Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the site of the Union victory in the decisive battle of the American Civil War, July 1-3, 1863.  Gettysburg was the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s second invasion of the North with his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.  Lee attacked Union positions at Culp’s Hill, Cemetery Hill, Cemetery Ridge, and Little Round Top, among others, at Gettysburg and failed to break the defensive “fishhook” line along the high ground held by Union General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac.  Pickett’s Charge on July 3 at Gettysburg is sometimes referred to as the “high water mark” of the Confederacy.

The Gettysburg cyclorama shows a badly wounded Alonzo Cushing commanding one of his guns in The Angle.

Battle of Gettysburg

Union Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing

By William E. Welsh

One of the smoothbore cannons in Captain Merritt B. Miller’s Third Company of the Washington Artillery deployed west of Emmitsburg Road just south of the town of Gettysburg fired a single round at 1:07 p.m. Read more

Battle of Gettysburg

The Creation of the U.S. Sanitary Commission

By Lawrence Weber

In the spring of 1861, a group of influential northern men and women, led by Unitarian minister Henry Whitney Bellows and social reformer Dorothea Dix, met in New York City to discuss the formation of a sanitary commission, modeled after the British Sanitary Commission established during the Crimean War, to provide relief to sick and wounded soldiers in the Union Army. Read more

battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg

Rebel Misfire at Gettysburg

By Robert L. Durham

The men of Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson’s North Carolina brigade, four regiments strong, marched forward as if on parade, their rifles at the right shoulder, as they went into battle on the first day at Gettysburg. Read more

Looking back at the Battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg

The American Civil War: Forging a National Identity

by Mike Haskew

The American Civil War was the tragic culmination of divergent perspectives on the proper conduct of the government of the United States and socio-economic issues that had been frequently at the forefront of American political life for decades. Read more