Gettysburg

There is a lot to say about the Battle of Gettysburg. Many people wonder why this battle out of all others during the war was so great. Many questions were asked. Such as, what did they do for supplies? How did they live? What was the typical military strategy? I will also answer many other questions to in this essay. It’s really hard to believe the things I saw during the movie. It just makes wonder how stupid the government was to even think about starting a Civil War. Millions and millions of men died in this war. For what? Honor? I certainly think they did not die honorably, but just went out there and got slaughtered.

Although many people say that the Union and Confederate armies fought because of the importance of Gettysburg; the thing is that it was just a small town back then. Gettysburg was chosen because it was “good ground”. The Confederate army was passing through to go further north and invade the Union territory. The Union army was having the same idea about the south. Good ground was high terrain surrounded by trees. The role geography played in the war was that the army who was placed on the good ground would have a better position on the opposing forces.

The officers and soldiers had different lifestyles during the war. The generals would be in cabins or log houses with plenty of supplies. The rest of the army had lived in tents with supplies, but not as much as the generals. So basically the higher your rank, the better you r living conditions were.

Although living conditions were different, the strategy was similar. Many times the Union army had to play defensively. The development of trench warfare began. If supplies or ammo got too low, sometimes they would charge and attack the Southerners, like Colonel Chamberlain did when he was defending the line. The Confederate army under the command of General Lee would march all the way to the gate and try to capture it.

When in combat, both sides had the same kind of artillery. Soldiers used muskets and small handguns and generals on the other hand would ride on horseback with a sword and pistol. Another type of weaponry that was used were cannons. Even though cannons were much more powerful, muskets were easier due to the fact that they were portable and fired rounds quicker.