LoC Blog: The Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863. Emboldened by his victory at Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had decided to invade the North. In September of the previous year, he had ventured north into Maryland where, at Antietam, the bloodiest day of the war occurred. Although the battle was a draw, Lee’s invasion was turned back, but the next summer he made another foray northward.

…he can still remember the peaches on the trees across the field, and the corn being knee high, and how hot it was the day they fought.

“William Munroe Graves.” Miss Effie Cowan, interviewer; Mart, Texas, ca. 1936-1939. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

Portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Officer of the Confederate Army. Julian Vannerson, photographer, March, 1864. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division

Portrait of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, Officer of the Federal Army. Brady National Photographic Art Gallery, between 1860 and 1865. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division

Portrait of Brig. Gen. John Buford (Maj. Gen. from July 1, 1863), Officer of the Federal Army. Brady National Photographic Art Gallery, between 1860 and 1863. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division

Portrait of Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet, Officer of the Confederate Army. Brady National Photographic Art Gallery, between 1860 and 1865. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division

On June 30, General John Buford of the Union’s Army of the Potomac and his cavalry had taken possession of Seminary Ridge west of Gettysburg. Union General George Reynolds arrived with the First Corps on July 1 to assist Buford. Reynolds opened the battle but was struck by a bullet and killed before noon. His death set the tone for the day. Both armies suffered devastating losses on the first day of the battle, but Union losses proved much greater. While the first day of the battle was counted as a Confederate victory, the tide turned on July 2 and the battle came to be viewed as the turning point of the Civil War.

So it ends, this lesser battle of the first day,
Starkly disputed and piecemeal won and lost
By corps-commanders who carried no magic plans
Stowed in their sleeves, but fought and held as they could.
It is past. The board is staked for the greater game
Which is to follow…

John Brown’s Body, by Stephen Vincent Benet. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1928), 294.

Gettysburg Camp, July 1-2-3, 1913. G.S. Carney, photographer, cJuly 1913. Panoramic Photographs. Prints & Photographs Division. This photo shows the fifty-year reunion of the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg.

William Munroe Graves recalls the stories his fellow veterans told at the seventy-five-year reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg:

Maj.- Gen. O.R. Gillette who was in Davis Brigade, Heaths Division, the Army of Northern Virginia… told of how… the Army of Northern Virginia rolled northward… to strike at Harrisburg and Philadelphia to find shoes for the rebel soldiers bare feet, and food to fill the knapsacks which were almost empty of parched corn rations. He remembered how Lee’s war-tired men came out of the valley of the Shenandoah to meet Meade’s army of the Potomac as it reached out along the roads that centered like the spokes of a wheel at Gettysburg, and how they met and fought and forgot they ever needed shoes…

“William Munroe Graves.” Miss Effie Cowan, interviewer; Mart, Texas, ca. 1936-1939. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

via https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-01#the-battle-of-gettysburg