Had Picket's charge succeeded the North would probably have lost the war.
They didnt know that Union forces held two additional hills where artillery could view the field. And on top of that confederate troops walked to the front line--instead of running, which would have cut casualties in half. They might have even won still as Union lines began to crack, but by then they had wasted all their troops.

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I am forgetting the name of the battle that happened after Fredericksburg. It was the one in which Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. He successfully out flanked the Union forces that had carelessly encamped without setting up defensive positions. He rolled up the flank and was trying at the end of the day to find a way around the flank further to encircle the Union forces. That is when Jackson was mistakenly shot by confederate sentries.

If Jackson had been successful in surrounding the Union forces the Confederacy might have won the war or at least established a peace treaty granting the South the right of succession.

Again, you don't really seem to understand the distinction.

Just an example. The Greeks put up heroic resistance at Marathon, and the Romans put up heroic resistance at Alesia. The Red Army heroically resisted the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad, etc. Churchill heroically resisted German pressure in the black year between France's capitulation and the USSR's entry into the war. The Wehrmacht is just an example of heroism on the part of evil ****s (to a lesser degree, so is the example of the Red Army).

I had thought you might just dismiss it.

If 25,000 as opposed to 23,000 matters that much to you, you have no argument from me. I was merely saying that the figures I'd seen indicated 23,000.

This after you went to great lengths to explain how Gettysburg did not matter. I personally agree with you, in that Chancellorsville was the beginning of the end, but I would compare Chancellorsville to Stalingrad (the beginning of the end of the Wehrmacht) and Gettysburg/Vicksburg to Kursk, which really and truly sealed the Germans' fate.

Chancellorsville.

I would disagree with you there...the North simply had too much weight compared to the South. Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation really ended the possibility of European intervention, with which the CSA probably would have won.

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Chancellorsville. Jackson's death was another crippling loss for the confederacy.

Not that the action is Hollywood-action quality, but a great civil war film is Gods and Generals, which mostly follows the confederacy during Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville. It was from the same guys who made the movie Gettysburg. Good movie.

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As long as the fire burns we shall never be free..." (The Shadows of Yavara, Final Reclamation)

Gettsburg the movie was from a historical fiction novel that won all sorts of awards, "Fallen Angels." True, it is fiction, but the book is thoroughly researched. It tries to tie together all the multitude of details that author researched.

No, you want to make it mean something else because you would be proven wrong.



You use the word hero too much. There are no heroes in wars. Just the lucky and unlucky.



Well its based on speculation on the part of the author.



No, you said 25k in your op. I corrected you. Don't spin it.



Gettysburg didn't matter. I am telling you the end started in May 1863 with the loss of Stonewall Jackson. The Army of the Northern Virginia could have won at Gettysburg but they still would have lost the war. The Confederates didn't have the man power and the Union just had to bleed them out like they did during 1864 and 1865 with U.S. Grant running the show.







I know this isn't addressed to me, but.. its a helluva lot more complicated then what you said. Antietam didn't really help the Union, it was a clusterfvck for them. Lee out commanded McClellan with a force half the size of McClellan's.

European possibility was not going to happen. The failure of many Historians is that to keep UK (England) out of the war it didn't come down to Slavery but many factors. Like the threat of Union support in Ireland. The Union created the Irish Brigade in late 1861 and gave command to (Thomas Francis Meagher) who was one of the masterminds to the 1848 Irish Rebellion.. He recruited only the Irish. Lincoln saw the Irish Brigade as a way to give a warning to UK (England)... the kind of " I am arming the Irish, just remember that".. and it was completely against the gain of the Republican Party at that time.

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No response merited.

Look up "Pavlov's House."
And last I checked, no one made you the king of the word "hero."


Congratulations:

Every action in a war matters. That's like saying Kursk didn't matter because Stalingrad was the real turning point of World War 2.

Yeah, the British also started getting cotton from India instead of the CSA, right?

And I agree that Antietam was a tactical cluster**** for the Union, but strategically, it was a Union victory, because the Confederates retreated afterward.

__________________
When's the last time you had happy days?
Blazin' up your herb to escape the maze.

~Dove, De La Soul, Itsoweezee

Thirty-three sayin nothin, second thirty-three just frontin', third thirty-three straight bluffin, Ice Tea sayin do somethin! Tupac sayin do somethin! NWA says do somethin! Zulu Nation sayin' c'mon, do somethin! Visionaries sayin do somethin!