Pennsylvania

"On June 3, 1863, a month after his dramatic victory at Chancellorsville, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee began marching his army of Northern Virginia westward from its camps around Fredericksburg, Virginia. After passing through the gap, of the Blue Ridge the Southerners trudged northward into Maryland and Pennsylvania. They were followed by the Union Army of the Potomac under the Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Lee, whose commander Maj. Gen. J.E.B Stuart was absent on a raid around the Federal forces, had no way of knowing his adversary's whereabouts.

The two armies met by chance at Gettysburg on June 30. The main battle opened on July 1 with Confederates attacking Union troops on McPherson Ridge west of town. Though outnumbered, the Federal forces held their position until afternoon, when they were finally overpowered and driven back to Cemetery Hill south of town. During the night the main body of the Union army, now commanded by Mag. Gen. George G. Meade, arrived and took up positions.

On July 2, the boundaries were drawn up in two sweeping arcs. The main portions of both armies were nearly one mile apart on parallel ridges; Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, Confederate forces on Seminary Ridge to the wet. Lee ordered an attack against both union flanks. Lt. Gen. James Lonstreet's thrust on the Federal left turned the base of the Little Round Top into a shambles, left the Wheatfield strewn with dead and wounded, and overran the Peach Orchard. Farther north, Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's evening attack on the Federal right at East Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, though momentarily successful, could not be exploited to Confederate advantage.

On July3, Lee's artillery opened a two-hour bombardment of the Federal lines on Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill. Thus, for a time engaged the massed guns of both sides in a thundering duel for supremacy, but did little to soften up the Union defensive position. Then some 12,000 confederates advanced across open fields toward the Federal center in an attack known as Pickett's Charge. The attack failed and cost Lee over 5,000 solders in one hour. The battle of Gettysburg was over.

When the armies marched away from Gettysburg, they left behind a community in shambles and over 51,000 solders dead, wounded, and missing. Those wounded and dying were crowded into nearly every building. Most of the dead lay in hastily dug and inadequate graves; some had not been buried at all.

This situation so distressed Pennsylvania's governor, Andrew Curtin, that he commissioned a local attorney, David Wills, to purchase land for a proper burial ground for Union dead. Within four months of battle, re-interment began on 17 acres that became Gettysburg National Cemetery.

The cemetery was dedicated on November 19, 1863. The principal speaker, Edward Everett, delivered a well-received two-hour oration rich in historical detail and classical allusion. He was followed by President Abraham Lincoln, who had been asked to make "a few appropriate remarks.""2