The Battle of Gettysburg: The Civil War Turning Point

Three days. 165,000 men. 51,000 casualties. The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 was the bloodiest engagement ever fought on American soil — and the moment the war turned.

The Road to Gettysburg

By the summer of 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had won a string of victories that made the Confederate cause seem viable. After the stunning triumph at Chancellorsville in May, Lee convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis to authorize a second invasion of the North. The strategic logic was sound: a major victory on Union soil might force a negotiated peace, win European recognition, and relieve pressure on the Confederate heartland.

Lee's army crossed into Pennsylvania in late June, moving north through a countryside its men had never seen. Union cavalry commander John Buford spotted the Confederate advance and chose ground near the small college town of Gettysburg — a road hub where ten roads converged — to make a stand.

Day One: July 1, 1863

The battle began almost by accident. Confederate infantry moving toward Gettysburg to find shoes clashed with Buford's dismounted cavalry on the morning of July 1. The fighting expanded rapidly as both sides fed in reinforcements. By afternoon, Confederate forces had driven the Union's First and Eleventh Corps back through the town and onto Cemetery Hill south of Gettysburg. The Union line held — barely — and the high ground that would define the battle's outcome was in Union hands.

Day Two: The Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, Devil's Den

On July 2, Lee ordered attacks on both Union flanks. On the left, Confederate forces under James Longstreet drove through the Peach Orchard and into the Wheatfield in brutal fighting. On the far left, Confederate troops moved to seize Little Round Top — the rocky hill anchoring the Union line — and nearly succeeded. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Infantry, out of ammunition, ordered a bayonet charge that threw back the Confederate advance and saved the Union position. It was one of the most celebrated individual actions of the war.

Day Three: Pickett's Charge

On July 3, Lee made the fateful decision to strike the Union center. After a two-hour artillery bombardment intended to soften the Union line, approximately 12,500 Confederate soldiers stepped out of the tree line on Seminary Ridge and advanced nearly a mile across open fields toward Cemetery Ridge. The Union line held. Fewer than half the men who started that charge returned. It was the high-water mark of the Confederacy — the moment the tide turned permanently.

The Aftermath and Lincoln's Address

Gettysburg cost the Union approximately 23,000 casualties and the Confederacy approximately 28,000 — together, more than all American casualties in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined. Lee retreated to Virginia. He would never launch another major offensive into the North. Four months later, Abraham Lincoln came to Gettysburg for the dedication of the soldiers' cemetery and delivered a 272-word address that redefined what the war was about: not merely the preservation of a union, but the vindication of the idea that all men are created equal.

Our Civil War collection includes canvas prints honoring the battles and the men who fought them.

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