Battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg
Part of the Eastern theater of the American Civil War

The Battle of Gettysburg by Thure de Thulstrup
DateJuly 1–3, 1863
Location
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
39°48′41″N 77°13′33″W / 39.81139°N 77.22583°W / 39.81139; -77.22583
Result Union victory[1]
Belligerents
United States Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
George G. Meade Robert E. Lee
Units involved
Army of the Potomac[2] Army of Northern Virginia[3]
Strength
93,500–104,256[4][5]
360 artillery pieces
36 cavalry regiments		 65,000–75,000,[6] possibly as many as 80,000[7]
270 artillery pieces
9,500 cavalry
Casualties and losses
23,049[8][9] 23,000–28,000[10][11]

The Battle of Gettysburg (locally /ˈɡɛtɪsbɜːrɡ/ ⓘ)[14] was a three-day battle in the American Civil War, which was fought between the Union and Confederate armies between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle, won by the Union, is widely considered the Civil War's turning point, leading to an ultimate victory of the Union and the preservation of the nation. The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of both the Civil War and of any battle in American military history, claiming over 50,000 combined casualties.[15] Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee's invasion of the North and forcing his retreat.[fn 1][16]

After his success in the Battle of Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County, Virginia in May 1863, Lee led his Confederate forces through Shenandoah Valley to begin the Gettysburg Campaign, his second attempt to invade the North. With Lee's army in high spirits, he intended to shift the focus of the summer campaign from war-ravaged Northern Virginia in the hopes of penetrating as far as Harrisburg or Philadelphia, which he hoped would convince northern politicians to end the war. President Abraham Lincoln initially prodded Major General Joseph Hooker into pursuing Lee, then relieved him of command just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg commenced, replacing him with Meade.

On July 1, 1863, as Lee's forces moved on Gettysburg in the hopes of destroying the Union army, the two armies encountered each other, and the battle commenced. Low ridges to the northwest of Gettysburg were initially defended by a Union cavalry division under Brigadier General John Buford, soon reinforced by two corps of Union infantry. Two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, however, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, leading them to retreat through the streets of Gettysburg to the hills just south of the city.[17] On the second day of battle, on July 2, the Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. In the late afternoon, Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union's left flank, leading to fierce fighting at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union's right flank, Confederate demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. Despite incurring significant losses, Union forces held their lines.

On the third day of battle, July 3, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south of Gettysburg. Pickett's Charge featured the main engagement, a Confederate infantry assault of approximately 12,000 Confederates troops, who attacked the center of the Union line at Cemetery Ridge, which was repelled by Union rifle and artillery fire, leading to great Confederate losses. The following day, on the Fourth of July, Lee led his Confederate troops on the torturous retreat from the North. Between 46,000 and 51,000 soldiers from both armies were casualties in the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, the most in any battle in American history.

On November 19, Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, where he spoke at a ceremony dedicating Gettysburg National Cemetery, which honored the fallen Union soldiers and redefined the purpose of the Civil War in his famed Gettysburg Address, a 271-word speech that has endured as one of the most famous in American history.[18][19]

  1. ^ Coddington, p. 573. See the discussion regarding historians' judgment on whether Gettysburg should be considered a decisive victory.
  2. ^ Official Records, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part 1, pages 155–168 Archived July 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Official Records, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part 2, pages 283–291 Archived July 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Official Records, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part 1, page 151 Archived July 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Coddington, p. 673, references the official number of the Union Army forces but says the number could have been in the "neighborhood" of 115,000. Busey and Martin, p. 125: "Engaged strength" at the battle was 93,921. Eicher, p. 503, gives a similar number of 93,500. Sears, p. 539 quotes the official number of just over 104,000 but with reinforcements of another 8,000 men about to arrive.
  6. ^ "Gettysburg Staff Ride" (PDF). army.mil. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 26, 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  7. ^ Busey and Martin, p. 260, state that Confederate "engaged strength" at the battle was 71,699; McPherson, p. 648, lists the Confederate strength at the start of the campaign as 75,000, while Eicher, p. 503 gives a lower number of 70,200. Noting that Confederate returns often did not include officers, Coddington, p. 676 states that estimated Confederate strength of 75,000 is "a conservative one". Confederate Captain John Esten Cooke in A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee, New York: D. Appleton, 1871, p. 328, gives the number of the entire Confederate force "at about eighty thousand". Sears, p. 149 states that eyewitnesses observed the Confederate force to be about 100,000 but, although Meade used this in making his battle plans, it was an overcount of about 20 percent.
  8. ^ Official Records, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part 1, page 187 Archived July 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Busey and Martin, p. 125.
  10. ^ Busey and Martin, p. 260, cite 23,231 total (4,708 killed;12,693 wounded;5,830 captured/missing).
    See the section on casualties for a discussion of alternative Confederate casualty estimates, which have been cited as high as 28,000.
  11. ^ Official Records, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part 2, pages 338–346 Archived July 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Wynstra, p. 81
  13. ^ Symonds, pp. 53, 57
  14. ^ Robert D. Quigley, Civil War Spoken Here: A Dictionary of Mispronounced People, Places and Things of the 1860s (Collingswood, NJ: C. W. Historicals, 1993), p. 68. ISBN 0-9637745-0-6.
  15. ^ "Gettysburg" at Battlefields
  16. ^ Rawley, p. 147; Sauers, p. 827; Gallagher, Lee and His Army, p. 83; McPherson, p. 665; Eicher, p. 550. Gallagher and McPherson cite the combination of Gettysburg and Vicksburg as the turning point. Eicher uses the arguably related expression, "High-water mark of the Confederacy".
  17. ^ Eicher, David J. (2001), The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 515–517, ISBN 978-0-684-84944-7
  18. ^ Conant, Sean (2015). The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln's Greatest Speech. New York: Oxford University Press. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-19-022745-6.
  19. ^ Holsinger, M. Paul (1999). War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-313-29908-7.


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