The Federal army, under "Fightin'" Joe Hooker, plodded along shadowing Lee's army. Hooker demanded more men under threat of resignation. President Lincoln jumped at the opportunity to rid himself of Hooker and replaced him with General George Gordon Meade.

Meade was a "goggle-eyed old turtle" who had outstanding abilities as a leader, but was not a brilliant soldier. He was stubborn and outspoken, and this made him unpopular in the army. Meade wasted no time in drawing out his plans. He would concentrate his forces and wait for Lee to turn south to advance on Washington.

Lee's plans had been decided as well. He would turn south at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and drive through the scattered Union corps. The Confederates would then advance southward and lay siege to Washington. The plan was to move quickly before the Federal army could concentrate its forces.

Even the best-laid plans can go astray. On the morning of July 1, this was the case for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. A.P. Hill's advance division, under Henry Heth, had started into Gettysburg seeking shoes for his men. Heth realized he had made a mistake when Federal cavalry, under John Buford, opened fire on him.

The Federal cavalry routed two Rebel brigades before Heth could recover enough to call for his artillery. More of Hill's men joined the skirmish, which soon became a major battle. Neither side expected nor was prepared for this what was to come.

Buford received support from General Reynolds, who sent everything he had. From Seminary Ridge, near the town of Gettysburg, Reynolds saw a flood of gray uniforms pouring down three different roads toward the town. If those troops converged at Gettysburg, they would easily overwhelm the Federal forces there and could likely advance unchallenged to Washington. The war would be over. Reynolds sent urgent dispatches to Meade to inform him of the desperate situation.

Reynolds then rode into battle in attempt to hold off the entire Confederate army with a single corps. He was killed then and there by a sharpshooter's bullet.

A federal corps arrived at one end of the town just in time to hold off a Confederate charge. Confederate reinforcements then stormed in on the Federal right as it began to crumble. The Yankees fell back to Seminary Ridge, running through the town to the higher ground beyond. Bullets hissed and cannons roared as smoke, splinters, dust and blood flew through the path of the retreating Federals.

Meade was fourteen miles away, in Taneytown when he received Reynolds' message. He ordered his men to halt for nothing during their advance to Gettysburg. Two hours later, he received word that Reynolds was dead and Federal casualties were already in excess of twelve thousand. Meade ordered General Hancock's cavalry and light artillery ahead to the battle.

Hancock arrived at 4:00 p.m., just as the Yankees were falling back through town toward Cemetery Ridge. Hancock drew up his line there and prepared to fight. Lee immediately saw the importance of holding the high ground and ordered General Richard S. Ewell to take Cemetery Hill.

Ewell was one-legged and eccentric, and frequently suffered from mental paralysis. This day was one of those days. He did next to nothing. At 5:00 p.m., General Sickles arrived with two Federal corps. The Federal position was secured for the night.

Generals Lee and Longstreet disagreed on their next move. Lee, of course, won out. In the process, he underestimated General Meade - a rare mistake for the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Meade guessed that Lee would attack first thing in the morning and try to turn the Federal right flank, so he fortified Culp's Hill on his extreme right. However, he ignored the left, where there were two hills called Round Top and Little Round Top. Thus, each had underestimated the other, leading to a bloody episode in history.

In an attempt to entice the Confederates into attacking, Union General Dan Sickles advanced half a mile in front of cemetery Ridge - without Meade's knowledge. At this point, Longstreet struck the Federals who were "hung out to dry" in a peach orchard and a wheat field. The Rebel fire smothered Sickles as they took the peach orchard and the wheat field, spreading the Federal flanks in both directions. Sickles lost his leg in the fray.

General Hancock furiously herded troops into the Federal line to seal the gap. Meade also did his part, sorting out the artillery, which began firing triple loads into the charging Confederates. This action tore scarlet gaps in the gray tide. The Rebels drew back, giving the Yankees a short rest.

Longstreet, however, had another card up his sleeve. He ordered General Hood to take Little Round Top. At this same time Meade sent General Gouverneur Warren to see how things were holding up on the left flank. It was a stroke of luck that he did so.

As Warren hurried up Little Round Top to get a better view, he noticed that there was not a single Yankee on the hill. He also noticed that Hood's men were already starting up Little Round Top. Warren instantly realized that should the Confederates take the two Round Tops, they could easily defeat the Federals with artillery fire from these positions.

Warren seized two of General George Sykes' brigades and rushed them up Little Round Top. The Twentieth Maine, under Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain met the Rebels head on. The 140th Maine made a gallant charge and despite being outnumbered three-to-one by Hood's men, managed to save the hill and the Yankee left.

General McLaws' confederate Corps again hit the Federal Line, turning on Sykes' Fifth Corps. Longstreet rode into the battle to insure the victory, but at a crucial moment, Meade sent John Sedgwick's Sixth Corps into the battle. Sedgwick's men rolled into the Rebel line and sent them reeling. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Longstreet ordered his men to retire.

With this respite, Meade turned to his right, where Ewell was attacking Culp's Hill. Ewell had waited for word of Longstreet's attack to begin his own. By now it was late afternoon. A single Yankee brigade held off four separate assaults by Ewell's men. Then Jubal Early's Louisiana Tigers engaged the Federals in a bitter fight, but it was not enough.

Meade had Longstreet stabilized. He threw Hancock's troops against Early and broke the Rebel line. Ewell and Early pulled back slowly in the twilight of July 2, 1863.

J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry and George Pickett's infantry arrived that night. Lee was about to make a disastrous mistake. He assumed that he had worn down the Federal flanks and that reinforcements had come from the middle of the line. Assuming the Federal center had been weakened, Lee plotted to wear them down further with artillery and then send in fifteen thousand men to break through the heart of the Federal line.

Again, Longstreet disagreed, and again Lee won out. Longstreet left headquarters that night with a sense of deep depression. Meade had decided to neither attack nor retreat, but to await Lee's next move. As he was leaving the Federal council of war, General Hancock was stopped by Meade and warned that should Lee attack, it would be at Hancock's front - the center of the Federal line.

On the morning of July 3, an equally adept Yankee commander, George Armstrong Custer, was defeating J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry for the first time since the war's beginning. On the main line of battle, Lee opened fire on Cemetery Ridge with 160 cannons. The barrage continued through the morning into afternoon.

By 2:00 p.m., Virginians and Carolinians under Generals Kemper, Garnett and Armistead waited anxiously for their order from General Pickett to lead the assault on the Federal center. Longstreet was brooding, knowing that a mistake was about to be made.

When Pickett asked if he should advance, Longstreet could not give the order. He simply bowed his head. Pickett placed his hat on the tip of his sword and started forward. Pickett's Charge - fifteen thousand men in a magnificent display of military order, but they were doomed.

Lee had miscalculated and Meade had judged correctly. Hancock's guns opened up and channels of dead and wounded appeared in Pickett's advance. Shells, bullets, heads, arms and legs flew through the air as the gray tide was cut to shreds. A tornado of Yankee musketry and artillery ripped through Pickett's men.

Kemper fell, Garnett was down and Armistead was shot dead in his saddle. The Confederate charge succeeded in breaking the Yankee line at a point where a stone wall and a clump of trees met called "the Angle". The Federals counterattacked, but the Rebel charge was ripped from front to back and from side to side. There was no strength left to face the Federal counterattack.

The Confederate high tide was beginning to ebb. The stragglers slowly retreated and General Lee sadly admitted that the defeat was his entire fault. Lee was not at fault in this battle. No one had expected the battle to take place when and where it did. An accidental meeting had resulted in the greatest land battle in the recorded history of the American continents.

Three days of battle had accounted for over fifty thousand casualties. To put this into perspective, all the years of the Vietnam conflict resulted in less than sixty thousand casualties. These more than fifty thousand casualties at Gettysburg took place in less than seventy-two hours.

On the fourth of July 1863, a rain fell on the battlefield at Gettysburg, washing the blood from the grass. On the fifth, Lee began his sorrowful retreat. Meade had saved the Union and received the thanks of Congress. On this same day, an excited aide arrived with incredible news - Grant had taken Vicksburg on the third of July.

On the same day, Federal forces in the Keystone State had turned back the Confederate army in its tracks, and their western counterparts had taken into their hands the so-called "Keystone of the West". The Confederate States of America would never recover.