Overview
In a war known both for its critical turning points and long list of questions that begin "What if...?", no battle was a more critical turning point, was itself marked by more turning points, or has inspired more "What if...?" debates than the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1-3, 1863 in an unlikely town in a state that otherwise was largely unscathed during the American Civil War. The most momentous battles of this war came to be intertwined with the names of generals and other officers whose actions and decisions either won the day or lost it, or else were marked by heroism and adherence to duty, and this is certainly true of Gettysburg: in addition to the commanders Lee and Meade, Chamberlain, Pickett,and Reynolds are all names of those who came to be closely associated with this battle. Similarly, the battlefields on which the greatest bloodshed occurred came to be marked by topographical features where the fighting and casualties were especially horrific - the Hornet's Nest at Shiloh, the Bloody Lane at Antietam, the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania Court House- and no battlefield on which the Yanks and Rebels met came to have more such famous labels than Gettysburg: Seminary Ridge, Cemetery Ridge, the Peach Orchard, the Devil's Den, the Round Tops, the Bloody Angle. But Gettysburg had one claim that no other battle of the Civil War could make: after the last shots had been fired and the Army of Northern Virginia had withdrawn it would never again pose the formidable offensive force that had threatened northern armies for so long, and ultimately would prove unable to prevent the Union's victory in the East.
Prelude to the battle
In a sense the Battle of Gettysburg was a repetition of the battle fought in Sharpsburg, Maryland partly along the Antietam Creek the previous September, but with very different consequences for the outcome of the war. Both times Gen. Robert E. Lee had tried to follow up on successes in Virginia by taking his army into northern territory, where he could deal a blow to Union morale and support for the war effort while drawing the enemy from his native state. In 1862, Lee's victory at Sharpsburg represented the latest of a series of campaigns and battles in the Eastern Theater in which the Confederates had benefitted from flawed or even inept Union leadership, leading to outright victories or standoffs that qualified as victories for the defender: First Manassas/Bull Run (July 21, 1861), the Peninsula Campaign (March-July, 1862), Jackson's Valley Campaign (March-June, 1862), and Second Manassas/Bull Run (August 28-30, 1862). Similarly, in the more than nine months between the Battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam (September 17, 1862) and the Battle of Gettysburg the Union's primary army had been defeated when on the offensive at Fredericksburg (December 11-15, 1862) and Chancellorsville (April 30-May 6, 1863). Even though Lee's army had suffered devastating casualties in this last engagement - more than 20% of his total strength - he believed that the time had come once again to invade Union territory, which he expected to achieve the desired results of bringing the war home to the citizens of the United States and thus impacting public morale, at the same time sparing Virginia's citizens the traumas of war in their midst and enabling the state's farmers to raise their crops in peace (while Lee's army could "forage" and thus feed itself at the expense of northern farmers). Moreover, the aggressive Lee knew that doing nothing meant that the Union could regather its strength and refit its army and then attack when ready, whereas invading the North would permit Lee to dictate when and where the war would be waged. In principle it was a sound strategy, but the results would be calamitous, and the opposite of what he had achieved the previous year: at Antietam it had been the Union's commander, Gen. George McClellan, who had failed to achieve a true victory by sending his men against Lee's defensive positions in uncoordinated waves, enabling the Confederate commander to survive with his army still highly effective, but at Gettysburg it would be Lee who would launch the war's most famous frontal assault against a well-defended position, causing extremely high casualties that, when combined with the losses of the previous two days, would weaken the Army of Northern Virginia so greatly that for the rest of the war it would primarily serve as a defensive force protecting Richmond.
"Lee’s army is your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also."
The armies
The two armies that met at Gettysburg - the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under Gen. George G. Meade- were both veteran forces that had already fought each other numerous times, going back two years to the Battle of First Manassas (though they each bore different names at the time). Thus in terms of the quality of the soldiers there was an even match, but the Union had a clear numerical advantage of roughly 95,000 to 75,000. The northern army also enjoyed clear superiority in weaponry, especially in terms of artillery: not only were its guns more advanced, but it had roughly 360, to the southern army's roughly 260. The greatest difference between the two forces, other than these advantages in strength and weaponry enjoyed by the Union, was that whereas in Robert E. Lee the Confederate force had found a single, devastatingly effective commander whose name would forever be synonymous with his army's, the Army of the Potomac had cycled through a series of top commanders whose flaws had caused numerous setbacks and lengthened the war before settling on Meade, who would remain in command for the rest of the war though he would lose his autonomy the following spring when Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant would head east and directly oversee the efforts of Meade and his army during the Overland Campaign of 1864 and siege of Petersburg in 1864-65. Meade's army was divided into seven infantry corps -Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds's I Corps (3 divisions), Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps (3 divisions), Maj. Gen. Daniel E.Sickles's III Corps (2 divisions), Maj. Gen. George Sykes's V Corps (3 divisions), Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps (3 divisions), Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard's XI Corps (3 divisions), andMaj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum's XII Corps (2 divisions) - along with a cavalry corpsunder Maj. Gen. AlfredPleasonton (3 divisions and horse artillery) and Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler's Artillery Reserve (5 brigades). Lee's army, in contrast, consisted of just three corps - Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps (3 divisions with artillery reserve), Lt. Gen.Richard S.Ewell's Second Corps (3 divisions with artillery reserve), and Lt. A.P. Hill's Third Corps (3 divisions with artillery reserve) - along with Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry division.
Tactics and Weapons
Tactics
As cavalry played a somewhat limited role at the height of battle, being more effective at scouting and cutting supply lines as well as fighting other cavalry forces, and artillery units were small and relatively few in number, it was the Civil War infantryman who did the lion's share of the fighting. Organized into regiments, soldiers on both sides when engaged in battle would go into line formation and stand side by side, either firing volleys in unison or firing at will. Such an approach would make a regiment an easier target for the enemy, but would also enable it to concentrate its firepower more effectively. It was this concentration that was most crucial, and was the reason for the soldiers standing so close to one another, which enabled them to operate within earshot of their officers and to coordinate their fire - typically no more than three volleys per minute, due to the time it took to reload muskets. In some situations, one or more regiments on each side would stay in position and fight it out, volley for volley, until one side began to break, but regiments were also meant to be mobile, and would often advance to a new location or even, more rarely, engage in an outright charge. Such maneuvers required the soldiers to maintain their shoulder-to-shoulder proximity, and due to the din of battle this would have been more difficult without the use of regimental flags that could be seen leading the way even when the officers' shouts could not be heard. Artillery units, in contrast, were far less mobile and would normally move into a position from which they could command a sector of the battlefield and remain there, though they did reposition themselves regularly and in certain circumstances would even advance towards the enemy. Firing either "solid shot" (i.e., individual cannonballs), "spherical case" (i.e., a type of round with explosive charges that would propel dozens of musket balls into an enemy formation roughly 500-1500 yards away), or else "canister" (i.e., a thin metal can filled with cast-iron balls that would tear open while exiting the gun, directly releasing them into the enemy at close range), depending on the situation, Civil War artillery pieces could not fire with great precision, but nonetheless could achieve the twin effects among the enemy of causing physical injuries and death as well as lowering morale. Therefore the most important role of artillery was to degrade the enemy soldiers' strength and will to fight, though sometimes artillery units would engage in barraging enemy artillery.
Weapons
Whereas earlier in the Civil War both sides had large numbers of soldiers armed with outdated and inferior smoothbore muskets with limited ranges of roughly 150 yards, by mid-1863 soldiers were armed primarily with rifled muskets, which had nearly twice the effective range. For the Union the most common musket was the Springfield, of which around two million were produced during the war, while the Confederates were primarily armed with a similar weapon, the Enfield, which was imported from England. Artillery guns, too, had advanced technologically, so that the 6- and 12-lb. smoothbores that represented a significant portion of both sides' armaments at Manassas and at other early engagements were either replaced or joined by rifled cannons that could fire solid shot much farther: for example, whereas a Napoleon 12-lb. smoothbore cannon could fire solid shot roughly 1700 yards, a Parrott 10-lb. rifled cannon had a range of 6000 yards, and a 3" ordnance rifle 4000 yards. At Gettysburg, where the smoothbores, rifled cannons and howitzers were all represented on the battlefield, the Confederates still fielded 107 Napoleons - more than 40% of their total artillery - while the Union's artillery was mostly rifled cannon, including 146 3" ordnance rifles
The Commanders
Gen. Robert E. Lee (b. 1807, d. 1870) was the scion of an illustrious Virginia family, whose father Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee had been a hero in the Revolutionary War. A graduate of West Point in 1829, he had already seen war in Mexico and held important positions in the U.S. Army before the Civil War, rising to the rank of colonel. His reputation was such that as the secession crisis grew he was offered command of the army in which he had served for thirty-two years, but opted instead to be loyal to his native state, gaining appointment as general of Virginia's forces before becoming a full general in the Confederate army. More an advisor to Pres. Jefferson Davis than a field commander in the first year, Lee gained command of the army with which he would become synonymous, the Army of Northern Virginia, after Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines (May 31, 1862). A month later he achieved his first major success, driving the Union's Army of the Potomac away from Richmond and ending Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign through a stunning series of victories in what came to be known as the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1, 1862). This was followed with another major victory over the Union under Gen. John Pope in the Battle of Second Manassas/Bull Run (August 28-30, 1862), following which he invaded northern territory for the first time and conducted his Maryland Campaign (September 4-20, 1862), which culminated in the bloody Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, where his army survived ill-coordinated waves of attack by his old foe McClellan. A more clear-cut victory was achieved at Fredericksburg that December (December 11-15, 1862), when a logistically flawed and ill-conceived assault by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside against Lee's elevated position on the far side of the Rappahannock River had disastrous results for the Union. Lee's aggressive instinct and brilliance as a tactician were again on display the following spring at the Battle of Chancellorsville, when he divided his army and attacked the larger Union force, though his victory came with an enormous loss of men and, most famously, the death through "friendly fire" of his corps commander Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Following his defeat at Gettysburg two months later Lee retreated to Virginia and concentrated on protecting the approaches to Richmond. The spring of 1864 would see Lee seeking ways to attack the Army of the Potomac, now being directly overseen by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, but in Grant Lee had met his match: Lee's equal in terms of aggressiveness, Grant wore down the Confederate army through a war of attrition, advancing regardless of how badly his army had been roughed up by Lee at such battles as the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor in May and June. Lee's army was eventually forced to fall back to Petersburg and dig in for a siege, its goal now the protection of Richmond rather than the destruction of the enemy army, but after the Battle of Five Forks (April 1, 1865) the Confederates were driven from Petersburg, and Lee's hopes of joining with Johnston's forces in North Carolina were soon dashed, leading him to surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9. Given amnesty by Pres. Andrew Johnson, Lee after the war was allowed to live freely, and served as the president of Washington College, today Washington & Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia. He died five years after the war's end, on October 12, 1870.
Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade (b. 1815, d. 1872), whose career's zenith was his victory over Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, had much in common with his adversary: though eight years younger, he graduated from West Point two years later in 1831 with engineering expertise, embarking on a career in the U.S. Army (with the exception of a six-year period as a private citizen) that included working on coastal defenses and fighting in Mexico. At the outset of the Civil War Meade was a captain, but that August was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers and given command of the Pennsylvania Reserves' 2nd Brigade. He first saw action during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, being wounded at White Oak Swamp during the Seven Days Battles. Sufficiently recovered two month later, Meade commanded a brigade at 2nd Manassas/Bull Run, and the following month was given a division in Gen. Joseph Hooker's I Corps during the Maryland Campaign, which he commanded at Sharpsburg/Antietam until he took over for the wounded Hooker, selected by McClellan over senior generals because of his recent performance (September 17). Meade's rise continued two months later with a promotion to major general of volunteers and command of V Corps, after having further proven himself at Fredericksburg by achieving the only breakthrough of the Confederate line, and following Hooker's disappointing showing at the Battle of Chancellorsville Meade was given command of the whole Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863. Meade's only major engagement with the enemy as his army's independent commander would be at Gettysburg, followed by lesser engagements later in the year, but in early 1864 Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, having been promoted to general-in-chief, joined Meade's army and directly oversaw his efforts against Lee. Thus Meade would remain the commander of the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war, holding this office longer than Hooker or his other predecessors, but his strategy would be dictated by Grant - who famously instructed, "Lee's army is your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also." - during the Overland Campaign and siege of Petersburg in 1864-65, it would be Grant who received Lee's surrender, and it would be Grant who gained credit for the victory in the Virginia theater. Following the war, Meade - who had gained promotion to major general in the Regular Army - would continue his service, dying of pneumonia on November 6, 1872.
