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Sunday, July 06, 2003

June 24-28
The Armies Approach

Filled with confidence after a stunning triumph at Chancellorsville, Va., in May 1863, commanding Gen. Robert E. Lee leads the Confederacy's Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania. His plan: to inflict a decisive defeat on the federal army on its own territory and prompt the end of two years of bloody war. His troops move into Chambersburg, Carlisle and York and threaten the U.S. railyard in Harrisburg, setting off widespread panic in Central Pennsylvania.

Determined to stop Lee is Gen. George Gordon Meade, newly appointed commander of the U.S. Army of the Potomac. Meade is a cautious but competent leader. He, too, heads north from Maryland to confront Lee, prompting the Confederate general to bring his scattered force back together outside Gettysburg, a tidy Adams County town of about 2,500, where a dozen roads converge.

June 30
The Eve of Battle

Ragged, barefoot infantrymen from Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill's Corps hear rumors of a supply of shoes in Gettysburg and go after them. They pull back west of town after they encounter Federal cavalry that has been sent ahead to scout the location and size of the Confederate Army. Federal cavalry under Gen. John Buford dismount and prepare for a fight.

July 1
The First Day

In the morning, Union reinforcements arrive and hold their ground in fighting west of Gettysburg. Union Gen. John Reynolds is killed and is succeeded by Brig Gen. Abner Doubleday, who will gain more lasting fame as the purported inventor of baseball.

As more and more troops pour into the area around noon, Confederate soldiers gain the upper hand, driving the Union forces back through Gettysburg until they finally rally a half-mile south of town and begin to set up a defensive line between Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, a half-mile to the east.

Lee wants to take those hills for himself before the rest of the Union Army arrives. He asks Gen. Richard "Baldy" Ewell to attack the hills "if practicable," but Ewell, whose troops are flagging after a hot day of marching and fighting, opts against a night attack against a growing force. That decision, viewed by critics as a missed opportunity to drive off the enemy and win the battle, dogs him for the rest of his life.

July 2
The Second Day

At dawn, Lee outlines a plan to smash the Union Army in a pincer attack. Ewell's men will go after the Union right on Culp's Hill. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's 1st Corps, which arrived the night before, will hit the Union's left flank near two hills known as Big and Little Round Tops.

As Longstreet advances slowly, Union Gen. Daniel Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician and novice soldier, decides to move his men forward onto ground facing a peach orchard along the Emmitsburg Road. An infuriated Meade discovers that Sickles, by disobeying orders, has left Little Round Top uncovered.

Longstreet's 20,000 men surge out of the woods in an uncoordinated attack. Sickles is wounded, losing a leg that he later sends to a museum in Washington, D.C. Brutal fighting surges back and forth through the peach orchard, a wheat field to the east and a boulder-studded meadow known as the Devil's Den, with some units suffering casualties of 50 percent or more. Lee's men finally hold those areas. Above them, a Union brigade arrives on Little Round Top just in time to push back five charges by Alabama troops.

July 3
The Third Day

In the early afternoon, Lee proposes a new plan: Attack the center of the Union line, using Longstreet's sole fresh division, led by Gen. George Pickett, and two other divisions that have rested since the first day's fighting. Longstreet argues against the attack over a mile of open ground, insisting that "no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position." Lee is firm.

For two hours, 150 Confederate cannons pound the Union Army. Union gunners fire back at first, then fall quiet to suggest they've been put out of commission.

Around 3 p.m., Pickett, the flamboyant, ringlet-haired general who's seen little action but yearns for glory, asks Longstreet for permission to advance. Overcome by dread, Longstreet only nods.

Line by line, silent Confederates move into the fields in a majestic mile-wide front, maintaining formation even after Union artillery rakes their lines. They begin to fall, but those still walking close up the holes. Union riflemen behind a stone wall unleash a withering fire on the Confederate attackers as they move forward, screaming the Rebel yell.

Briefly, Confederate troops breach the Union line, but after Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead is mortally wounded, the attack falters, and they begin to retreat. Fewer than half of the 15,000 who started Pickett's Charge an hour earlier come back.

Lee rides out among the survivors, telling them the defeat was his fault. Meade expects another attack and does not pursue Lee's withdrawing force. The two battered armies collapse for the night.

July 4-14
The Retreat

The battle has been the bloodiest three days of the war, with 51,000 dead, wounded or missing -- 28,000 Confederates and 23,000 Union soldiers. Heavy rains fall July 4, dissuading Meade from finishing off Lee's army. Early that morning, Lee sends a 17-mile long wagon train, bearing more than 10,000 wounded men, south toward Virginia. Meade does not follow until July 5.

Continued rains swamp the roads, slowing both armies and swelling the Potomac River until it cannot be forded safely. With Union infantry approaching, the Confederates dig in for a fight and cobble together a bridge that allows them to slip across the river on the night of July 13. Meade's men scout the area the next morning, but Lee's army is gone.

The war will go on for nearly two more years.

-- Cindi Lash