The Iron Brigade ended up losing one man for each yard they advanced closer to the railroad cut. Eventually Dawes and his Iron Brigade made it to the edge of the railroad cut to fight the rebel troops face to face inside of the trench. The entire battle only lasted a mere twenty minutes. In that twenty minutes, six hundred rebels were wounded, missing or dead while Dawes lost nearly half of his four hundred and twenty men. Though the Iron Brigade had won their fight, the Battle at the Western Railroad Cut was the one exception to what was happening around Gettysburg at that time. .
All around Gettysburg 28,000 Rebel troops were overwhelming 20,000 Union soldiers. The majority of the Confederate troops of about 75,000, were funneling towards Gettysburg under the leadership of General Robert E Lee. Lee's plan was to shift the fighting out of the south and bring it into the north. He wanted to start threatening cities such as Harrisburg and Washington DC but instead he ended up bumping into the army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. Lee's army had just won a string of victories across the south, so they were invading the north at the peak of their strength. While marching to Gettysburg Robert E. Lee was confident. Lee's hope was that the war was soon coming to a close because of their recent victories in the south. As the Rebel army marched closer to Gettysburg, Union troops started to take a beating on the northern edge of town while trying to fend of the invasion. The only thing that stood between the town and the impeding rebel assault was the 11th corps. On a hill above the town the Rebel army set up cannons to pepper down fire on the 11th corps under the command of Lee's newly appointed Lieutenant General Richard Ewell. Ewell was a revengeful man because he lost one of his legs in the second battle of Bull Run a year before. Ewell had just replaced Lee's second in command, Stonewall Jackson, who had just been killed in battle a month before.
