The Battle of Gettysburg

The American Civil War began when Southern secessionists attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861, a month after Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as president of the United States. The war lasted from 1861 to 1865. One of its most iconic battles was the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1 – 3, 1863. Following a major victory for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee decided to march his forces north to Pennsylvania  for a second invasion of Union territory. In response to this movement, Major General George Meade and the Army of the Potomac crossed the Potomac River and approached the town of Gettysburg, the northernmost advance of the Confederate army. Small regiments of the opposing forces clashed west of Gettysburg in the early morning of July 1, and both Union and Confederate forces began marching westward, only to converge on one another, beginning full scale battle. By the end of the third day, the Confederate forces withdrew; the Union army had successfully stopped Lee’s invasion of the North. The Union and Confederate forces suffered a total of approximately 58,000 casualties during the entire campaign, making it the deadliest battle of the Civil War (Reardon). The reactions to this battle in the North bolstered the Union cause, and the battle itself was used as fuel to maintain enthusiasm as the war continued on for another two years. Lincoln capitalized on this in his succinct but powerful Gettysburg Address during which he reinforced the cause for preserving the Union. After the conclusion of the war, the Battle of Gettysburg took on new meaning with the physical battlefield and the construction of commemorative monuments coming to represent reconciliation and brotherhood among Union and Confederate soldiers. The Battle of Gettysburg remains a popular symbol of successful preservation of the Union.

Sources:

Reardon, Carol. Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory. University of North Carolina Press, 

2003.