Gettysburg United States

Legendary

A 3-day battle that would become the turning point for the Union’s victory in the Civil War.

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

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Neither army meant to fight here. Gettysburg was a small Pennsylvania farm town where ten roads happened to meet, and both armies were using those roads.

On July 1, 1863, they bumped into each other. Once the shooting started, neither side could back away, and the biggest battle of the American Civil War began by accident.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had marched his army north, hoping a big win on Northern soil would end the war. Union General George Meade had taken command of his army just three days earlier.

The first day went badly for the Union. Confederate troops pushed them back through the town.

But the retreating Union soldiers stopped on a line of hills just south of Gettysburg. Holding the high ground turned out to decide everything.

On July 2, Lee attacked both ends of the Union line. Fighting raged at places that are still famous by name: Devil's Den, the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, Culp's Hill, and Little Round Top.

At Little Round Top, a regiment from Maine ran out of ammunition. Their commander, Joshua Chamberlain, ordered a bayonet charge straight down the hill, and it worked.

On July 3, Lee tried the middle instead. Around 12,000 Confederate soldiers marched across three-quarters of a mile of open farmland toward the Union center.

It's remembered as Pickett's Charge. Cannons and rifles cut through the advancing lines, and about half the men who started never made it back.

A small group reached the top of the ridge before being pushed back. That spot is now called the high-water mark of the Confederacy.

Lee retreated to Virginia the next day. Between 46,000 and 51,000 soldiers on both sides were killed, wounded, captured, or missing, making it the costliest battle ever fought in the United States.

Months later, on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln came to dedicate a cemetery for the dead. He spoke for about two minutes, using only 272 words, and it became the most famous speech in American history.

Drive or bike the auto tour route, which passes more than 1,300 monuments across the battlefield. Climb Little Round Top for a view over the whole valley where the fighting happened. Walk the open field of Pickett's Charge yourself, from the tree line to the stone wall, and see how far it really is.