The Battle of Gettysburg was the greatest clash of arms on American soil, in American History. On the first day alone, July 1, 1863, Union forces lost 9,000 casualties; the Confederates lost 6,000 casualties, in one day, in the first day of battle. The Union forces were led by Maj. General George Meade, a steady, unimaginative,    and uninspiring general. He commanded one of the most resilient armies in history, the Army of the Potomac. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was commanded by one of the great generals in American arms, the hero of the Mexican-American War, General Robert E. Lee. It was an army fresh from the greatest feat of arms on American soil, the American Cannae, Chancellorsville, in which Lee had subdivided his inferior force into three parts and defeated the vast army of the North. General Lee, flushed with victory, had invaded the North, into Pennsylvania, on his way to Philadelphia or New York City; where there was a large pro-Southern community of Irish

    In May, 1863, one of the most significant battles in American history, was fought; the Battle of Chancellorsville, in which the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E Lee, defeated the Union Army of the Potomac under General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. It was significant for a number of reasons: 1-It is significant on a military level for it was an astonishingly stunning victory by Robert E. Lee, against all odds, an American Agincourt, a victory of the  few over the many. If you consider Robert E. Lee an American General, (and how can you not since his father was one of the great military heroes of the Revolutionary War) it was the greatest tactical victory ever achieved by an American General, even above MacArthur’s landing at Inchon. Lee’s victory was an American Cannae, Hannibal’s pitch perfect annihilation of the Roman Army. Lee matched Hannibal in audacity, tactical brilliance, skill and steeliness. Chancellorsville was  Lee’s masterpiece of Generalsh

This Blog is the first of a two part Blog series on the Confederacy and the Civil War; Part 2 will project History if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.    "The Past is never Dead. It is not even Past."...William Faulkner of Mississippi .   On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, CSA, surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to the overwhelming Union forces of General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox.   And what was the bloodiest war in American history was transformed into the most enduring myth of American culture.   The Civil War is the American Iliad; which begs the question: why would the South start an American Iliad? Especially after Lincoln, in his First Inaugural Address, offered them a Constitutional Amendment enshrining and memorializing Slavery.     “Lincoln stated emphatically that he had "...no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so,