The Glorious Third

On this date in 1863, General George Meade accepts the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg. Meade's actions following the failure of Pickett's Charge most likely hastened the Union victory by at least a year, if not more. Late on the evening of the 2nd, General Meade correctly predicted that Lee would make a massive assault on his center at Cemetary Ridge. Meade knew that his men could defeat such an assault, and began preparing his men for a counterattack. He ordered his Sixth Corps, due to arrive early on the 3rd, to move to the west to block Lee's predicted escape route. Meade was gambling, however; if Lee's charge succeeded, the Sixth Corps would be too far away to be of any assistance. However, Meade was correct, and as Lee started to retreat from the battlefield, the relatively undamaged Twelfth Corps began demonstrating towards Lee in order to pin him down. When Lee moved against the Twelfth, the Sixth Corps blocked his main line of retreat on the Hagerstown road. Lee made several counterattacks in order to resecure his line of communication and supply, but the Sixth Corps was well entrenched and held off the Army of Northern Virginia. Although Meade's army was badly battered, he still held numerical superiority over Lee and had some of his army unengaged from the previous days' fighting. With the loss of his supply line to Richmond and his line of retreat, Lee had no choice but to surrender his army to Meade. This, combined with the fall of Vicksburg the next day, led to the surrender of the Confederate government on July 20th.

Gettysburg

On this day in 1863, Confederate and Union forces begin the battle of Gettysburg, PA. Robert E. Lee had no intention of becoming engaged, but his III Corps under Gen. A.P. Hill ran into Union General John Buford's cavalry division north of the town. Buford skillfully held off Hill until the Union I Corps under John Reynolds was able to relieve him, but as the Confederate army began to converge on Gettysburg, the I Corps was forced to fall back to the town itself, where they met up with O.O. Howard's XI Corps. As senior commander, Reynolds decided to make his stand on the hills south of the town, ordering his I Corps to fortify Cemetary Hill on his left and the XI Corps to move onto Culp's Hill on the right. The XI Corps had just started to move into position when "Allegheny" Johnson's division of the Confederate II Corps marched up. Johnson, immediately grasping the importance of the heights, ordered his division to take the hill at all costs. Although the mostly German XI Corps put up a tough fight, they were no match for the likes of the Stonewall Brigade, and Johnson soon sent Howard's men running south. Within an hour, Johnson was reinforced by Jubal Early's division, but the commander of the II Corps, Dick Ewell, hesitated to attack Cemetary Hill, now only held by a badly beaten I Corps and fragments of the XI Corps. However, an officer arrived from General Lee, with a message stating "carry the hill occupied by the enemy, if he found it practicable, but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival of the other divisions of the army." Ewell, recently promoted and eager to show his mettle, assaulted Cemetary Hill and rapidly drove the Union forces off, sending them racing down the Baltimore Pike, where they ran into Henry Slocum's XII Corps. Slocum immediately sent a courier to Gen. Meade, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, who ordered his forces to establish a defensive line on Pipe Creek, well to the south of Gettysburg.