Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/264



CHAPTER XIV. BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG—1863. is not our purpose to trace the causes of the civil war in the United States of America, in the years from 1861 to 1865, a war which deluged the land with blood and brought mourning into many thousands of homes from one end of the country to the other. Each side battled for what it believed to be the right, and each displayed, valor, determination, and heroism, that will forever be the pride of all Americans, without distinction of creed or party. From its commencement in 1861 the war progressed with varying fortunes until the event of which this chapter treats. With its smaller population and its limited resources, the South had been compelled to see the war confined to its own area. In the West the Union armies had steadily advanced into the Southern territory; in the East the ports of the South were blockaded, while the land forces chiefly confined their operations to Virginia, one of the foremost of the slave-holding States, and an ardent supporter of the cause of secession. In September, 1862, the Confederate army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac with the intention of invading the Northern States, but the result of the battle of Antietam, in Maryland, caused its commander, General Lee, to retreat to Virginia, and abandon, for the time, his cherished design. Early in June, 1863, General Lee had again decided on 230