Gettysburg Campaign

• Major General J.E.B. StuartBrandy Station, Middleburg, Hanover, Boonsboro
• General Robert E. LeeGettysburg, Williamsport
• Lieutenant General Richard S. EwellWinchester, Second
• Colonel Thomas MunfordAldie
• Brigadier General Wade HamptonUpperville
• Brigadier General Beverly RobertsonUpperville
• Major General Richard AndersonManassas Gap

• Major General Alfred PleasontonBrandy Station, Upperville, Boonsboro
• Brigadier General Robert MilroyWinchester, Second
• Brigadier General H. Judson KilpatrickAldie, Hanover
• Brigadier General David M. GreggMiddleburg
• Major General George G. MeadeGettysburg, Williamsport
• Major General William H. FrenchManassas Gap

In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee led the principal Confederate army into Pennsylvania, marking the only occasion during the conflict when Confederate forces attempted a large-scale push into a free state. The Union secured a decisive triumph at Gettysburg between July 1 and July 3, though both sides suffered enormous losses. Lee nonetheless brought the bulk of his forces safely back into Virginia. This clash proved to be a pivotal moment in the war, as Confederate fortunes steadily declined and Lee found himself forced closer to Richmond, culminating in his surrender in April 1865. Command of the Union Army of the Potomac rested with Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker until June 28, when Maj. Gen. George Meade took over.

Following his triumph at Chancellorsville, Lee pushed the Army of Northern Virginia northward on a sweeping raid intended to secure badly needed provisions, weaken civilian resolve in Northern territory, and bolster those opposed to continuing the war. On June 3, 1863, Lee's forces disengaged from Union troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and began their march. Six days later, on June 9, the conflict's largest engagement fought mainly by cavalry unfolded at Brandy Station. The Confederate army then traversed the Blue Ridge Mountains and pressed northward along the Shenandoah Valley, seizing the Federal garrison at Winchester during the Second Battle of Winchester, fought June 13 through 15. After fording the Potomac, Lee's Second Corps pushed on through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, eventually reaching the Susquehanna River and putting Harrisburg, the state capital, at risk. Meanwhile the Army of the Potomac had already reached Frederick, Maryland, in pursuit, arriving there before Lee even knew his adversary had crossed the river. Reacting quickly, Lee drew his scattered forces together near

Opposing forces

On June first, Lee's army began its push and soon made steady progress through Maryland, while Union troops shadowed the movement along parallel routes to the north. The task of locating enemy positions fell to Lee's cavalry commander, General Jeb Stuart, but Stuart proved unequal to the assignment. Rather than gathering intelligence, he occupied himself raiding supply trains, and he remained separated from the main army until fighting had already commenced. In taking the finest cavalry units with him, Stuart left the army with only two mediocre, poorly equipped, and weakly commanded brigades unsuited to reconnaissance work in unfamiliar and hostile territory.

Stuart's route took the bulk of the mounted forces on a sweep along the coast, moving counter-clockwise behind Union lines, which severed his connection to Lee for an entire week and left Lee blind to the federal army's whereabouts. Ironically, Stuart resolved his own uncertainty about Lee's location by consulting a Philadelphia newspaper, which had correctly printed the information. That intelligence was already a day stale, and because his column was burdened by a captured wagon train, Stuart did not reach Gettysburg until the second of July. This was not an isolated incident: Confederate commanders regularly benefited from Union troop movements that appeared, unredacted, in the press. Hooker attempted to impose censorship, yet journalists and their editors found ways around his efforts, allowing accurate figures on Union strength to reach Southern hands with some regularity.

Meanwhile, the advancing Confederate columns posed a danger to Harrisburg, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia alike. Militia companies scrambled together in response, but such hastily assembled units amounted to little against a seasoned force of that size. Once word of the approaching Union army finally reached Lee, he directed his dispersed troops to converge at Gettysburg, a heavily wooded crossroads town. The two armies arrived in fragments across three days, July 1 through July 3, with Confederate units entering from the north and northwest and Union troops approaching from the south and east. By the first day of July, Meade's position lay to the south of Lee, blocking any path of withdrawal and compelling him into battle.

Union forces

Commanding the Army of the Potomac, Joseph Hooker favored a push toward Richmond, but Lincoln overruled him, insisting that the proper objective was Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's foremost fighting force. A dispute followed when Hooker insisted on controlling the garrison at Harper's Ferry, threatening to quit if refused. Lincoln let him go, installing George Meade in his place on June 28, a mere three days before fighting erupted. Unlike his predecessor, Meade wasted no time pursuing the rebels northward.

Although Meade moved cautiously, his position had progressed farther than Lee realized. Lee, misjudging his opponent, assumed Meade would prove as predictable and sluggish as Hooker had been. Meade himself had hoped to make his stand farther south, yet once the fighting broke out at Gettysburg, he rushed every corps he had toward the town.

Benefiting from shorter internal supply and communication lines, Meade stayed close on Lee's heels and severed the road back into Virginia. With retreat blocked, Lee had no choice but to fight, though first he needed to gather his scattered divisions at the crossroads town before Meade could strike them piece by piece. Lee's forces numbered 60,000 infantry and 10,200 cavalry, though Meade's staff mistakenly believed the Confederate ranks held 140,000 men. Ironically, it was now Lee who fell victim to bad intelligence, swallowing reports that doubled Meade's true strength of 86,000.

Even with the main rebel army deep in Pennsylvania, Lincoln had little extra manpower to send Meade's way. Most of the Union's 700,000 soldiers were occupied elsewhere: holding conquered Southern ground, laying siege to Vicksburg under Grant, besieging Port Hudson under Nathaniel P. Banks, or maneuvering against Braxton Bragg in Middle Tennessee under William S. Rosecrans. Facing this shortage, the President issued an urgent call for 100,000 militiamen from civilian life, but these recruits proved undisciplined, unequipped, and badly led, amounting to more of a liability than an asset. Once combat commenced, they scattered and fled.

Campaign timeline

The Gettysburg Campaign unfolded through a series of engagements occurring one after another; these clashes are best understood by grouping them into divisions of the campaign that follow a logical order, though some of these phases overlapped in time.

Lee's advance to Gettysburg

Beginning on June 3, 1863, the Confederate army under Lee started pulling away from Fredericksburg, heading northwest, while A.P. Hill's Corps remained behind in the town's defensive works. Hill's men had three jobs: shield the withdrawing army, guard Richmond against any Federal push over the Rappahannock, and chase the enemy if the opportunity looked promising. General Daniel Butterfield, serving as Hooker's chief of staff, started getting word by the next morning that at least part of the Southern force was on the move. Hooker responded on June 5 by scrapping all leaves and furloughs across his army and directing every unit to stand ready for marching orders. At that point Longstreet's and Ewell's corps remained encamped near Culpeper. As additional intelligence suggested Lee had shifted a substantial portion of his forces, Hooker directed Sedgwick to probe across the Rappahannock in strength.

Fighting broke out just after five in the afternoon when soldiers from Vermont and New Jersey crossed the water in boats, backed by a heavy artillery barrage, and swept aside the Confederates holding the far bank. Lee briefly held Ewell's Corps in place as a safeguard, but once it became clear Hooker had no intention of forcing a major engagement along the Fredericksburg line, he released Ewell to keep moving. That same day, General Buford noted he had solid word that essentially the entire mounted force of the Confederacy had gathered in Culpeper County. Two days later, on June 7, George H. Sharpe, who ran the Bureau of Military Information, mistakenly informed Hooker that Stuart was assembling for a major cavalry strike while Lee's foot soldiers pulled back toward Richmond. Acting on this faulty intelligence, Hooker resolved to strike first against the Confederate horsemen gathered in Culpeper, tasking Alfred Pleasonton, who led the Cavalry Corps, with carrying out the attack.

Lee arrived in Culpeper on June 7 to link up with the vanguard of his army and directed Albert G. Jenkins to push his cavalry northward through the Shenandoah Valley. He also sent word to John D. Imboden, instructing him to draw Federal attention in Hampshire County, hamper their supply lines and communications, and round up cattle for the army's use. Seeking further reinforcement for these operations, Lee appealed to General Samuel Jones for whatever troops he might spare. A day later he addressed a letter to Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon, urging him to divert troops stationed in North Carolina toward either his own command or Confederate forces operating in the west. On June 9, Lee instructed Stuart to push across the Rappahannock and strike at Union outposts, using his cavalry to shield the main army's northward march from Federal eyes. Sensing that a major clash was coming, Stuart positioned his troopers in camp near Brandy Station.

Aftermath

This engagement marked the last time Lee would launch a major offensive push in the war. From that point forward, the Army of Northern Virginia found itself reacting to Union moves rather than dictating the pace of the fighting. Lee's losses exceeded 27,000, a toll the Confederacy could scarcely afford. Some of the campaign's aims were realized: Union plans for a summer push through Virginia had been thrown off course, giving the state's residents and economy a brief reprieve, and Lee's soldiers had managed to feed themselves off the rich farmland of Maryland and Pennsylvania, hauling away enormous stores of food and supplies that would sustain the Confederate war effort going forward. Yet the notion that Lee could not be beaten no longer held up, and despite his push northward, no Union troops were pulled away from the Vicksburg operation in response. Vicksburg fell on July 4, the very day Lee began pulling his army back. On the Union side, losses from the campaign numbered around 30,100.

Meade drew heavy criticism for letting Lee's army slip away, echoing the backlash McClellan had faced following Antietam. Pushed by Lincoln to act, he mounted two more efforts that fall, at Bristoe and Mine Run, hoping to bring Lee to a decisive defeat. Neither succeeded. He also endured a humbling experience before the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, where political opponents grilled him over his decisions at Gettysburg and his inability to catch Lee during the withdrawal to the Potomac. Even so, Meade held onto command of the Army of the Potomac through the remainder of the conflict, though his real authority over strategy faded once Grant became general-in-chief and began overseeing him personally from headquarters within Meade's own army.

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered remarks at the dedication of the national cemetery established on the Gettysburg battlefield. In what became known as the Gettysburg Address, he reframed the meaning of the war itself, calling for a "new birth of freedom" and, in doing so, implicitly made ending slavery part of the nation's purpose.