Both days featured fierce fighting and thousands of deaths. Doyle points out that the Union troops had an advantage by retreating to "Little Round Top" and "Big Round Top," hilly areas that had many boulders, some of which the Union troops had piled high enough to be walls. On that second day while the Union troops were "firmly in place on the high ground," Lee made a decision to attack

Battle of Bristoe Station led many to question the Confederacy's grasp of tactics as it was a strategic blunder. In many respects, it confirmed assumptions made after the battle of Gettysburg that the leadership of the Army of Northern Virginia's officer corps was not infallible. It is the principle battle of the Bristoe campaign, one in which General Lee attempted to separate the Army of the Potomac from its

However, Lee won out, and the solid line attacked. It was a fatal decision as Union forces literally mowed down Confederate troops by the thousands. One historian later concluded, "Apparently it never occurred to him that the position [the Union line on Cemetery Ridge] could not be taken" (Wert 101). While the numbers vary, most people agree the South lost between 3,900 to 4,500 men, while the Union lost about

Battle of Cowpens The British Are Not Coming: How the Read Coats Lost the Battle of Cowpens The Battle of Cowpens is considered by many historians to be a critical battle, which to a large extent shaped the outcome of the American Revolutionary War or War of Independence. This is due to the fact that it was seen as a "…decisive first step by American forces in reclaiming South Carolina from the

The Greco-Persian Wars were still in their early stages at this point, but it would be Xerxes, not Darius, that continued and stepped up efforts to invade and conquer the Attic Greeks. If the Battle of Marathon had turned the other way, as many at the time expected it to and as many historians and tacticians believe it easily could and by all rights should have, the entire course of

Gettysburg In a long war of attrition, which the Civil War became after 1861, all of the economic, financial and population advantages would favor the North since the South was a mostly agrarian region that imported its manufactured goods. Initially, both sides had expected that the war would be short and decisive, although by 1862 it was clear that it might drag on indefinitely. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and the