This paper will discuss the Battle of Gettysburg, which took place during the American Civil War. The battle, which lasted from July I through July 3, 1863, represented the Confederate army's last offensive attempt in the war. The motives of General Robert E. Lee for moving his Confederate troops north into Pennsylvania during that time can be seen as an outgrowth of the confidence that the South had gained from a series of strategic victories. Lee wanted to make an offensive attack in the Gettysburg area in order to threaten the safety of the industrial cities of the North and thereby weaken the Union's defensive stance (Gruver, 1981, p. 403).
It is important to note that many other Confederate leaders opposed Lee's strategic approach in Pennsylvania. William Swinton, a correspondent for the New York Times during that era, made first-hand observations of the disagreements that arose among the Southern generals of the time. In his book, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, which was published In 1866, Swinton discussed a series of conversations that he had had with Lieutenant General James Longstreet. Longstreet disagreed with Lee's offensive strategy and felt that a better plan would be to lure Union troops away from their centralized strongholds, thereby weakening their forces (Swinton, 1968, p. 5). William Swinton also noted in his journal that General Lee himself had not originally planned on taking an offensive strategy at Gettysburg. However, when the first confrontation on the battlefield seemed in the South's favor, Lee chose to strike offensively with all of his available manpower, apparently having "lost that equipoise in which his faculties commonly moved" (p. 5). Swinton states that this was a serious tactical error on Lee's part. Indeed, the historical results of the Battle of Gettysburg have clearly supported Swinton's opinion on this matter.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet also left his own memoirs...