The Battle of Gettysburg

Fought during the first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most critical battles of the Civil War. The battle was the centerpiece of the Gettysburg Campaign, which began in the middle of June 1863, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched his army, the Army of Northern Virginia, out of central Virginia and north toward the Potomac River with the objective of invading Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lee had several reasons for wanting to invade the Union. His army was in need of supplies and raw materials that could not be easily obtained in the Confederacy. Lee's men had suffered greatly for want of food during the winter and spring of 1863 and he hoped that food supplies could be obtained from northern farms and warehouses, giving farmers in Virginia a chance to plant and nurture their crops without armies tramping over them. General Lee also hoped to obtain a victory on northern soil to take attention away from a dismal situation at Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, where a Union army under General Ulysses S. Grant had surrounded the city and lay siege to it. It was also thought that a victory over the Union army on northern soil may cause Great Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, and provide the growing peace movement in the North with enough reasons to press the Lincoln administration to sue for peace. All of these things could possibly end the Civil War.General Lee's hungry Confederates crossed the Potomac River, the border between Virginia and Maryland, and marched into Pennsylvania. There they found food, supplies, and many frightened civilians. The Union army, called the Army of the Potomac, cautiously followed Lee, shielding the capitol of Washington, DC from the Confederate forces and stopped at Frederick, Maryland, while the army commander, General Joe Hooker, argued with his commanders in Washington for more troops.

On June 29, the Union army set out from their camps with a new commander, General George Gordon Meade, to find Lee and put a stop to his invasion. By this time, Confederate forces were spread throughout southern Pennsylvania. On June 30, a group of Confederates were marching eastward from Cashtown, Pennsylvania, when they spied Union cavalrymen just ahead near the town of Gettysburg. Under orders not to start an battle, the southerners retreated to Cashtown where they told their commander, General A.P. Hill, what they had seen. General Hill decided to send a larger part of his command toward Gettysburg the next morning to find out who those blue-clad troopers really were. He did not know they were Union cavalry from the Army of the Potomac, commanded by General John Buford.

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