Title
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
10-2019
Department 1
Civil War Era Studies
Department 2
History
Abstract
The Battle of Gettysburg has inspired a more voluminous literature than any single event in American military history for at least three major reasons. First, after three days of fighting on July 1–3, 1863, General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and Major General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac lost more than 51,000 dead, wounded, captured, and missing, making Gettysburg the costliest military engagement in North American history. Second, President Abraham Lincoln endowed Gettysburg with special distinction when he visited in November 1863 to dedicate the soldiers’ cemetery and delivered his immortal Gettysburg Address. Finally, Gettysburg gave the Union its first significant victory over General Lee; the subsequent euphoria helped to fix in popular memory – if not in objective history – an enduring image of Gettysburg as the turning point of the Civil War.
Copyright Note
This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
DOI
10.1017/9781316563168.012
ISBN/ISSN
9781316563168
Version
Version of Record
Recommended Citation
Reardon, Carol."The Gettysburg Campaign." In The Cambridge History of the American Civil War Vol 1, edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, 223-245. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Required Publisher's Statement
The full work is available on Cambridge University Press' website.