If the Confederacy had won at the Battle of Gettysburg

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

There was never any realistic hope for a Southern victory at Gettysburg after the first day. While by no means unimportant, Gettysburg has been overstated in the popular imagination as the absolute moment when the Civil War was won. By the second day, the best Lee could hope for was a draw —and a draw was enough to send the ANV fleeing south at Antietam the year before. Considering also that a different result in Pennsylvania would not prevent Grant from taking Vicksburg, I'd go so far as to say that Gettysburg is not the "turning point" we should find most interesting. That said, I will conditionally endorse Yankee's point that a major mistake by the Union high command could have change the result of the battle, though of course it's impossible to assess the likelihood of such an event with any certainty.


I'm really not interested in rehashing the "mean imperialist Yankees vs. chivalrous Southern gentlemen" take on the Civil War, but in general, LOL at the notion that Robert E. Lee is insufficiently deified in our history books.