The Battle of Gettysburg It was an epic three-day Civil War battle in the United States of America, the brief history of the Confederacy reached its zenith when General Robert E. Lee's 2nd Northern Division was pushed back south from Pennsylvania. After Gettysburg, the outcome of the American Civil War seemed inevitable as the Union armies maintained an offensive posture on all fronts.
Gettysburg battle data
- Who: General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) and 75,000 soldiers of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia faced 97,000 Union soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, under the command of General George G. Meade (1815-1872).
- How: For three days, Confederate forces failed to break through the Union defenses along a 3-mile hook-shaped line from Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill south along Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top.
- Where: South of the town of Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania.
- When: From July 1 to 3, 1863.
- Why: For the second time in the American Civil War, the Confederate Army launched an invasion of northern territory.
- Result: Lee's invasion was repulsed, and the military might of the Confederacy suffered irreplaceable losses, in what was a war of attrition. Abraham Lincoln promulgated one of the most enduring documents of American liberty with the Gettysburg Address.
Background
For General Robert E. Lee, the crushing Confederate victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863 marked both his crowning achievement and his darkest moment as a campaign commander. Although the Union army, under General Joseph Hooker, had been dispersed, Lee's ablest lieutenant, General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, had been mortally wounded by friendly fire. Although the loss of Jackson was a blow, Lee nonetheless felt compelled to cement the Chancellorsville victory. He reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia into three corps, under Generals James Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Richard S. Ewell. The Confederate army was full of victories and at the height of its power; therefore their commander looked north a second time. Lee's goal was similar to those that had precipitated the northern invasion, which had ended nine months earlier with the Battle of Antietam. Destroying the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River would disrupt enemy communications, and Confederate troops could sustain themselves on supplies gathered from northern farms. Lee could capture Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania state capital, and threaten Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Washington, D.C. The presence of victorious Confederate forces in Union territory could spark peace overtures and win independence for the South.
The campaign
On June 3, 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia began a steady march northwest across the Blue Ridge Mountains, then north through the Shenandoah Valley. For three weeks, the Confederates operated virtually at will, with only token resistance. With Ewell's army corps in the vanguard, the Confederates spread out across the Pennsylvania countryside for miles. By the end of the month, Ewell was threatening Harrisburg, General Jubal Early's division had occupied the town of York, and Robert Rodes's division was several miles north at Carlisle.
Hooker's Army of the Potomac learned of the Confederate offensive on June 25, during a sharp clash between rebel cavalry, under General J. E. B. Stuart, and Federal horsemen, commanded by General Alfred Pleasanton, at Brandy Station, Virginia. ). Hooker mobilized his army to intercept the Confederates and requested that the Harpers Ferry armory be abandoned and its 10,000-man garrison added to the ranks of the field army. When President Lincoln and Union Army General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck refused, Hooker asked to be relieved of command. On June 28, just four days before the Battle of Gettysburg, General George G. Meade was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac.
The rapid movement of the Union army north caused Stuart to begin a prolonged ride around Meade and out of contact with Lee. Lee, tipped off by a Southern sympathizer, only knew for sure that the Army of the Potomac was on the march. Without information from Stuart, he had no choice but to mass his forces. Reluctantly, Lee ordered Ewell to abandon his attack on Harrisburg and join Hill's and Longstreet's corps at Gettysburg.
Looking for shoes
On the morning of July 1, Lee was with Longstreet's corps at Chambersburg, 25 miles west of Gettysburg. Hill's army corps was about eight miles west of Gettysburg, at Cashtown. Neither Lee nor Meade intended to fight at Gettysburg. Events, however, began to unfold outside the control of both commanders.
Early had already passed through Gettysburg on June 26 during his division's march to York. He sent Hill a note, informing him that a stash of shoes could be found in town. Four days later, the leading division of Hill's Army Corps, under the command of General Henry Heth, arrived at Cashtown. Heth sent a brigade down the road from Chambersburg to Gettysburg to search for the shoes. The brigade commander, General James Pettigrew, withdrew from the Gettysburg area when he spotted a large force of Union cavalry advancing from the south. On July 1, Hill ordered two full divisions, Heth's and General Dorsey Pender's, to be sent to Gettysburg to determine the strength of the Union forces. Investigating to the east, the Confederates found two brigades of General John Buford's cavalry guarding the advancing left wing of the Army of the Potomac.
The decisive battle of the American Civil War was taking shape while the bulk of both armies and both major commanders were absent from the field. Buford's decision to stand and fight, combined with Hill's decision to send a much larger force than necessary on a reconnaissance mission, precipitated an encounter that neither side could walk away from.
The first day
Buford's dismounted cavalrymen fought like lions against an increasing number of Confederate infantrymen. For two hours they held their ground before the infantry of General John F. Reynolds's corps appeared from the south. While encouraging the famous Iron Brigade forward, Reynolds was shot down by a Confederate sniper. Both sides sent fresh troops into the fray, and the fighting intensified. Union troops from New York and Wisconsin captured more than 200 rebel soldiers, who had been trapped in an unfinished railroad trench. Downtrodden, they fought desperately to prevent their left flank from being pushed back.
From about four miles away, Ewell and Rodes, on the march from Carlisle, could hear Hill's artillery fire. The Confederate generals, however, recognized the opportunity to hit the unprotected right flank of the Union. Finally, the combined weight of Rodes's assaults, the renewed effort of Heth's division, and the advances of three of Pender's brigades threatened to overwhelm the Union First Corps at Seminary Ridge.
However, it was XI Corps on the Union right flank, under General Oliver O. Howard, that gave way first. Early's division appeared from the north and scattered a Union division that had taken up position on a small ridge. Troops from Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina crushed the Union right flank, and successive XI Corps units faltered, disbanded, and ran through town to the safety of Cemetery Hill.> ).
With the flank completely unprotected, the Union First Corps' fragmented battle line at Seminary Ridge collapsed. Marching steadily through Gettysburg, more and more Union soldiers reached Cemetery Hill, where General Winfield Scott Hancock, leading II Corps, had become the fifth general of the day to command the Union forces. Meade would not arrive at Gettysburg from Taneytown, Maryland until after midnight. Lee had arrived at the field at 1:30 p.m.
As the Union soldiers scrambled to consolidate their position on Cemetery Hill, Lee realized the importance of this opportunity for a decisive victory. He sent a cryptic verbal order to Ewell, essentially saying that it was only necessary to "push those people" to take possession of the eminence and capture Cemetery Hill, neighboring Culp's Hill, or both "if feasible."
Ewell, however, had lost the will to fight. The strength of the enemy beyond Cemetery Hill was uncertain. Hill's army corps was exhausted. It would take Longstreet hours to get to Gettysburg. Under protest from his subordinates, Ewell refused to continue the attack.
During the night Union reinforcements continued to arrive, Culp's Hill was forcibly occupied, and a defensive line was established along Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top. Ewell's decision remains, to this day, one of the most controversial of the civil war.
The second day
In the early hours of July 2, both sides held war councils. Meade determined that the positions had to be held, even though the entire Union army had not yet reached Gettysburg. Lee, against Longstreet's advice, decided that an attack on the Union left flank, combined with a renewed effort against Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, could nullify Meade's advantage of the interior lines and engulf the entire Union position. the Union.
Longstreet took pains to conceal his march to his assigned starting position and was not ready to attack until 3:30 p.m. Confederate artillery fired on the unprotected Union division positions under Gen. Daniel Sickles at Peach Orchard, while the Alabama and Texas infantry marched east and turned north toward Little Round Top and a jumble of large boulders. known locally as the Devil's Den. Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, chief engineer of the Army of the Potomac, rode to the top of Little Round Top as the Confederates massed for their assault. He realized that if the Confederates captured this important hill, a line fire would make the entire Union line untenable. Warren desperately searched for soldiers to defend the position. His request for help was answered by two brigades of General George Sykes's V Corps. These soldiers from Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine scrambled into position moments before the Confederate attackers began their ascent up the slope.
As the desperate defenders of Little Round Top, drawing ammunition from their own dead and wounded, repulsed multiple attacks, the fighting raged at close range. Successive Confederate assaults shattered Sickles' forward position at Peach Orchard, and Wheatfield became the scene of tremendous carnage. By the end of the day, Longstreet had overrun Devil's Den and his soldiers controlled Peach Orchard. However, thanks to Warren's initiative, Little Round Top was in Union hands.
At Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, Ewell ordered soldiers from Early's and General Edward Johnson's divisions forward as he grew dark. Fighting continued for several hours as the Confederates advanced. Some of Early's soldiers reached the top of Culp's Hill and engaged the defenders in hand-to-hand combat. While the rest of the line remained quiet, Hancock was able to reinforce the threatened area, and by 10:00 p.m. the fighting was over.
The third day
The climactic day at Gettysburg began on the Union right flank at Culp's Hill and Spangler's Spring, where Confederate forces were still holding the embankments dug by the Federals on the night of the 1st. Culp's Hill proved unsuccessful. Two Union divisions under Generals Thomas Ruger and John Geary drove some elements of Johnson's division from their hard-won entrenchment. A strange silence now hung over the field. It was a deceptive reassurance, because the final act of the Gettysburg drama was to unfold in a few hours.
Lee apparently reasoned that Meade had left his center vulnerable to attack by reinforcing his flanks. Thus, a concentrated attack against the Union center at Cemetery Ridge could pierce the line. The attacking soldiers would be forced to cross more than a mile of open country and through a palisade along the Emmitsburg road, exposed to artillery fire from cannons concentrated on Cemetery Ridge and on the eminences on both sides. ends of the Union line.
Most of Lee's army had been heavily fought on July 2, and the only substantial force available to mount such an assault was General George Pickett's division, which had guarded the Confederate supply cars for the previous two days. Pickett commanded three brigades, under the command of Generals Richard B. Gamett, James L. Kemper, and Lewis A. Armistead. These would be backed up by the divisions of Joseph Pettigrew and Isaac Trimble, who had assumed command in place of the wounded Heth and Pender, respectively. The attacking force would amount to about 15,000 men.
At 1:00 p.m. nearly 150 Confederate guns began a cannonade against the Union center.
Soon some 80 Union guns replied from Cemetery Ridge. At 3:00 p.m. Pickett yelled, “Up, men, and to your posts! Don't forget today that you are from old Virginia!"
Pickett's soldiers headed northeast, turned east, and headed toward the center of the Union. His target was a large copse of trees on the crest of Cemetery Ridge. As they crossed the open fields, the Union artillery began to drive large breaches into the Confederate ranks. Then, as the rebels closed in, the Union infantry opened fire, from the low stone wall, on the vanguard of the attacking mass and on both flanks. After the battle, the pointed 90 degree angle of the wall was simply called The Angle.
Garnett was killed and General Kemper was seriously wounded. On foot, Armistead led his men through a momentary breach in the Union line, waving his hat perched atop his sword. When he put his hand on a Union cannon, Armistead was mortally wounded. At last, the remnants of Pickett's famous charge returned to their own lines, having achieved nothing but immortality. The high tide of the Confederacy had crashed against the rock in the center of the Union.
Aftermath
On July 4, Lee began a long and painful retreat toward Virginia. On the same day, the Confederate city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrendered, and the South was divided in two. These devastating defeats decided the fate of the Confederacy. In the three-day orgy of death and destruction at Gettysburg, the Union suffered 3,149 casualties and 19,664 wounded or taken captive. The Confederacy suffered 4,536 killed and 18,089 wounded or taken prisoner. On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech of just over 200 words during the dedication of a new cemetery for dead Union soldiers at Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Address still resonates, more than two centuries later.