Gettysburg

(Continued from the “NY to PA)
Gettysburg
Driving along village roads, we arrived at the visitor center of Gettysburg National Military Park at 2 p.m. During the Civil War, fought the three-day fierce battles in 1863. After seeing a movie explaining the summary of the Civil War, we watched the Cyclorama where a round painting 120 meters in circuit was displayed showing the battles (Picture below). The painting was produced by a French in 1884, 20 years after the end of the war. In this Cyclorama, the progress of the battles was explained using light, smoke and sound. The short history of the Civil War is summarized below.

From Gettysburg to Front Royal (Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia)
At 3:30 p.m, we left the visitor center in hail and rain. The rain was being intensified as we passed through Frederick, Maryland, the fourth State in this trip. Got over the Potomac River, it was West Virginia, the fifth State. After driving in a mountainous road, we entered in Virginia, the sixth State. Arrived at Front Royal at around 6 p.m, the town of our first stay.

A Short History of the Civil War
Background In the middle of the nineteenth century, people in the southern United States, slave states, operated broad stretch planters to grow cotton by using black slaves. Northern free states where industry is developing, on the other hand, are criticizing the slavery not only from humanitarianism but also from the necessity of modern employment relationship in developing capitalism. As the colonization of the West was being carried out, the conflict was getting serious concerning whether slavery should be admitted or not in the new-born mid-western and western States.

Opening Hostilities In the presidency election of 1880, Abraham Lincoln got a victory who had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the existing slave states. Eleven Southern slave states asserted their right of independency, declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederation of America (the Confederacy) while President Lincoln declared not to admit the secession.
The eleven states are Virginia, North Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas (red states in Figure). The federal government (the “Union”) was supported by all the free states (blue states in Figure) and the five border slave states, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri (light blue states in Figure).
While every effort to prevent war was being made, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina in 1861 because the corps of the fort swore loyalty to the Union. This was the preface to the war between the Union and the Confederacy, the bloodiest war in history Americans have experienced.

Name of the war This war is usually now called the Civil War or the American Civil War. It is also called “the War between the States”, ”Mr. Lincoln’s War”, ”The War for Southern Independence” and other names. Outside U.S., such as in Japan, it is simply called “North-South War” probably based on similar conflicts between two governments in history, in China in the 5th century and in Japan in the 14th century.

Offensive of the Confederacy Most people in the Confederacy regarded the war as the independence war protecting the rights of the States from the despotic pressure of the Union. The morale of the Confederate soldiers was so high that the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee’s army continued to take the offensive at land combats while the Union kept the superiority in the sea. Virginia was the major battlefields. Many battles were fought in such human-seas that even ten thousands soldiers were lost at one battle.

Gettysburg Lee often tried to invade the Union, particularly through Shenandoah Valley between Shenandoa Mts. and Appalachian Mts. At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, located at the north east of the valley and at the north west of Washing ton D. C., the Lee’s army unexpectedly encountered with the Union’s army and the three-day deadliest battle was held during July 1 to 3, 1864. The battle began with the superiority of the Confederate. The first day, the Confederate almost won but eventually missed a chance of victory as Lee could not seize the enemy’s actualities. The second day, the Union army remained with much difficulty in the Confederate’s violent attacks.

In the afternoon of the third day, the Union army intentionally weakened their bombardment to pretend that their cannons had been destroyed. At this time, the Confederate delivered an all-out attack to cause hand-to-hand battles. The Confederate soldiers advanced ahead bravely while they were attacked on both sides by the Union armies. Particularly the frontal break through attack by the Picket’s storm troops was so awfully violent that 4200 of 5000 soldiers were lost. The Confederate attacks were finally crushed. The tide of the war changed. On the next day, July 4, 1864 or the Independence Day, Lee’s army left the bloody battlefield to retreat to the South. The Union army was also too damaged to pursue them. In Gettysburg, the three-day battles of 72,000 Union and 50,000 Confederate soldiers resulted in 23,000 and 28,000 casualties, respectively.

Gettysburg Address In November of this year, President Lincoln had a memorial speech at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery built in Gettysburg. The last phrase of the short speech, ”that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”, has been broadly known and quoted as it exactly expresses the democracy that the United States is aiming at.

Power Difference The battle in Gettysburg became a turning point in the Civil War, which spread all over and mobilized all the resources. The both of the armies, which had been too proud to use even defensive walls, began using trenches. Gradually the Confederate in turn went over to the defensive. There was the power differences between the Union and the Confederacy in the population, 22 million and 9 million(3.5 million of which are slaves) and in industry, 110 thousand and 15 thousand factories, respectively.

All Over War and the Desolation of the South If the war had ended in a draw, it would have meant the continuation of the Confederacy. Therefore the Union necessarily urged the Confederacy to accept unconditional surrender. The miserable war continued. General Ulysses Grant and General William Sherman continued to destroy the Confederate cities in the Western and Southern Theaters, respectively. One of the destructive marches, Sherman’s army’s march from Atlanta to the Atlantic in late 1864, was described in “Gone with the Wind.” In advance of the Union’s sweeping attack, Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, was burnt down in1865 by Confederate army themselves that had wanted to leave nothing small in favor of their enemy. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee Surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, located in the west of Richmond, on April 9, 1865.

The Northern States were enjoying an armaments boom while the Southern were suffering hard times economically and mentally. People in the South still show an emotional response against the name of Sherman, in particular.

Casualties The produced 1,100,000 casualties, 650,000 and 450,000 for the Union and the Confederacy, respectively. The number of casualties are the largest in American history and as large as 1,080,000 in the World War II. Casualties of Americans in other wars: 320,000 in the World War I; 210,000 in the Vietnam War; 160,000 in the Korean War.

References Craig L. Symonds, “A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War”

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Idle Talk In the time of the Civil War, people over the world suffered from the vortex of wars and upheavals: the Civil War at the last days of the Shogunate and succeeding the Meiji Revoltion in Japan (1859 - 68); the Tai-ping Rebellion in China (1850 - 64); Prussia-Austria War in Europe (1866 - 7); the large rebellion against England in India and the establishment of British India (1857 - 8); the Crimean War in the Middle East. The world of thought was also in its turning point in that two historically significant and effective books were published: “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin in 1859 and “Capital, Volume I” by Karl Marx.
Is there any reason why such upheavals occurred at the same time all aver the world? As a trial, I investigated the solar activities. Figure shows the number of sunspots. There is a peak around 1860. Further look tells us that higher number of sunspots in the twentieth century, that seems to suggest the relationship with the two World Wars.

The above investigation is just for a trial and does not mean to verify the relation between human activities and sunspots.

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