Battle of Gettysburg
The fighting started on July 1. While the Northern army numbered approximately eighty-five thousand men to the South's seventy-five thousand soldiers, the Confederates outnumbered the Union soldiers as the battle opened. The Confederates drove the Northerners through the town. The Union soldiers took up a defensive position on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Ridge to the south and east of Gettysburg. Most Confederate troops took position on nearby Seminary Ridge and prepared for the next day's fighting.
During the evening of July 1, additional Union troops arrived. The Northerners fortified their position. The next day Confederate forces assaulted the Union lines, but the attack was uncoordinated and failed to breach the Northern position. On July 3, Lee ordered parts of three Confederate divisions to assault the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Known as Pickett's Charge, nearly three-quarters of the Confederate soldiers involved in this attack were killed or wounded. On July 4, the Army of Northern Virginia began its retreat back to the South.
Traditionally, historians have labeled this battle, along with the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, as the "high tide" of the Confederacy. According to scholars, following these two battles, Southerners had no hope of winning the war and attaining their freedom. In recent years, historians have begun to change this interpretation. It is important to remember that the war lasted almost two more years. The Southerners did not simply give up the fight after these two defeats. Confederates, both soldiers and civilians, remained hopeful in their diaries and letters that the South would emerge victorious in the wider war.
These battles did depress some Southerners. After all, the Confederacy had lost. Other Southerners, though, were proud of their men for taking the war to the North. Many Northerners were also hopeful. In the Battle of Vicksburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant succeeded in gaining control of the Mississippi River for the North, effectively splitting the South into two parts. General Meade had repelled Lee's invasion. Many Northerners either hoped or believed that the Union was closer to a final victory in the war. Other Northerners were shaken, including many Ohioans. Meade had defeated Lee's army, but the Confederates had still been able to launch an invasion of the North. At the same time that the Battle of Gettysburg was occurring, a Confederate force under John Hunt Morgan was raiding southern Indiana and Ohio. Northern soldiers eventually brought Morgan's Raid to an end, but the raid along with Lee's invasion caused other Union civilians to question whether or not their military would emerge victorious. These two Confederate invasions inspired the Peace Democrats to bring additional pressure on President Abraham Lincoln to negotiate peace with the Confederacy