The Turning Point: Gettysburg
"That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
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| Lone cannons at Gettysburg recall the bloodiest of Civil War battles. |
For many people Gettysburg is the Civil War. On the fields outside this small Pennsylvania town in July 1863, the armies of North and South fought the largest battle of the war, one that arguably decided the conflict. The battle pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, flush from a brilliant victory at Chancellorsville, against George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac. Meade, who had been in command of the army for only four days, had 83,000 men; Lee had 75,000. For three bloody days the fortunes of the two armies ebbed and flowed across the battlefield. When it was over, Meade's army had suffered 23,000 casualties; Lee's 28,000. But Meade's army held the field, and Lee's was in retreat. The Confederacy had reached its high-water mark, and the tide had turned. That the day after the battle was the Fourth of July is one more of those vivid ironies that keep the Civil War alive in so many imaginations.
Although surrounded by commercialization (which sometimes encroaches uncomfortably close to the park boundaries), the battlefield remains remarkably evocative, with place names that echo from the history books: Little Round Top, Cemetery Ridge, the Peach Orchard, the Wheat Field. Its 6,000 acres are dotted with more than 1,600 monuments to the people and units who participated in the battle. Taken together they create a vast mosaic of war made up of individual heroics and tragedies. Perhaps nothing makes the battle more tangible than visiting the launching point of Lee's last great gamble—when he sent the 12,000 troops of the so-called Pickett's Charge against the Union center—then traveling to the other side of the battlefield to see where the charge finally faltered and fell back at the "high-water mark."
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| For three bloody days the fortunes of the two armies ebbed and flowed across the battlefield. | |
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Four months later, President Lincoln came to Gettysburg to help dedicate the National Cemetery there. Compared to the opening two-hour oration by Edward Everett, Lincoln's two-minute Gettysburg Address was a mere sound bite. "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here," Lincoln said, mistakenly, in his eloquent plea "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Gettysburg National Military Park is in south-central Pennsylvania, about 40 miles south of Harrisburg off US 15. Park grounds and roads are open 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily; the visitor center from 8:00 to 5:00 (until 6:00 in the summer, except for Friday and Saturday, when it closes at 7:00). The Cyclorama Center is open 9:00-5:00 except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. For a fee, visitors can hire licensed guides or rent audio tapes from the visitors center. You can find the park's web page at www.nps.gov/gett/index.htm. For information about the Gettysburg area, contact the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau at (717) 334-6274 or on the internet at www.gettysburg.com.
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