McPherson's Ridge, one mile west of Gettysburg, was the site of the battle's opening infantry fighting on the morning of July 1, 1863. Union cavalry under Gen. John Buford had delayed Confederate infantry under Gen. Henry Heth through the morning, buying time for Reynolds's I Corps to arrive. Reynolds himself was shot from his horse and killed while directing the Iron Brigade into the woods along Willoughby Run, becoming one of the highest-ranking Union officers killed in the entire war. The Iron Brigade charged into McPherson's Woods and shattered Archer's Confederate brigade, capturing Archer himself, the first general officer taken prisoner from Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Despite this early success, Confederate numbers eventually overwhelmed the Union position through the early afternoon. The ridge fell as the I Corps was ground down on multiple axes, with the Iron Brigade sustaining over 60 percent casualties before being forced back toward Gettysburg.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.