Battle of Gettysburg
Fought over three days, 1–3 July 1863, around the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg, this was the largest battle of the American Civil War and its turning point in the East. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, invading the North to win a decisive victory that might force recognition or a negotiated peace, collided with George Meade's Army of the Potomac on strong defensive ground. After failing to break the Union flanks on the second day, Lee gambled on a frontal assault against the centre on 3 July — 'Pickett's Charge' — which was shattered by Union fire across open ground. The combined armies suffered roughly 50,000 casualties, the bloodiest toll of the war. Lee withdrew to Virginia and never again mounted a strategic offensive. Coming the day before the fall of Vicksburg in the West, Gettysburg marked the point after which the Confederacy could realistically hope only to outlast Northern will, not to win. Lincoln's brief address dedicating the battlefield cemetery that November recast the war as a test of whether government 'of the people' could endure.
- Year: 1863 CE
- Category: Military
