All the players are brought to life here, whether it is Lincoln agonizing in the telegraph office while he waits for news from Generals Grant and Meade, General Pete Longstreet trying to cajole Lee into revising his plan of attack, or the women of the towns of Vicksburg and Gettysburg coming under fire and tending to the legions of wounded.
We see a nation in the midst of its greatest convulsion, and we see that, while the "Glorious Fourth" dashed the greatest hopes of the Confederacy, the war was far from over.
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Background Information
The important Mississippi river port of Vicksburg was captured by Union forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863. The Army of Northern Virginia was the Confederate army commanded by General Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg represented the high water mark of the Confederacy when it was fought in July 1863. George Meade was a Union general who is credited with the victory over the Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. James Longstreet was one of the leading generals in the army of the Confederate States and after the war became a Republican and a friend of Ulysses S. Grant.