The Battle of Gettysburg which took place from July 1st-3rd, 1863 would be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 170,000 men would clash over those three hot days in July and over 50,000 would end up dead, captured, wounded or missing. While both armies were looking for a fight, neither expected it to be in this tiny Pennsylvania town.
After his dramatic victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, General Lee decided to once again push north into Union territory. He wanted a decisive victory on Northern soil to try and force President Lincoln to the negotiating table. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia north, crossed the Potomac River and moved through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The Union’s Army of the Potomac, still under the command of General Hooker, pursued. By the end of June, General George Meade had replaced Hooker at the helm.
Small groups from the two armies met by chance in tiny Gettysburg on June 30th and gunfire was exchanged. The next morning, July 1st, the Confederate army attacked on McPherson Ridge northwest of town, trying to take advantage of their superior numbers. The Union army held through most of the day and then finally retreated back to Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates spread out a mile away on Seminary Ridge and both armies dug in.
On July 2nd, Lee ordered attacks on both Union flanks with General Longstreet attacking the Union left near the hill called the Little Round Top and later in the day General Ewell attacking the Union right at Culp’s Hill. Neither attack broke the Union line, but the Confederacy suffered heavy casualties. The Union had also been hit hard, but they held the high ground and had a rock wall to use as protection much as the Confederates had at Fredericksburg. Lee should have known from that battle how foolish it was to attack such a heavily fortified position and could have withdrawn and waited to fight another day in another place. Wanting a decisive victory and not wanting so many of his men to have died in vain, he chose to remain.
The following day, July 3rd, Lee ordered his artillery to give the Union everything it had. The bombardment was so great it was heard 200 miles away in Pittsburgh. The shelling did not cause the damage Lee had hoped, but he ordered his planned infantry attack to proceed anyway. He sent 12,000 men over an open field under heavy fire in an attack we remember as Pickett’s Charge. Some would get within a few yards of the Union line at a corner of the stone wall now known as the Bloody Angle. The Confederacy would suffer 5,000 casualties in the next hour or close to a hundred per minute of the charge. When the line could not be penetrated, the Confederacy retreated and the battle was over. This day is considered the “High Water Mark” of the Confederate Army.
Lee would round up his men and head back to Virginia, never to go on the offensive again. Like his predecessors, General Meade, who had only had command of the Union army for three days when the battle began, chose not to pursue Lee.
The following day, July 4th, 1863, the city of Vicksburg would surrender to General Grant giving the Union control over the Mississippi River which split the confederacy and took out their major supply route to the interior. Soon Grant would come north and take command of the Union war effort attacking Lee at The Wilderness and Spotsylvania which is where I will pick up in my next installment of the Civil War Chronicles which you can find at the link below.
The photos below come from a recent visit to Gettysburg National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest and most well known battles of the war. Civil War Chronicles will trace the major battles of the Eastern Theater through photos and brief histories. Click on any photo to enlarge it. All photos are available for sale and licensing. For more information, check out the National Park Service’s Gettysburg website HERE.