Gettysburg

a town in southern Pennsylvania, thirty-six miles southwest of Harrisburg. It is noted as the scene of the battle of Gettysburg, fought in this vicinity July 1-3, 1863. General Lee decided to invade the North. He crossed the Potomac and met the Federal forces under General Meade here. The Federal army assumed the defensive, taking a strong position in the form of a semicircle, with Gettysburg as its center. The strongest positions held were Cemetery Hill and Round Top. The principal position of the opposing Confederates was Seminary Ridge. The battles of the first and the second day were severe, but not decisive. On the third day Lee determined to make a supreme effort. After shelling the Federal position from one until half-past two, he ordered an advance against Cemetery Hill. Pickett's brigade executed one of the greatest charges known in military history, but the Federals poured in shot and canister, and, when his troops came near enough, delivered a withering musketry fire before which no soldier could stand. Pickett retired down the slope in disorder. The battle of Gettysburg was lost and won. Lee retired to the southern side of the Potomac.

The battle of Gettysburg is termed the decisive battle of the war. Certainly the Confederates never rallied from this defeat. There were about 80,000 Federal troops in action. The Federal loss was 23,186. General Lee had about 70,000 troops and lost 31,621 men. Lee's principal generals in the battle of Gettysburg were Longstreet, Ewell, Hill, Stuart, and Pickett. Meade was supported by Sickles, Reynolds, Sedgwick, Kilpatrick, and Hancock. It was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. More lives were lost than in the battle of Waterloo. The site of the battle is now occupied as a national cemetery. The various states have erected memorials to their soldiers who fell here.

Every patriot should read and reread the Gettysburg address delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863:

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any other nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, but in a large sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow this ground--the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.