| Gettysburg: an Epilogue (Coronet Magazine, 1949) An article that looks back at some of the lost opportunities squandered by both armies, wondering if the outcome might have been different had their importance been recognized and properly exploited.
"At Gettysburg, the heat broke at last, and rain fell on July 4. As doctors and ambulances moved onto the scene, neither retreating Confederates nor jubilant Northerners recognized the great issue that had been decided on that field. Only a few sensed that the twilight of the Confederacy had come." Read an article about how Victorian fashion saved a life during the Civil War.
1863: A Poor Summer for the Rebels (National Park Service, 1954)For Jefferson Davis and his confederates, the double disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg that arrived with the summer of 1863 spelled doom for the Rebel cause.
Writing in his diary during those canicular days was Confederate General Josiah Gorgas (1818 – 1883: pictured at right) who succinctly summarized the meaning of these two major defeats:
"Events have succeeded one another with disastrous rapidity. One brief month ago we were apparently at the point of success. Lee was in Pennsylvania, threatening Harrisburg, and even Philadelphia. Vicksburg seemed to laugh all Grant's efforts to scorn... All looked bright. Now the picture is just as somber as it was bright then. Lee failed at Gettysburg .... Vicksburg and Port Hudson capitulated, surrendering thirty-five thousand arms. It seems incredible that human power could effect such a change in so brief a space. Yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success; today absolute ruin seems to be our portion. The Confederacy totters to its destruction." General Lee's Plan (W.C. Storrick, 1951)A brief explanation as to what General Lee had in mind when he invaded the North in the Summer of 1863, why he chose a route through the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys, where his army was actually headed and what the South had intended to gain if the campaign had been successful.
Suggested Reading:
Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg
A Summation of the Battle of Gettysburg (Famous Events Magazine, 1913)This essay clearly states why the Battle of Gettysburg is a significant event in Civil War history, what the Rebels intended and why the battle was such a decisive victory for the Federal Army: "In the first rush the Confederates were successful, the scattered Union regiments under General Hancock were pressed back. But on the second day, the main body of the Northern army under General Meade arrived, and the contest held even, with awful slaughter on both sides. The third day the Confederates made one last desperate charge..." Abraham Lincoln: Short Story Writer... With the First Texas Regiment at Gettysburg (Confederate Veteran, 1922)Attached is a Gettysburg reminiscence by one W.T. White, veteran of the First Texas Regiment who had documented his experience on Little Round Top in his earlier writings, but preferred to dwell on some other "glorious moments" on this page.
As a result of their charge up Little Round Top, the boys of the Twentieth Maine sent the First Texas Infantry to the bottom of the hill leaving 25 dead, 20 missing and 48 wounded.
*Watch the Little Round Top Scene from the Movie | 
