On July 1st-3rd, 1864, Union troops fighting from heavy cover on wooded ridges repelled repeated Confederate assaults determined to dislodge them and open a road to Washington, DC, the nation's capital. The federal troops fought heroically against enemy formations with great numerical superiority (not to say that there wasn't any heroism on the part of the Confederates). On July 4th, after suffering a terrible defeat in Picket's Charge across an open, upward-sloping field, the remnants of the Confederate Army retreated. The Battle of Gettysburg cost the Army of Northern Virginia approximately 25,000 casualties, and ruined its capacity for further offensive action.

The same day, July 4th, word reached President Lincoln that Ulysses S. Grant's troops had secured the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, which denied the entire Mississippi River to Confederate Navigation. The Confederacy had been cut in two.

The Battle of Gettysburg and the end of the Siege of Vicksburg, taken together, represent a crucial turning point of the Civil War. From this point onwards, the Confederate States could no longer hope to win the American Civil War, and the institution of slavery that had pervaded our nation for so long had its coffin nailed shut.

This post is the first of many of its kind. I will update with similar posts on relevant historical dates.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.