Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: Some of them, they load and load, they never fire. They just keep right on loading. Some of them come home with seven, eight bullets rammed up in the barrel, never fired a shot.
Private Bucklin: I'm tired, Colonel. I've had all of this army and all of these officers, this damned Hooker, this damned idiot Meade, all of them, the whole bloody lousy rotten mess of sick-brained, pot-bellied scabheads that ain't fit to lead a johnny detail, ain't fit to pour pee out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
Major General George E. Pickett: My boys! What's happening to my boys?
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Don't call me Lawrence.
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: Darn it, Lawrence, I'm your brother.
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Just be careful of the name business in front of the men, just because you're my brother... it looks like favoritism.
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: God Almighty, General Meade has his own son as his aide de camp.
General Robert E. Lee: To be a good soldier you must love the army. To be a good commander you must be able to order the death of the thing you love.
Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds: What goes, John?
Gen. Buford: There's the Devil to pay.
General Robert E. Lee: But this war goes on and on and the men die and the price gets even higher. We are prepared to lose some of us, but we are never prepared to lose all of us. We are adrift here in a sea of blood and I want it to end. I want this to be the final battle.
Major General George E. Pickett: Sirs, perhaps there are those among you who believe you are descended from a ape. I suppose there may even be those among you who believe that I am descended from a ape. But I challenge the man to step forward who believes that General Robert E. Lee is descended from a ape.
James L. Kemper: Hear, hear.
Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett: Not likely.
Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead: What does Col. Fremantle think? Will the British come in on our side?
James L. Kemper: Oh, hell yeah, they'll come in - they'll come in when we don't need 'em no more. Just like some damn bank gon' loan you money when you no longuh in debt.
General Robert E. Lee: In the morning, there's to be a great battle. Tomorrow or the next day will determine the war.
Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: I'm Kilrain, and I damn all gentlemen.
Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: What I'm fighting for is to prove I'm a better man than the others. There's many a man worse than me, and some better. But I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. And that's why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved.
Major General Winfield Scott Hancock: There are times when a corps commander's life does not count.
Col. Arthur Freemantle: You call yourselves Americans, but you're really just transplanted Englishmen. Look at your names: Lee, Hood, Longstreet, Jackson, Stuart.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet: My people were Dutch.
Col. Arthur Freemantle: And the same for your adversaries: Meade, Hooker, Hancock, and - shall I say - Lincoln! The same God, same language, same culture and history, same songs, stories, legends, myths - different dreams. Different dreams. So very sad.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet: Some of the men are waiting for us now up ahead over those ridges. I don't know, I sometimes feel troubled. Those fellows, those boys in blue, they never quite seem like the enemy. I used to command some of those boys, swore an oath too.
Answer: In short, the Federal forces (who fought for the North) outlasted the Confederate army. Since it was a 3 day battle, a full explanation can not really be given here, but Lee did not actually have an accurate understanding of the Union's strength and position. While successful on Day 1, by the start of Day 2 more Federal forces arrived and the Union army had taken defensive position on the high ground. On Day 3, there was mixed communications with Confederate commanders and they did not attack as Lee had planned. The Union army was supplied with fresh forces that allowed them to hold the line. On Day 4, Lee did not attack and formed a defensive line, waiting for Meade to attack, so the Confederates could do what the Union had just done to them. But Meade never attacked and that night Lee and the Confederate troops left.
Bishop73