What Were the Effects of the Battle at Gettysburg?
Memorial to Union General Hancock on the Gettysburg battlefield. GETTYSBURG image by brelsbil from Fotolia.com The Battle of Gettysburg is one of the best-known battles in American history. More than 50,000 soldiers became casualties in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, fought in July 1863 around the small Pennsylvania town. Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army invaded Union territory in an effort to bring the war to the North and was opposed by Union forces commanded by Major General George Gordon Meade. After three days of fierce fighting, the battle ended in a Union victory. A Union Victory Gettysburg was the first time a Union army had defeated Lee. Lee’s victories at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and Chancellorsville in May 1863 gave him confidence, while the Union army was actually getting smaller as the men who joined on nine month enlistments in the summer of 1862 returned home. The Union victory at Gettysburg stopped the Confederate invasion in its tracks and renewe
