Beginning of Essay
Gettysburg was the Army of the Potomac's only great victory on the battlefield. Antietam, certainly a strategic victory, showed Robert E. Lee's unstoppable killing machine was indeed stoppable. And the Army of the Potomac did eventually force Lee's Army of Norther ....

Middle of Essay
.... has become commonplace to ask why Lee and his army failed to win a great victory. Fewer people look to the other side of the equation and ask why Meade and the AOP won. What circumstances changed to enable the AOP to transform a long string of defeats into a great victory? The odds were certainly against them in many ways. The AOP had become accustomed to losing. Fresh from two devastating defeats within the past six months, the AOP was chasing a seemingly invincible fighting machine. To heighten the odds against the blue underdogs, they were given a new commander, Major General George Meade, only four days before they were to fight what would ....