The Battle of Gettysburg Paper

May 2017

By Alexander

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    Imagine yourself surrounded by men with weapons.  Every one of them has a scared expression on their face.  The eerie silence abruptly stops when a gun is fired.  The silence is gone and now it is fight to win and to survive.  You can hear people screaming and yelling.  Cannons are exploding with defining bangs.  Guns are being shot constantly making it sound like a roar instead of individual shots.  This is what the battle of Gettysburg was like.  It was a horrible battle.  Many soldiers on both sides died.  There was so much death that the streams ran with red pure blood.

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    The Battle of Gettysburg was a great turning point in the civil war.  The Civil war was fought after the slave holding South seceded becoming the Confederate States of America(Battle of Gettysburg).  The Union was losing and had to win a giant and decisive battle.  Buford knew General Lee (who was the general in charge of the Confederate forces) was in Pennsylvania but did not know his exact location.  When a spy found them and reported back to Buford it was a risk he had to take(The Battle of Gettysburg).

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    Union Scouts saw that the Confederate Army was approaching Gettysburg from the North and the West.  The Union army knew General Lee was in Pennsylvania and they found him (Stevens).  The scouts reported to General John Buford.  He thought Gettysburg was a great place to destroy General Lee’s army.  The problem was that he did not have enough troops or supplies to beat them.  He decided that he would hold off the Confederate Army until reinforcements arrived.  He would use the ridges and buildings for cover (Stevens).

 

    Many famous generals were involved in The Battle of Gettysburg.  The leader of the Union Army was a man named General George E Meade.  He was born in Cadiz, Spain(Battle of Gettysburg).  He fought in the Mexican-American War.  The Union Army consisted of Winfield Scott Hancock, Daniel E Sickles, John F. Reynolds, George Sykes,  and John Sedgewick.  The leader of the Confederate was Robert E. Lee.  He also was a soldier in the Mexican-American War(Battle of Gettysburg).

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    The Battle of Gettysburg was the worst battle of the civil war and possibly American history.  General Buford placed his troops at three different ridges, Heir Ridge, McPherson Ridge, and Seminary Ridge.  The Confederates moved close to the Union armies so Lieutenant Marcellus Jones fired the first shot.  The Confederates pushed the Union back. The Union, General John F. Reynolds, was shot and killed(Burgan).  Later in the day, Confederate General Davis was beating the Union but the tides changed.  Although the Union was Beating the Confederate Armies, they were suffering heavy losses.  At 2 p.m. on the second day of battle, Union reinforcements arrived winning the battle(Burgan).

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    Many civilians helped the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg.  John Burns was a shoemaker who took a gun from a wounded Union soldier and started to fight with the Union Army.  He was shot three times and miraculously still lived.  The Town of Gettysburg later made a monument for John Burns.   Many people worked as doctors and nurses (Civilians at Gettysburg).  Mary Virginia was the only civilian that died in the battle.  She was making bread when a stray bullet hit her in the back.  There is a monument of her as well.  A lawyer named David McConaughey gave intelligence about the Confederate Army (Civilians at Gettysburg).

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    The Battle of Gettysburg was a terrible battle losing the lives of many Americans.  The total amount of casualties was 51,000.  The Union suffered from 23,355 casualties.  There were 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, and 5,369 captured or missing(The Battle of Gettysburg).  The Confederates also faced many casualties of 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing.  The complete total of Confederate casualties was 28,000.  The worst casualty of all was the death of the Union General John F. Reynolds.  He was commanding his troops on the top of his horse and yelled,” Forward men!,”.  After he said that, he immediately fell off of his horse with a wound in his upper neck.  The officers around him could not hear the gunshot because of all the fighting(The Battle of Gettysburg).

    

    The Battle of Gettysburg left a mark on many people’s lives making it one of the worst battles in American history.  Abraham Lincoln made his most famous speech after the Battle of Gettysburg, The Gettysburg Address.  Many people lost their lives, some lost limbs because of poor technology, and others suffered from different disabilities.  No one came out well.

"Battle of Gettysburg." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 May 2017. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

 

Burgan, Michael. The Battle of Gettysburg. Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point, 2001. Print.

 

"Civilians at Gettysburg." National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web

24 Apr. 2017.

 

Crewe, Sabrina, and Dale Anderson. The Battle of Gettysburg. Milwaukee, WI: Gareth Stevens Pub.,

2003. Print.