Gettysburg and Vicksburg

In Gettysburg, a small town in Pennsylvania, population 2,400 in 1863, General Robert E. Lee failed a second time to win a crucial battle by leading his troops north, and invading a Union state. If he had won that battle, he could have next attacked Philadelphia or Washington.

After three days of fighting—July 1, 2, and 3—the battle at Gettysburg subsided. It had been fierce, ferocious. One soldier described the scene, “The air was all murderous iron.”

On the evening of July 3, Confederate General Robert E. Lee reflected on his men’s brave actions that day, and cried out in deep frustration, “Too bad! Too bad! Oh—too bad!”

On July 4, Lee turned his army south and retreated. His troops could not fight on the fourth.

In Vicksburg, a small town on the river in Mississippi, population 4,500, Confederate General John Pemberton waved a white flag and and asked for terms of surrender, on July 3, 1863.

After 46 days and 45 nights of an ever-tightening siege, Pemberton had reason to believe that Union forces would attack the city the next day, and that his troops had not the strength to fight. For six weeks they had been locked inside the town, living on half and quarter food rations.

Pemberton believed he could extract better terms on July 4, than any other day of the year.

The Union General Ulysses S. Grant replied, “The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping by this course can be ended at any time you may choose, by the unconditional surrender of the city and garrison.” Henceforth, U. S. Grant was known as Unconditional Surrender Grant.

After some discussion, Grant allowed the Union army to parole the Confederate soldiers out of the Confederate army the next day, rather than seize the 30,000 rebels, transport them north to Cairo, in Illinois, and hold them there as prisoners, awaiting an exchange.

In Grant’s “Personal Memoirs,” he described what happened the next day, July 4.

“At the 4th, at the appointed hour, the garrison of Vicksburg marched out of their works, and formed a line in front, stacked arms, and marched back in good order. Our whole army present witnessed this scene without cheering.”

In other words, the Confederate soldiers stacked their rifles, retained their sidearms, received larger food rations, and were free to return to their homes, once paroled from the Confederate army. Most did. Some headed north to escape any further potential enlistment.

In Gettysburg, Lee retreated and would fight for almost two more years, but at Vicksburg, Pemberton surrendered.

Lee had invaded into the north twice. The first was at Antietam, in Maryland, a slave state, but retained within the Union, and the second was at Gettysburg, a Union state. Because both invasions had failed, Robert E. Lee was forced to fight a defensive civil war thereafter.

Whereas Lee’s invasion into Union territory had failed, Grant’s invasion into Confederate territory, all the way south to Vicksburg, had succeeded. Henceforth, the Southern people called America’s Civil War “the War of Northern Aggression.”

Grant had demonstrated that Union resources applied relentlessly would bring victory.

Four months later, in November, Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg. He said, “These dead shall not have died in vain, but this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” He may have referred to the unleashing of the economic, political, and intellectual potential of the enslaved.

Indeed, our nation, our people, our government needs more new births, a successive number of “new births of freedom,” repeated each generation, a core essence of America.

A quote by the journalist George Will years ago, “The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice and securing the blessings of liberty.”

Have a blessed and enjoyable Independence Day, July 4. Ponder on our shared liberties.