union generals in charge of the army of the potomac
Army of the Potomac The army originally consisted of fourteen divisions commanded by Edwin Sumner, William B. Franklin, Louis Blenker, Nathaniel Banks, Frederick W. Lander, Silas Casey, Irvin McDowell, Fitz-John Porter, Samuel Heintzelman, Erasmus Keyes, William F. Smith, Charles P. Stone (replaced by John Sedgwick in February 1862), and George McCall. Because this arrangement would be too hard to control in battle, President Lincoln issued an order on March 13, 1862, dividing the army into six corps headed by Sumner, Banks (despite being in the Shenandoah Valley and not part of the main army), McDowell, Heintzelman, and Keyes, the highest-ranking officers. McClellan was not happy with this, as he had intended to wait until the army had been tested in battle before judging which generals were suitable for corps command.
Turning point of the American Civil War Gettysburg was the first major defeat suffered by Lee. The three-day battle witnessed Union forces decisively repel his second invasion of the North and inflicted serious casualties on his Army of Northern Virginia. In fact, the National Park Service marks the point at which Pickett's Charge collapsed, a copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge, as the high-water mark of the Confederacyâ€”the northernmost point reached by any major Confederate military incursion. From this point onward, Lee attempted no more strategic offensives. Although two more years of fighting and a new, more aggressive general-in-chief (Grant) was required to fully subdue the rebellion, the Army of the Potomac gained an indomitable initiative at Gettysburg that makes the eventual end at Appomattox Court House in 1865 seem inevitable in hindsight. While Gettysburg was seen by military and civilian observers at the time as a great battle, those in the North had little idea that two more bloody years would be required to finish the war. Lincoln was distraught at Meade's failure to intercept Lee's retreat, believing that to have done so would have ended the conflict.[8]