Battle of Gettysburg (1863): Turning Point of the Civil War

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from 1 to 3 July 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the largest and deadliest battle of the American Civil War. The Union Army of the Potomac under General George G. Meade defeated Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee’s second invasion of the North. With roughly 46,000 to 51,000 casualties, Gettysburg is widely regarded as a turning point of the war.

Background: Lee invades the North

In May 1863 Lee won a remarkable victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, though at the cost of his most trusted corps commander, Stonewall Jackson, who died of complications after being accidentally shot by his own troops. Lee then decided to carry the war into Pennsylvania.

He had several aims. An invasion would relieve war-torn Virginia during the summer harvest, let his army gather food, horses and supplies in the rich Northern countryside, and draw the Union army away from the Confederate capital, Richmond. Lee also hoped that a victory on Northern soil would strengthen the peace movement in the North and perhaps encourage foreign recognition of the Confederacy.

The Army of Northern Virginia, about 71,000 to 75,000 strong and reorganised into three infantry corps under James Longstreet, Richard Ewell and A. P. Hill, moved north through the Shenandoah Valley in June. Its cavalry commander, J. E. B. Stuart, rode around the Union army and lost contact with Lee for days, leaving him without reliable intelligence. On 28 June Lincoln replaced Joseph Hooker with Meade, who took command of the Army of the Potomac, about 94,000 men, only three days before the battle.

The three days of battle

The fighting unfolded over three days, each with its own focus: the struggle for the ridges and the town, attacks on both ends of the Union line, and a final assault on its centre.

Day one, 1 July: McPherson Ridge and the town

Gettysburg was a small market town where about ten roads converged. On the morning of 1 July, Confederate infantry of Henry Heth’s division, part of Hill’s corps, advanced towards the town along the Chambersburg Pike and met Union cavalry under John Buford, who had dismounted his troopers along McPherson Ridge and the ridges to the west.

Buford held on until the Union I Corps arrived. Its commander, Major General John F. Reynolds, one of the army’s best generals, was killed early in the fighting. The Iron Brigade and other units fought hard on McPherson Ridge and Seminary Ridge, but Ewell’s corps arrived from the north in the afternoon and crushed the Union XI Corps. Both Union corps fell back through the streets of the town to Cemetery Hill south of Gettysburg, losing thousands of prisoners.

Lee told Ewell to take Cemetery Hill “if practicable”. Ewell judged it was not, and the Union forces, organised by Winfield Scott Hancock and Oliver O. Howard, dug in. That evening and night the rest of Meade’s army arrived and formed a strong line shaped like a fishhook, running from Culp’s Hill through Cemetery Hill and south along Cemetery Ridge towards two hills called the Round Tops.

Day two, 2 July: the Union flanks

Lee decided to attack both ends of the Union line. Longstreet, who had argued for moving around the Union flank instead, was ordered to attack the Union left; his troops made a long march to avoid being seen and did not attack until about 4 p.m.

Meanwhile the Union III Corps commander, Daniel Sickles, had moved his men without orders forward from Cemetery Ridge to higher ground along the Emmitsburg Road and the Peach Orchard. Longstreet’s assault struck this exposed position, and savage fighting raged in the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield and among the boulders of Devil’s Den. Sickles lost a leg to a cannonball.

At the southern end of the line, Meade’s chief engineer, Gouverneur K. Warren, found the hill of Little Round Top almost undefended and called for troops. Strong Vincent’s brigade arrived minutes before the Confederates attacked. On its far left, the 20th Maine under Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain repelled repeated assaults and ended with a bayonet charge. Further north, Confederate attacks reached Cemetery Ridge before being driven back, in one case by a costly counterattack of the 1st Minnesota. In the evening, Ewell’s men attacked Culp’s Hill and East Cemetery Hill but could not hold their gains.

Day three, 3 July: Pickett’s Charge

On the morning of 3 July Union troops retook ground on Culp’s Hill after hours of fighting. Lee, believing the Union centre had been weakened, decided on a massive assault there. Longstreet again objected but was overruled.

At about 1 p.m. some 150 or more Confederate guns opened the largest artillery bombardment of the war, and Union guns replied. Much of the Confederate fire passed over the Union front line. When it slackened, about 12,500 infantry from the divisions of George Pickett, J. Johnston Pettigrew and Isaac Trimble stepped out from Seminary Ridge and advanced in long lines across nearly a mile of open fields towards a small clump of trees on Cemetery Ridge.

Union artillery and then massed rifle fire tore into the advancing lines. A few hundred men, led by Brigadier General Lewis Armistead, crossed the stone wall at a spot called the Angle, but Union reserves closed the breach and Armistead was mortally wounded. Within about an hour the survivors streamed back. More than half of the attackers were killed, wounded or captured. Hancock, commanding the Union centre, was badly wounded. A cavalry fight east of the town, where Union horsemen including George Armstrong Custer checked Stuart, ended the day’s fighting.

Retreat and aftermath

On 4 July, the same day that Vicksburg surrendered in the West, Lee began his retreat in heavy rain, with a wagon train of wounded stretching for miles. Swollen rivers trapped his army at Williamsport, Maryland, but Meade’s tired army did not attack in force, and Lee crossed the Potomac on 13-14 July. Lincoln was bitterly disappointed that the Confederate army had escaped.

Gettysburg, a town of about 2,400 people, was left with some 21,000 wounded soldiers and thousands of dead men and horses. Churches, homes and barns became hospitals. One civilian, Mary Virginia “Jennie” Wade, was killed by a stray bullet while baking bread in her sister’s house. The hurried burials led to the creation of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, dedicated on 19 November 1863 with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Consequences

Lee’s army lost roughly a third of its strength, including many experienced officers: of the division and brigade commanders in Pickett’s Charge, a large share were killed, wounded or captured. The Confederacy could not replace such losses, and Lee never again launched a major invasion of the North. For the rest of the war his army fought mainly on the defensive in Virginia.

In the North, news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg arriving together around Independence Day lifted public morale and strengthened Lincoln’s government. Abroad, the double defeat further reduced the chance that Britain or France would recognise the Confederacy. Meade was criticised for not pursuing Lee more aggressively, but he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war, from 1864 under the overall direction of Ulysses S. Grant.

The battlefield quickly became a place of memory. Veterans’ organisations placed hundreds of monuments, the federal government created Gettysburg National Military Park in 1895, and reunions of Union and Confederate veterans were held there, most famously on the 50th anniversary in 1913 and the 75th in 1938.

Key people

• George G. Meade: Union commander, appointed three days before the battle.
• Robert E. Lee: commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, who ordered the attacks of 2 and 3 July.
• James Longstreet: Lee’s senior corps commander, who opposed the frontal assaults.
• Winfield Scott Hancock: Union corps commander who organised the defence on 1 July and held the centre on 3 July.
• John Buford: Union cavalry commander who held the ridges west of town on the first morning.
• George Pickett: Confederate division commander whose name is attached to the 3 July assault.

By the numbers

Confederate figures are less certain because records are incomplete; higher totals include estimates of unreported wounded.

Myths and facts

• Myth: the battle began because Confederates went looking for shoes. The story comes largely from Heth’s own later account. Historians note that Confederate troops were advancing towards Gettysburg in any case, and the town had no large supply of shoes.
• Myth: Gettysburg decided the war. It was a severe blow to the Confederacy, but the war lasted almost two more years and ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865.
• Myth: Pickett led the whole charge. Pickett’s division made up less than half of the attacking force; Pettigrew and Trimble led the rest.

Timeline

• 1863, 3 June: Lee’s army begins moving north from Fredericksburg.
• 1863, 28 June: Meade replaces Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
• 1863, 1 July: Fighting begins west of Gettysburg; Reynolds is killed; Union forces retreat to Cemetery Hill.
• 1863, 2 July: Longstreet attacks the Union left; Little Round Top is held; attacks on Culp’s Hill fail.
• 1863, 3 July: Pickett’s Charge is repulsed.
• 1863, 4 July: Lee begins his retreat; Vicksburg surrenders.
• 1863, 13-14 July: Lee’s army recrosses the Potomac into Virginia.
• 1863, 19 November: Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.

Why it matters

Gettysburg broke the offensive power of Lee’s army and ended Confederate hopes of winning the war by invading the North. Together with the fall of Vicksburg, it gave the Union a momentum it would not lose. The battlefield, now Gettysburg National Military Park, and Lincoln’s words at its cemetery have made it the most famous and most visited battle site in American history.