Union morale is running low; President Lincoln watches as the revolving door of Union generals tasked with leading the Army of the Potomac brings nothing but failure, and the latest one risks it all. The Battle of Chancellorsville on June 3rd puts the North one decisive battle away from being defeated entirely. What was boasted coming into the battle as a masterful strategy drafted with complete infallibility by General Joseph Hooker, the commander of the Potomac Army, turned out to be a biblical case of pride before an immense fall. The General had all the reason to be overconfident, with a force of 100,000 strong under his commandeer compared to a measly 60,000 on the part of General Robert E Lee. Still, from the outset, the “perfect” strategy was far from perfect as the South smashed into the Union defense; the prospects of victory worsened, not helped by the inexplicable decisions of Hooker. Hooker made decisions so horrible that when knocked unconscious for 30 minutes, commanders rejoiced at the thought of having rational leadership but were promptly disappointed when he woke up. Fighting continues, and Hooker blunders repeatedly and, in a final stroke of lunacy, goes against the better judgment of his war council and gives up combat because he has had “enough.” Not only was that a move that completely confounded Union commanders, southern troops themselves, even amid a meaningful victory, were just perplexed, with one Confederate cartographer Jebidiah Hoskins commenting how he “had no idea the enemy were so well fortified and wonder they left their works so soon.” The President was despondent at the loss crying, “My God! My God! What will the country say? What will the country say?”. Hooker bafflingly offered a justification in what can be described as an incredible spin of logic, merely spinning it off as a recalculation; Lincoln had enough on June 28th and sacks Hooker after just six months with his replacement, General George Meade, unknowingly about to enter decisive circumstances.
Lee marches and crosses the Mason-Dixon Line (the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania) with the dual purpose of replenishing his depleted army with the plentiful paradise of the northern countryside and waging the decisive battle intended to threaten DC and thus force the North onto the bargaining table, the time for such a battle arrived in due time. On July 1st, in the small town of Gettysburg, where the local roads converge from Lee was then stationed, he heard of Meade’s proximity and set the stage for the struggle to come. The fate of the union resided in a small town just 86 miles from Washington DC and fought furiously it was. Men threw themselves at one another in the thousands to gain a slight advantage over the other; the smell of gunpowder and the deafening sounds of cannon fire perfused the air. Men fell on the battlefield dying with only death surrounding their last breath; 86 miles away, the President is fed news, his heart filled with dread and soul engaged in ardent prayer for the country. Finally, two days after its beginning, the battle ends with a massacre of Southern troops as they make a final charge at the point-blank range of Union troops. The day extracts a heavy toll, with 51,112 casualties; the North is saved but not without a cruel repeat of misfortune. In cowardice all too familiar for that particular post, the newly-christened Meade refuses to chase the retreating Confederates and costs the country another two years of cruel warfare.
Now, 159 years later, we recognize the sacrifice of those men. Beyond anything I can add, I evoke President Lincoln that this marker of history not be forgotten. That consecrated ground, consecrated by the efforts of those men and not of those who spoke thereafter, reminds us that we never reach a point to pit brother against brother again. We are all Americans, and that fact will always remain. We must stand together in the face of trials and ensure that every dawn is a new birth of freedom for America.
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