In considering the great theatre of the Civil War, attention is
naturally directed to the chief contest of all, and the turning-point
of the rebellion, the battle of Gettysburg, fought at the beginning of
July, 1863. After the victory at Chancellorsville in May the
Confederates determined to carry the war northward into the enemy's
country. Gettysburg is seven miles north of the southern boundary of
Pennsylvania, and over forty miles from the Potomac River. To the
westward is the long curving range of the South Mountain, and beyond
this the great Appalachian Valley, a continuation of the Shenandoah
Valley, crossing Central Pennsylvania in a curve, and here called the
Cumberland Valley. In the latter are two prominent towns, Chambersburg
in Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown in Maryland, on the Potomac. General
Lee, in preparation for the march northward, gathered nearly ninety
thousand men at Culpepper in Virginia, including Stuart's cavalry
force of ten thousand. General Hooker's Union army, which had
withdrawn across the Rappahannock after Chancellorsville, was then
encamped opposite Fredericksburg, and one hundred and fifty miles
south of Gettysburg. Lee started northward across the Potomac, but
Hooker did not discover it for some days, and then rapidly followed.
The Confederates crossed between June 22d and 25th, and concentrated
at Hagerstown, in the Cumberland Valley, up which they made a rapid
march, overrunning the entire valley to the Susquehanna River, and
appearing opposite Harrisburg and Columbia. Hooker, being late in
movement, crossed the Potomac lower down than Lee, on June 28th, thus
making a northern race, up the curving valleys, with Lee in advance,
but on the longer route of the outer circle. There was a garrison of
ten thousand men at Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, and Hooker asked
that they be added to his army; but the War Department declined, and
Hooker immediately resigned, being succeeded by General George G.
Meade, who thus on the eve of the battle became the Union commander.
There are two parallel ridges bordering the plain on which Gettysburg
stands. The long Seminary Ridge, stretching from north to south about
a mile west of the town, gets its name from the Lutheran Theological
Seminary standing upon it; and the Cemetery Ridge to the south of the
town, which partly stretches up its slopes, has on its northern
flat-topped hill the village cemetery, wherein the principal grave
then was that of James Gettys, after whom the place was named. There
is an outlying eminence called Culp's Hill farther to the east,
making, with the Cemetery Ridge, a formation bent around much like a
fish-hook, with the graveyard at the bend and Culp's Hill at the barb,
while far down at the southern end of the long straight shank, as the
ridge extends for two miles away, with an intervening rocky gorge
called the Devil's Den, there are two peaks, formed of tree-covered
crags, known as the Little Round Top and the Big Round Top. These long
parallel ridges, with the intervale and the country immediately around
them, are the battlefield, which the topographical configuration well
displays. It covers about twenty-five square miles, and lies mainly
southwest of the town.
It was on June 28th that General Meade unexpectedly assumed command of
the Union army, and he was then near the Potomac. General Ewell with
the Confederate advance guard had gone up the Cumberland Valley as far
as Carlisle, and his troopers were threatening Harrisburg. Nobody had
opposed them, and the Confederate main body, which had got much ahead
of Hooker, was at Chambersburg. Lee being far from his base, and
hearing of the Union pursuit, then determined to face about and
cripple his pursuers, fixing upon Gettysburg as the point of
concentration. He ordered Ewell to march south from Carlisle, and the
other commanders east from Chambersburg through the mountain passes.
The Union cavalry advance under General Buford reached Gettysburg on
June 30th, ahead of the Confederates, and Meade's army was then
stretched over the ground for more than forty miles back to the
Potomac, all coming forward by forced marches. As soon as Meade became
aware of Lee's changed tactics he concluded that this extended
formation was too risky, and decided to concentrate in a strong
position upon the Pipe Creek hills in Maryland, about fifteen miles
south of Gettysburg, and issued the necessary orders. Thus the battle
opened, with each army executing a movement for concentration.