One of the most debated command decisions of the Civil War. After the stunning Confederate success on July 1 that routed two Union corps and captured thousands of prisoners, Gen. Robert E. Lee suggested Gen. Richard Ewell attack Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, using the discretionary phrase 'if practicable.' Ewell, new to corps independent command following Stonewall Jackson's death, decided the assault was not practicable. He cited the exhaustion of his troops, the strong Union artillery presence on the heights, and difficulty coordinating with Longstreet on the opposite flank. Instead, Gen. Winfield Hancock, sent by Meade to organize the defense, rallied the beaten Union troops through the evening, and by morning the position was heavily fortified. Ewell's decision is widely considered one of the pivotal lost opportunities of the Confederacy at Gettysburg.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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