Existing comment:
The victory at Chancellorsville inspired Lee to unbounded confidence in his army. Just four weeks after the battle. he started his army north. His raid into Pennsylvania climaxed at Gettysburg, where Lee's effort to inflict a fatal blow on the Union war effort failed.
Today, Gettysburg is seen as a turning point of the war. Its meaning was less clear in 1863. The escape of Lee's Confederate army back into Virginia frustrated President Lincoln. Months of maneuvering and stalemate in central Virginia caused discontent in the North and set the stage for the dreadful bloodletting of 1864 at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and beyond. |