Why did Robert e lee fight in the battle of Gettysburg?

Answer 1

4 reasons 1. winning the seven days battle and the second bull run gave Robert E. Lee the confidence to fight the Union. 2. the invasion helped out the farmers so they can rest during the Harvest season. 3. Lee hoped that a victory in the North would have France and Britain join forces with them. 4. lastly so that the Confederates could steel food from the Northern farms.

Answer 2

Lee was trying to invade Pennsylvania, to convince the British that the Confederacy was a viable new nation, worthy of official recognition.

He might have succeeded in this. But one of his officers had dropped a set of Lee's orders in the field, where they were discovered by Union troops and shown to McClellan.

These plans revealed that Lee's divisions were widely separated, and that if McClellan moved fast enough, he could destroy them, one by one.

Unfortunately, there was a Confederate spy in the Union camp, who was able to alert Lee of the situation, and Lee was able to concentrate his army, just in time, at Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Although Lee lost this battle, he was able to get his army back to Virginia, to fight another day. Lincoln criticised McClellan heavily for failing to destroy Lee's army, and would soon fire him.

However, the Union victory gave Lincoln the credibility to issue the mancipation Proclamation, which may not have (directly) freed many slaves, but had the crucial effect of keeping Britain out of the war.

Answer 3

During Lee's invasion of the North, his army, many marching barefoot, badly needed shoes. They learned of a shoe warehouse at the railroad junction of Gettysburg and detoured there to commandeer the shoes. There, they stumbled upon a small band of Union soldiers, who sent word to the main body that they had found Lee. A Battle of Encounter ensued that neither side had planned on, with the Union troops delaying Lee's advance until the Federal forces commanded the high ground on the hilltops.

Answer 4

I think you might be confused... the Battle of Antietam happened in western Maryland, many hundreds of miles from northern Mississippi. Lee wanted to go into Maryland for several reasons. It was almost harvest time, and he wanted to transfer the main scene of the fighting into the north, so farmers in Virginia could get the harvest in and the war would disrupt things for northern farmers instead. Lee also hoped to win a great battle in the north, which might possibly win the war, or help France and England to make up their minds to intervene in the war on the side of the Confederates. There was really no connection to Mississippi at the time of the battle of Antietam. Mississippi became important the next year when the Yankees were trying to capture Vicksburg, and there was an argument between Confederates over whether to send more men to Mississippi or let Lee invade the north again. Lee wanted to go north so few men were sent to Mississippi, and Lee went to Gettysburg.

Answer 5

To impress the British, who were treating his proposed invasion of the North as the test of Confederate viability, before they could grant official recognition and send military aid.

Answer 6

To try to invade Pennsylvania, and impress the British that the Confederacy was capable of winning the war, and therefore worth supporting.

Answer 7

He wanted to invade the prosperous state of Pennsylvania, to forage for his men. As many of them were barefoot, he also had his eye on a boot-and-shoe factory near Gettysburg.