The Battle of Gettysburg

Troops from the just-concluded Battle of Gettysburg were called in to quell the violence. Gettysburg was one of several key battles in 1863 that favored the Union. The Confederacy suffered a grievous loss at Chancellorsville, Virginia, when General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was killed by friendly fire. In July General Grant's troops seized Vicksburg, gaining control of the Mississippi Valley. Almost simultaneously, General George Meade's Union troops repelled Lee's deepest incursion into Union territory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Wills, 84).

The Battle of Gettysburg was a military confrontation occurred between 1 and July 3, 1863 in the town of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania, USA), between the Union troops of General George Gordon Meade and the southern secessionists led by General Robert E . Lee. Southern General Lee, after his victory in the battles of Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, in 1863 launched an offensive on the Northern Territory. Lee crossed the Potomac in early June and concentrated his army at Hagerstown (Maryland), ready to take the city of Harrisburg (Pennsylvania). With the aim of encircling Harrisburg on several fronts and force his surrender, he divided his army into three corps, commanded by Generals Longstreet, Ewell and Hill. However, given the news that the Union army, after recovering from their losses and take his command, General Meade, was near, Lee ordered his army reunification and backtracked to contain the advance of the Unionists (Sears, 34).

On the night of June 30th the two armies met in the hills very close to the town of Gettysburg, where the next day the battle begin. At dawn on July 1 the two armies were still scattered and their wings were at a distance of 40 miles. While Gen. John F. Reynolds, with three bodies of the Union Army, went to Gettysburg from the west, southern troops of Hill and more ago, Longstreet, approached the village to the east. It was a wing of the Union Army, First Cavalry Division of General John Bufford, which first launched against the troops of Hill. Given this fact, Reynolds joined Bufford and Longstreet to Hill. Around nine o'clock the battle took place in the vicinity of a Lutheran seminary called Seminary Ridge, being the most outstanding news the general's death, after being hit by a bullet Confederate. About one o'clock in the afternoon the battle front, which extended to the banks of Rock Creek, appeared unfavorable to Unionists. They had to go back to Gettysburg to experience both flanks casualties in killed, wounded and prisoners of war, reaching an estimated total of 10,000 men (Boritt, 81).

This unfavorable situation for unionists was missed by the Confederates who, ignorant of the extent of her condition, lost the opportunity to annihilate the first. This allowed a reorganization of the Unionists under the orders of General Meade, General Reynolds late substitute in the conduct of the army. Meade arrived at midnight at Gettysburg, decided to make this country the place of a new military conflict. After ordering all the troops surrounding the village to concentrate on it, ...