List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield
The monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield commemorate the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Most are located within Gettysburg National Military Park; others are on private land at battle sites in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Together, they represent "one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in the world."
Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg became a postbellum focus of the "Lost Cause", a movement by writers such as Edward A. Pollard and Jubal Early to explain the reasons for the Confederate defeat in the war. A fundamental premise of their argument was that the South was doomed because of the overwhelming advantage in manpower and industrial might possessed by the North. However, they claim it also suffered because Robert E. Lee, who up until this time had been almost invincible, was betrayed by the failures of some of his key subordinates at Gettysburg: Ewell, for failing to seize Cemetery Hill on July 1; Stuart, for depriving the army of cavalry intelligence for a key part of the campaign; and especially Longstreet, for failing to attack on July 2 as early and as forcefully as Lee had originally intended. In this view, Gettysburg was seen as a great lost opportunity, in which a decisive victory by Lee could have meant the end of the war in the Confederacy's favor.