northern armies would have to invade the Confederacy, destroy it’s capacity to wage war, and destroy the will of the Confederates to resist the Union (Military). The Confederacy could win the war by merely prolonging the war until the point that the Union would find the war too costly in lives and money to continue fighting. This was much like the way that the colonists in the Revolutionary War defeated a seemingly much stronger power by dragging the war out and exhausting the British will to win (Military). The stage was set for war, and it looked as though it would favor the South.

Lincoln and the Northerners however had no intention of letting the South split apart a country that so many had worked so hard to build. A prominent American military figure, Winfield Scott, developed a long-term plan that he believed would help the Northerners achieve victory. His plan, subsequently named the “Anaconda Plan” would apply pressure, through military actions, to different parts of the South and “constrict” them into surrendering (Military). A combined force of naval and army units would sweep down the Mississippi River, dividing the Confederacy’s eastern and western states. At the same time, the Union Navy would institute a blockade to deny the Confederacy the badly needed manufactured goods from Europe. If the South continued to fight, even after the loss of the Mississippi and the closing of its ports; Scott envisioned a major invasion into the heart of the Confederacy (Military). He estimated that it would take two to three years and 300,000 men to carry out this strategy. Aside from underestimating, by about half, the length of time and the number of men it would take to bring success, Scott had sketched the broad strategy the North would implement to defeat the South over the next four years (Military). The U.S. Navy applied increasing pressure along the Confederate coasts, Northern forces took control of the Mississippi River by the Middle of 1863, and large armies marched into Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolina