The Battle of Gettysburg

The battle of Gettysburg began not on July 1, 1863, but in May of 1863. Gettysburg was the culmination of General Robert E. Lee’s campaign to take Pennsylvania, a crushing blow to the Union, but it was a campaign that not only failed, but also nearly destroyed Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had delivered a sound defeat unto Union General Joseph Hooker’s forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia, in May of 1863. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia had managed to repel an army twice their size, no small feat. Emboldened by the victory, Lee decided to take Pennsylvania, a staunchly Union state, for the Confederacy. He set his sights on Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and if he could take Harrisburg, then hoped to take Philadelphia as well.

The campaign for Pennsylvania got underway in June 1863. Throughout the month, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marched north toward Pennsylvania. The Confederates stormed several towns, although Lee instructed them to treat civilians with care. Their campaign was to be short-lived; on July 1, 1863, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia met Union General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac just outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the battle of Gettysburg began in earnest.

The battle raged for three of the bloodiest days in American history. Over 165,000 men would converge on the hills in Gettysburg, staining the red with blood. The battle was fierce, and the casualties proved it – nearly 50,000 men were casualties of the Gettysburg, the deadliest battle of the Civil War, a battle that was soon recognized as the turning point of the war. But for the Union, these casualties would not be in vain; the seemingly invincible Army of Northern Virginia would be stricken a fatal blow, one from which they, and the South, would never truly recover.

Before Gettysburg, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had proved itself a force to be reckoned with; more than once they had defeated armies that outnumbered them significantly. And on the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, it seemed that Lee would again be victorious.

But the second day of fighting, Lee’s resolve began to crumble. Meade’s Army of the Potomac held their ground, outnumbering the Confederate troops by 20,000, and the tide soon turned to the Union’s favor. By July 3, the third day of fighting, more than a third of Lee’s army would be felled. By Independence Day of 1863, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was retreating, their campaign all but over.

Gettysburg was a much needed victory for the North; for the first time, a Union army had proven itself as more than a match for the Army of Northern Virginia, hailed by Confederates and Federals alike as the most accomplished army of either the Union or the Confederacy.

The defeat was devastating for Lee; still recovering from the recent death of General Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, whom Lee referred to as his “right arm,” the stunning loss at Gettysburg shook Lee’s confidence so that he never fully regained it. The Army of Northern Virginia, once the shining light of the Confederacy, was shaken by the routing they’d received at Gettysburg, and their domination on the battlefield was over.