The Turning Point of the Civil War Gettysburg was the turning point in the American Civil War. It was a battle that would change the future of the Civil War. The stage was set for an immense struggle at Gettysburg after the May 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. The Battle of Gettysburg was a prolonged three day, bloody battle, a decisive engagement in that it was a serious fight between the two major American cultures of their time: the North and the South, it ended the Confederates' second and last major invasion of the North and it was a missed chance for the North to end the war. General Robert E. Lee made the his