ON THIS DAY

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July 1, 1863

Battle of Gettysburg begins.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a three-day battle in the American Civil War, which was fought between the Union and Confederate armies between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The battle, won by the Union, is widely considered the Civil War's turning point, leading to an ultimate victory of the Union and the preservation of the nation. T

The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of both the Civil War and of any battle in American military history, claiming over 50,000 combined casualties.

Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee's invasion of the North and forcing his retreat.

BTW:

On November 19, Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, where he spoke at a ceremony dedicating Gettysburg National Cemetery, which honored the fallen Union soldiers and redefined the purpose of the Civil War in his famed Gettysburg Address, a 271-word address that has endured as one of the most famous speeches in American history.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for 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 larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor 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 which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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 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, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln

BTW:

In 1760, Irishman Samuel Gettys settled at the Shippensburg-Baltimore and Philadelphia-Pittsburgh crossroads, in what was then western York County, and established a tavern frequented by soldiers and traders. In 1786, his son James purchased 116 acres of his land, divided it up into 220 lots and sold them, and is thus considered the founder of Gettysburg.

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