October 29, 2006
Ned Harrison Tackles ' Which were most important battles?'
Ned Harrison, who previously authored a series on columns on 'Why The South Lost The Civil War' for the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star has started a new series for the paper - Which were most important battles?
Harrison argues that Confederate loses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, make them the most important battles. Much of the basis for his argument is that these battles realized General Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan. The Anaconda Plan was proposed in 1861 by Union General Winfield Scott to win the American Civil War with minimal loss of life, enveloping the Confederacy by blockade at sea and control of the Mississippi River.
Harrison also articulates that he views the campaigns leading up to the battle, as part of the battle itself.
For these reasons (soldiers involved, Southern losses, geography, morale) I consider the battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg the most important of the entire war.
I mentioned "campaigns" above, and here are some of the individual battles that made up these two major campaigns:
GETTYSBURG: Individual battles were fought at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863 (the largest cavalry action of the war); Winchester on June 14; Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry raid of June 25-July 2; action at Westminster, Md.; and actions after the main battle–all were part of the Gettysburg Campaign.
VICKSBURG: The fighting at Vicksburg actually started in December 1862, when Gen. Ulysses Grant tried to take the city from the north. Fighting at Holly Springs, Miss., in December 1862 was part of the campaign, and so was Gen. William T. Sherman's failed attack at Chickasaw Bluffs. Gen. John McClernand's campaign against Fort Hindman, Ark., in January 1863 was a meaningless part of the early Vicksburg Campaign.
Filed under Battlefields, Gettysburg by Mike Koepke
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Comments on Ned Harrison Tackles ' Which were most important battles?' »
In my opinion, Gettysburg was vital because it crushed Lee's spirit . Lee was already suffering from poor health. Gettysburg put a bullet in his psyche. The Confederacy slowly slipped away from that point on. Just a peot's opinion.
Gettysburg: The Wheatfield
Billy Yank
Flies circle his head like a black halo, lay their eggs near the bullet lodged in the meat of his brain.
Scattered among the trampled blades, like broken pottery– fragments of skull.
Before the colonel gave the order to advance, he pinned a note to his uniform.
My name is Jonathan Victor and I love my mother.
He imagined her proudly smiling as the morning sun darted off the golden buttons that adorned his blue coat.
Johnny Reb
A scrap of Confederate flesh burdens the flaxen head of a wheat stalk that arches toward the ground like a cricket leg the moment before it springs.
Back home, a little girl, dirt creeping over her feet like a pair of old socks, scratches her name in the mud behind the pig trough.
S A R A H
Smart as she is, Pa will hug her good and tight once the war says he can go home.
Published 2River View Winter 2005
Gettysburg also left the Army of Northern Virginia very crippled depleting it of its most valuable resource - men! If Meade would have aggressively pursued Lee, he couldn't of finished them off.
Thanks for the poem.