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Gettysburg Campaign: Battle of Gettysburg
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil
War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved
north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Union
Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade (from June 28), pursued Lee, defeated
him at the Battle of Gettysburg, but allowed him to escape back to Virginia.
| The Gettysburg Campaign Map |
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Gettysburg Campaign (through July 3) Confederate
Union Cavalry movements are shown with dashed lines.
| July 1, 1863 |
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Lee's army slipped away
from Federal contact at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 3, 1863. While they paused
at Culpeper, the largest cavalry battle of the war was fought at Brandy Station on June 9. The Confederates crossed the Blue
Ridge Mountains and moved north through the Shenandoah Valley, capturing the Union garrison at Winchester, Virginia, in the
Second Battle of Winchester, June 13–15. Crossing the Potomac River, Lee's Second Corps advanced through Maryland and Pennsylvania, reaching the Susquehanna River and threatening
the state capital of Harrisburg. However, the Army of the
Potomac was in pursuit and had reached Frederick, Maryland,
before Lee realized his opponent had crossed the Potomac. Lee moved swiftly to concentrate
his army around the crossroads town of Gettysburg.
| July 2, 1863 |
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The Battle of Gettysburg
was the largest engagement of the war. Starting as a chance meeting engagement on July 1, the Confederates were initially
successful in driving Union cavalry and two infantry corps from their defensive positions, through the town, and onto Cemetery
Hill. On July 2, with most of both armies now present, Lee launched fierce assaults on both flanks of the Union defensive
line, which were repulsed with heavy losses on both sides. On July 3, Lee focused his attention on the Union center and the
defeat of his massive infantry assault, Pickett's Charge, caused Lee to order a retreat that began the evening of July 4.
The Confederate retreat to Virginia
was plagued by bad weather, difficult roads, and numerous skirmishes with Union cavalry. However, Meade's army did not maneuver
aggressively enough to prevent the Army of Northern Virginia from crossing the Potomac to
safety on the night of July 13–14.
The three-day battle in
and around Gettysburg resulted in the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War—between 46,000 and 51,000.In
conjunction with the Union victory at Vicksburg on July 4, Gettysburg is frequently cited as the war's turning point.
| July 3, 1863 |
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The Gettysburg Campaign represented
the final major offensive by Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. Afterwards, all combat operations of the Army of Northern Virginia
were in reaction to Union initiatives. Lee suffered over 27,000 casualties during the campaign, a price very difficult for
the Confederacy to pay. The campaign met only some of its major objectives: it had disrupted Union plans for a summer campaign
in Virginia, temporarily protecting the citizens and economy of that state, and; it had allowed Lee's men to live off the
bountiful Maryland and Pennsylvania countryside and collect vast amounts of food and supplies that carried back with them
and would allow them to continue the war. However, the myth of Lee's invincibility had been shattered and not a single Union
soldier was removed from the Vicksburg Campaign to react to Lee's invasion of the North. (Vicksburg
surrendered on July 4, the day Lee ordered his retreat.) Union campaign casualties were approximately 30,100.
| Gettysburg Campaign (July 5-14) |
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Meade was severely criticized
for allowing Lee to escape, just as Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had done after the Battle of Antietam. Under pressure from
Lincoln,
he launched two campaigns in the fall of 1863—Bristoe and Mine Run—that attempted to defeat Lee. Both were failures.
He also suffered humiliation at the hands of his political enemies in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct
of the War, questioning his actions at Gettysburg and his failure to defeat Lee during the
retreat to the Potomac.
On November 19, 1863, Abraham
Lincoln spoke at the dedication ceremonies for the national cemetery created at the Gettysburg
battlefield. His Gettysburg Address redefined the war, named the destruction of slavery as a new, specific goal, and called
for a "new birth of freedom" in the nation.
Recommended Reading: Stars in Their
Courses : The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 (Hardcover). Description: Shelby Foote, who cut such
a courtly figure in Ken Burns's PBS series The Civil War, is an uncommonly graceful writer as well, and this careful study
of the 1863 Gettysburg campaign assumes the contours of a classical tragedy. Continued below...
Foote positions readers on the field of battle itself, among swirling smoke and clattering grapeshot, and
invites us to feel for ourselves its hellishness: "men on both sides were hollering as they milled about and fired, some cursing,
others praying ... not a commingling of shouts and yells but rather like a vast mournful roar." Foote's fine book is history
as literature, and a welcome addition to any Civil War buff's library.
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles which culminated with the Battle of Gettysburg.
Battle of Winchester II
Battle of Williamsport
Battle of Boonsborough
Battle of Manassas Gap
Also see:
Recommended
Reading: Gettysburg, by Stephen W. Sears (640 pages) (November 3, 2004). Description: Sears delivers another masterpiece with this comprehensive study of America’s most studied Civil War battle. Beginning with Lee's meeting with
Davis in May 1863, where he argued in favor of marching north, to take pressure off both Vicksburg and Confederate logistics. It ends with the battered Army
of Northern Virginia re-crossing the Potomac just two months later and with Meade unwilling to drive his equally battered
Army of the Potomac into a desperate pursuit. In between is the balanced, clear and detailed
story of how tens-of-thousands of men became casualties, and how Confederate independence on that battlefield was put forever
out of reach. The author is fair and balanced. Continued below...
He discusses
the shortcomings of Dan Sickles, who advanced against orders on the second day; Oliver Howard, whose Corps broke and was routed
on the first day; and Richard Ewell, who decided not to take Culp's Hill on the first night, when that might have been decisive.
Sears also makes a strong argument that Lee was not fully in control of his army on the march or in the battle, a view conceived
in his gripping narrative of Pickett's Charge, which makes many aspects of that nightmare much clearer than previous studies.
A must have for the Civil War buff and anyone remotely interested in American history.
Recommended Reading: The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (928 pages).
Description: Coddington's research is one of the most thorough and
detailed studies of the Gettysburg Campaign. Exhaustive in scope and scale, Coddington delivers, with unrivaled research,
in-depth battle descriptions and a complete history of the regiments involved. This
is a must read for anyone seriously interested in American history and what transpired and shaped a nation on those pivotal
days in July 1863.
NEW!
Recommended Reading: The Gettysburg
Companion: A Guide to the Most Famous Battle of the Civil
War (Hardcover). Description: There have been many books about Gettysburg, but never one to rival this in scale or authority. Based on extensive research,
The Gettysburg Companion describes the battle in detail, drawing on firsthand accounts of participants on all sides in order
to give the reader a vivid sense of what it was like to experience the carnage at Gettysburg
in early July 1863. The many full-color maps--all specially commissioned for the book--and the numerous photographs, charts,
and diagrams make this book a feast for the eyes and a collector's dream. Includes
a massive library of 500 color illustrations.
Recommended
Reading: The History Buff's Guide to Gettysburg (Key People,
Places, and Events) (Key People, Places, and Events). Description: While most history books are dry monologues of people, places, events and dates,
The History Buff's Guide is ingeniously written and full of not only first-person accounts but crafty prose. For example,
in introducing the major commanders, the authors basically call Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell a chicken literally.
'Bald, bug-eyed, beak-nosed Dick Stoddard Ewell had all the aesthetic charm of a flightless foul.' Continued below...
To balance
things back out a few pages later, they say federal Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade looked like a 'brooding gargoyle with an
intense cold stare, an image in perfect step with his nature.' Although it's called a guide to Gettysburg,
in my opinion, it's an authoritative guide to the Civil War. Any history buff or Civil War enthusiast or even that casual
reader should pick it up.
NEW! Recommended Reading: ONE CONTINUOUS FIGHT: The
Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia,
July 4-14, 1863 (Hardcover) (June
2008). Description: The titanic three-day battle of Gettysburg left 50,000
casualties in its wake, a battered Southern army far from its base of supplies, and a rich historiographic legacy. Thousands
of books and articles cover nearly every aspect of the battle, but not a single volume focuses on the military aspects of
the monumentally important movements of the armies to and across the Potomac River. One Continuous
Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863 is the first detailed military history of Lee's retreat and the Union effort to
catch and destroy the wounded Army of Northern Virginia. Against steep odds and encumbered with thousands of casualties, Confederate
commander Robert E. Lee's post-battle task was to successfully withdraw his army across the Potomac River. Union commander
George G. Meade's equally difficult assignment was to intercept the effort and destroy his enemy. The responsibility for defending
the exposed Southern columns belonged to cavalry chieftain James Ewell Brown (JEB) Stuart. If Stuart fumbled his famous ride
north to Gettysburg, his generalship during the retreat more
than redeemed his flagging reputation. The ten days of retreat triggered nearly two dozen skirmishes and major engagements,
including fighting at Granite Hill, Monterey Pass,
Hagerstown, Williamsport, Funkstown,
Boonsboro, and Falling Waters. Continued below...
President Abraham
Lincoln was thankful for the early July battlefield victory, but disappointed that General Meade was unable to surround and
crush the Confederates before they found safety on the far side of the Potomac. Exactly what Meade did to try to intercept the fleeing Confederates, and how the
Southerners managed to defend their army and ponderous 17-mile long wagon train of wounded until crossing into western Virginia on the early morning of July 14, is the subject of this study.
One Continuous Fight draws upon a massive array of documents, letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and published primary
and secondary sources. These long-ignored foundational sources allow the authors, each widely known for their expertise in
Civil War cavalry operations, to describe carefully each engagement. The result is a rich and comprehensive study loaded with
incisive tactical commentary, new perspectives on the strategic role of the Southern and Northern cavalry, and fresh insights
on every engagement, large and small, fought during the retreat. The retreat from Gettysburg
was so punctuated with fighting that a soldier felt compelled to describe it as "One Continuous Fight." Until now, few students
fully realized the accuracy of that description. Complimented with 18 original maps, dozens of photos, and a complete driving
tour with GPS coordinates of the entire retreat, One Continuous Fight is an essential book for every student of the American
Civil War in general, and for the student of Gettysburg in
particular. About the Authors: Eric J. Wittenberg has written widely on Civil War cavalry operations. His books include Glory
Enough for All (2002), The Union Cavalry Comes of Age (2003), and The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads and the Civil War's Final
Campaign (2005). He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
J. David Petruzzi is the author of several magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours of cavalry
sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular "Buford's Boys." A long time student of the Gettysburg
Campaign, Michael Nugent is a retired US Army Armored Cavalry Officer and the descendant of a Civil War Cavalry soldier. He
has previously written for several military publications. Nugent lives in Wells, Maine.
NEW! Recommended Reading: General Lee's Army: From Victory
to Collapse (Hardcover). Review: You cannot say that
University of North Carolina
professor Glatthaar (Partners in Command) did not do his homework in this massive examination of the Civil War–era lives
of the men in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Glatthaar spent nearly 20 years examining and ordering primary source
material to ferret out why Lee's men fought, how they lived during the war, how they came close to winning, and why they lost.
Glatthaar marshals convincing evidence to challenge the often-expressed notion that the war in the South was a rich man's
war and a poor man's fight and that support for slavery was concentrated among the Southern upper class. Continued below...
Lee's army
included the rich, poor and middle-class, according to the author, who contends that there was broad support for the war in
all economic strata of Confederate society. He also challenges the myth that because Union forces outnumbered and materially
outmatched the Confederates, the rebel cause was lost, and articulates Lee and his army's acumen and achievements in the face
of this overwhelming opposition. This well-written work provides much food for thought for all Civil War buffs.
Recommended
Reading: Retreat from Gettysburg:
Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America) (Hardcover). Description: In a groundbreaking, comprehensive history of the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat from Gettysburg in July 1863, Kent Masterson Brown draws on previously unused materials to chronicle
the massive effort of General Robert E. Lee and his command as they sought to expeditiously move people, equipment, and scavenged
supplies through hostile territory and plan the army's next moves. More than fifty-seven miles of wagon and ambulance trains
and tens of thousands of livestock accompanied the army back to Virginia.
Continued below...
The movement
of supplies and troops over the challenging terrain of mountain passes and in the adverse conditions of driving rain and muddy
quagmires is described in depth, as are General George G. Meade's attempts to attack the trains along the South Mountain range and at Hagerstown and Williamsport, Maryland. Lee's deliberate pace, skillful
use of terrain, and constant positioning of the army behind defenses so as to invite attack caused Union forces to delay their
own movements at critical times. Brown concludes that even though the battle of Gettysburg
was a defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee's successful retreat maintained the balance of power in the eastern theater
and left his army with enough forage, stores, and fresh meat to ensure its continued existence as an effective force.
Recommended
Reading: The Maps of Gettysburg: The Gettysburg
Campaign, June 3 - July 13, 1863 (Hardcover). Description: More academic and photographic
accounts on the battle of Gettysburg exist than for all other
battles of the Civil War combined-and for good reason. The three-days of maneuver, attack, and counterattack consisted of
literally scores of encounters, from corps-size actions to small unit engagements. Despite all its coverage, Gettysburg remains one of the most complex and difficult to understand battles of the war.
Author Bradley Gottfried offers a unique approach to the study of this multifaceted engagement. The Maps of Gettysburg plows
new ground in the study of the campaign by breaking down the entire campaign in 140 detailed original maps. These cartographic
originals bore down to the regimental level, and offer Civil Warriors a unique and fascinating approach to studying the always
climactic battle of the war. Continued
below...
The Maps of
Gettysburg offers thirty "action-sections" comprising the entire campaign. These include the march to and from the battlefield,
and virtually every significant event in between. Gottfried's original maps further enrich each "action-section." Keyed to
each piece of cartography is detailed text that includes hundreds of soldiers' quotes that make the Gettysburg
story come alive. This presentation allows readers to easily and quickly find a map and text on virtually any portion of the
campaign, from the great cavalry clash at Brandy Station on June 9, to the last Confederate withdrawal of troops across the
Potomac River on July 15, 1863. Serious students of the battle will appreciate the extensive
and authoritative endnotes. They will also want to bring the book along on their trips to the battlefield… Perfect for
the easy chair or for stomping the hallowed ground of Gettysburg,
The Maps of Gettysburg promises to be a seminal work that belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of
the battle.
Recommended
Reading: Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg,
by James M. Mcpherson (Crown Journeys) (Hardcover). Review From Publishers Weekly: The country's most distinguished Civil War historian, a Pulitzer Prize winner (for Battle Cry of Freedom)
and professor at Princeton, offers this compact and incisive study of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In narrating "the largest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere," McPherson walks
readers over its presently hallowed ground, with monuments numbering into the hundreds, many of which work to structure the
narrative. They range from the equestrian monument to Union general John Reynolds to Amos Humiston, a New Yorker identified
several months after the battle when family daguerreotypes found on his body were recognized by his widow. Indeed, while McPherson
does the expected fine job of narrating the battle, in a manner suitable for the almost complete tyro in military history,
he also skillfully hands out kudos and criticism each time he comes to a memorial. Continued below...
He praises
Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, but also the 140th New York
and its colonel, who died leading his regiment on the other Union flank in an equally desperate action. The cover is effective
and moving: the quiet clean battlefield park above, the strewn bodies below. The author's knack for knocking myths on the
head without jargon or insult is on display throughout: he gently points out that North Carolinians think that their General
Pettigrew ought to share credit for Pickett's charge; that General Lee's possible illness is no excuse for the butchery that
charge led to; that African-Americans were left out of the veterans' reunions; and that the kidnapping of African-Americans
by the Confederates has been excised from most history books.
Recommended
Reading:
Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg--And Why It Failed. Description: A fascinating
narrative-and a bold new thesis in the study of the Civil War-that suggests Robert E. Lee had a heretofore undiscovered strategy
at Gettysburg that, if successful, could have crushed the Union forces and changed the outcome of the war. The Battle of Gettysburg
is the pivotal moment when the Union forces repelled perhaps America's
greatest commander-the brilliant Robert E. Lee, who had already thrashed a long line of Federal opponents-just as he was poised
at the back door of Washington, D.C.
It is the moment in which the fortunes of Lee, Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the Union hung precariously in the balance. Conventional wisdom has held to date, almost without exception,
that on the third day of the battle, Lee made one profoundly wrong decision. But how do we reconcile Lee the high-risk warrior
with Lee the general who launched "Pickett's Charge," employing only a fifth of his total forces, across an open field, up
a hill, against the heart of the Union defenses? Continued below...
Most history
books have reported that Lee just had one very bad day. But there is much more to the story, which Tom Carhart addresses for
the first time. With meticulous detail and startling clarity, Carhart revisits the historic battles Lee taught at West Point
and believed were the essential lessons in the art of war-the victories of Napoleon at Austerlitz, Frederick the Great at
Leuthen, and Hannibal at Cannae-and reveals what they can tell us about Lee's real strategy. What Carhart finds will thrill
all students of history: Lee's plan for an electrifying rear assault by Jeb Stuart that, combined with the frontal assault,
could have broken the Union forces in half. Only in the final hours of the battle was the attack reversed through the daring
of an unproven young general-George Armstrong Custer. About the Author: Tom Carhart has been
a lawyer and a historian for the Department of the Army in Washington,
D.C. He is a graduate of West Point, a decorated Vietnam
veteran, and has earned a Ph.D. in American and military history from Princeton
University. He is the author of four books of military history and teaches
at Mary Washington College
near his home in the Washington, D.C.
area.
Recommended
Reading: Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. Description: America's
Civil War raged for more than four years, but it is the three days of fighting in the Pennsylvania
countryside in July 1863 that continues to fascinate, appall, and inspire new generations with its unparalleled saga of sacrifice
and courage. From Chancellorsville, where General Robert E. Lee launched his high-risk campaign into the North, to the Confederates'
last daring and ultimately-doomed act, forever known as Pickett's Charge, the battle of Gettysburg gave the Union army a victory
that turned back the boldest and perhaps greatest chance for a Southern nation. Continued below...
Now, acclaimed
historian Noah Andre Trudeau brings the most up-to-date research available to a brilliant, sweeping, and comprehensive history
of the battle of Gettysburg that sheds fresh light on virtually every aspect of it. Deftly balancing his own
narrative style with revealing firsthand accounts, Trudeau brings this engrossing human tale to life as never before.
To read more about the Battle of Gettysburg, the Gettysburg Campaign, and
the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, also consider these books:
Champ Clark, ed.: Gettysburg, The Confederate High Tide, Time-Life Books,
Alexandria, VA, 1985
Gregory A. Coco: Wasted Valor, the Confederate Dead at Gettysburg, Thomas
Publications, Gettysburg, 1990
Gregory A. Coco: "A Strange and Blighted Land", Gettysburg: The Aftermath
of a Battle, Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, 1995
Edwin B. Coddington: The Gettysburg Campaign, A Study in Command, Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York, 1968
William A. Frassanito: Gettysburg, A Journey in Time, Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York, 1975
Earl Hess: Pickett's Charge- The Last Confederate Attack at Gettysburg,
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2001
Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.:A New Birth of Freedom, Lincoln At Gettysburg, Little,
Brown adn Company, Boston, 1983.
Harry W. Pfanz: Gettysburg, The First Day, University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill, 2001
Harry W. Pfanz: Gettysburg, The Second Day, University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill, 1987
Harry W. Pfanz: Gettysburg, Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, University of
North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1993
Stephen W. Sears: Gettysburg, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston & New
York, 2003
George R. Stewart: Pickett's Charge, A Microhistory of the Final Attack
at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, reprinted by Morningside Bookshop, Dayton, Ohio, 1980
Glenn Tucker: High Tide At Gettysburg, The Campaign in Pennsylvania, Bobbs-Merrill
Co., New York, 1958
Noah Andre Trudeau, Gettysburg, A Testing of Courage, Harper Collins Publishers,
new York, 2002
Jeffrey D. Wert: Gettysburg Day Three, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001
Gary Wills: Lincoln At Gettysburg, The Words That Remade America, Simon
& Schuster, New York, 1992
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