In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee took the War of Succession north into enemy territory. After some initial successes, the Southern and Northern Armies converged on Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
July 1st, 1863: Lee’s forward forces were not adequate and were stopped before taking Cemetery Ridge, a crucial piece of geography for the coming battle.
July 2nd, 1863: Lee attacked the Line on all fronts, though the real goal was to flank the right side of the Northern Line at Little Round Top. The Surge on the Right Flank was inadequate and the flanking maneuver failed. The Northern Army spent the night fortifying Cemetery Ridge.
July 3rd, 1863: On day three, his Army exhausted from the previous fighting, Lee decided to go with massive force and ordered the frontal assault known as Pickett’s Charge.
| Pickett’s Charge was a disastrous infantry assault ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge’s commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been nicknamed the high-water mark of the Confederacy.
After Confederate attacks on both Union flanks had failed the day and night before, Lee determined to strike the Union center on the third day. On the night of July 2, General Meade correctly predicted at a council of war that Lee would try an attack on his lines in the center the following morning. The infantry assault was preceded by a massive artillery bombardment that was meant to soften up the Union defense and silence its artillery, but it was largely ineffective. Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties, ending the battle and Lee’s campaign into Pennsylvania.
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Lee’s tired Army marched into a hellish barrage. Many of his soldiers either stopped at the road halfway across the field or took to the woods. Pickett’s Charge failed. The Battle was lost, as was the War. General Robert E. Lee tried to use brute force to make up for earlier mistakes. He didn’t "know when to fold ’em." Neither, apparently, does Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush…
After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure — totaling nearly $200 billion — to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said. If Bush’s spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.
U.S. war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq this year and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new technology, such as mine-resistant trucks designed to protect troops from roadside bombs. The new trucks can cost three to six times as much as an armored Humvee.
The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday.
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