“If
you go to Gettysburg and take the time, read some of the monuments,
read some of the plaques, you will come away changed.” ~ Jeff
Shaara
This week is the 150th anniversary of that epic struggle. In June 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia marched toward Maryland and Pennsylvania to launch an invasion of the North. General Robert E. Lee, fresh from his
masterpiece victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, sought to use
his army as a threat to northern cities and force a peace upon the
Union, after so much of the Civil War had been fought on southern
soil. Chancellorsville had been his greatest victory, but also his
costliest, with the death of Stonewall Jackson, one of his two corps
commanders, gunned down by friendly fire in the midst of the
battle. Lee moved North with his army reorganized into three corps, his
strong right hand General James Longstreet still in command, plus two other generals, Richard Ewell and A. P. Hill, elevated
to fill the gap left by Jackson.
