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 both Round Tops. Lee's trusted officer, General Longstreet, urged Lee to attacked the rear of the Union position, but Lee went for the hilly locations instead. Because the Union troops had built "breastwork fortifications of diabase boulders" on the hill, that made it tougher to penetrate. The boulders kept the Confederate troops back even though the Union soldiers on top of the hills were far fewer than their opponents trying to scale the hills, according to Doyle.
Day three (July 3) was decisive and deadly for the South. Lee's decision to attack the center of the Union forces, in a bold but reckless move, famously called "Pickett's Charge," was disastrous. The Confederates marched across open fields and up the hills but the Union artillery launched a "continuous and...
The Confederates did in fact breach the stone wall put up by the Union Army -- and there was hand-to-hand combat -- but it was too little too late. Lee ordered his men to make a counter attack, but Lee's army was bloodied and weary; on July 4 Lee's army waited for another attack but General Meade did not attack and Lee took his army back home.
In
conclusion, this decisive battle prevented Lee's army from attacking Washington, D.C.; but moreover the Battle of Gettysburg prevented the Confederacy from winning the
war.
Works Cited
Doyle, Peter. "Military Geology and the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1863." Geology Today,
22.4 (2006): 142-149.
eHistory. "Gettysburg (1863) American Civil War." Retrieved July 24, 2012, from http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/battleview.cfm?bid=42. 2008.
National Parks Service. "History & Culture: The Battle of Gettysburg." Retrieved July 24,
2012, from http://www.nps.gov/gett/historyculture/index.htm.
