Civil War History
July 3, 2013, marks the 150th anniversary of the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The significance of the three-day battle in the small town in Southern Pennsylvania cannot be understated in American history.
Before the battle, Union forces suffered multiple defeats to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee. Sensing Union weakness and perhaps with overconfidence, Lee decided to invade the North with 70,000 soldiers knowing the Union Army of the Potomac with its 90,000 soldiers would have to chase him to protect Washington, D.C. His plan was simple. Draw the Union Army out in the open and destroy it.
The first day of battle happened by accident as a leading group of Confederates ran into a much smaller Union force on the city’s outskirts. The Confederates would chase the Union soldiers through the town and onto the hills surrounding the city. Dismounted Union Calvary, led by John Bufford, played an important role in slowing the Confederate advance. By the end of the first day of fighting, Confederate Lieutenant General Richard Ewell decided his men were too tired to attack the strategic Culp’s Hill that would act as the right flank of the Union position during the battle. The Union would hold the high ground, a key factor throughout the battle.
The second day of fighting brought names such as the Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield, and Little Round Top into the American lexicon. Lee attacked both flanks of the Union position and the fighting was furious. In one of American history’s great stories of the citizen-soldier, a then-obscure colonel named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain made a decision that might have saved the Union. On the far left of the Union position, Chamberlain was tasked with holding his position on Little Round Top at all costs. Chamberlain, a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College in Maine, took this responsibility seriously. Facing superior Confederate numbers and multiple attacks, Chamberlain and the men of the 20th Maine held their position. After running low on ammo and facing another Confederate attack, Chamberlain ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge down the hill. This confused the Confederates who did not attempt another attack at Little Round Top. The Union held its positions on the battlefield.
The third day of fighting became known for Pickett’s Charge, a Confederate attempt to attack the center of the Union position. After a prolonged artillery barrage, 15,000 Confederate soldiers led by Major General George Pickett crossed a large open field. Union artillery from throughout the battlefield responded and the attack turned into a disaster for the Confederacy. Lee was forced to withdraw his forces back to Virginia, never again in a position to threaten the Union. The Army of Northern Virginia would go on to fight for two more years but would never be the same after its failure at Gettysburg.
The Battle of Gettysburg changed American history. It will never be known how President Abraham Lincoln would have responded to another defeat but before the battle, pressure in the North was building against the war as the casualties and defeats mounted. A decisive Confederate victory on Northern soil may have led to a different outcome for the Civil War. At best, the War would have continued for much longer than it ultimately did. In all, 51,000 soldiers from both sides were killed, wounded, captured, or missing during the three-day battle.