nd manpower. The supplies lost in the Battle of Gettysburgultimately lost the war for the South.I also learned that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was not a goodmilitary tactician. Evidently, he thought that, as in most of the previous battles,the Confederate army could win this one with a series of charges. On the secondday of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee ordered the first charge. In this charge,Confederate troops would make an uphill attack in an attempt to take a ridge fromthe Federal army. With an uphill advantage, the Federal troops drove theConfederate army into retreat. On the third day of battle, Lee ordered a chargethat would take his army across more than a mile of open field. On the other sideof the field, however, Federal troops released a continuous bombardment ofartillery as the Confederate troops made their way across. The Federal armywiped out most of the Confederate troops before they were halfway across thefield. By the time the remaining Confederates reached the Federal army theirnumbers were so small the Federal army had no trouble defeating them. A goodcommanding general would have seen that both charges were hopeless. In bothcases the Federal troops had fortified vantage points, while the Confederate armyhad no sufficient protection. Had Lee seen this, he would not have ordered thecharges. Instead, he was too confident of the ability of his army and hisoverconfidence led him to defeat. Before I read The Killer Angels I knew that the Civil War brought manyfriends to fight against friends and family to fight against family. Until I read TheKiller Angels, I never realized that this was true even in the higher ranks. GeneralHancock of the Federal army and General Armistad of the Confederate wereextremely good friends. Before the war they served together in California, butwhen they war began they parted ways. Throughout the Battle of Gettysburg, bothgenerals were constantly asking for permission t...
