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over a Union Army commanded by joseph Hooker.
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It will give Lee his occasion
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for his second invasion of the North, the riskiest of all,
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which will lead him up through northern Virginia,
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across into Maryland, and eventually all the way in to Pennsylvania,
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and will lead to the fateful battle at Gettysburg,
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the first three days of July, 1863;
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arguably the most important military turning point of the war.
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But it is in those same first six and seven months of 1863
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that this war has now been transformed
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into a war of unconditional surrender,
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a war of all out attempt, at least, all out mobilization at home,