THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG

The bold signatures on the Declaration of L Independence registered the birth of a nation on July 4, 1776, as every Fourth of July orator is proud to relate. But the oratory frequently overlooks the fact that another Glorious Fourth--July 4, 1863--marked the climax of the battle to preserve the Union. In the west on that day, after a six-week siege, Confederate Vicksburg fell to General Ulysses S. Grant. And in the east, General Robert E. Lee's forces began their sad retreat south across the Potomac after three days of the biggest and bloodiest battle U.S. history had known--Gettysburg.

Lee, with 75,000 men, had begun an invasion of the North after victory at Chancellorsville in May, confident that a decisive victory on Federal soil would cause the disheartened North to sue for peace. Major General George G. Meade, with 88,000 Federals, followed him. The battlefield was chosen inadvertently when a Southern unit, foraging for shoes, ran into Union cavalry scouts at the little eastern Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. Fighting commenced the next day, July 1, north of the town. That night the Federal troops, driven south through the village streets, dug in on a strong hook-shaped line on Cemetery Ridge. Lee's army followed, and during the next two days in fierce fighting at Little Round Top, the Devil's Den, the Wheat Field, Peach Orchard, Gulp's Hill, Spangler's Spring and other positions along the Union line, tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the Northerners. On the afternoon of July 3, Major General George E. Pickett led 15,000 Confederates on a gallant but ill-advised charge into the teeth of well-positioned Federal infantry and artillery. With Pickett's charge, the high water, mark of the Confederacy, Lee's final effort had spent itself. At Gettysburg he lost 28,000 men against a Union loss of 23,000 (the three days' total equaled six weeks' casualties on Iwo Jima).

The cyclorama on the following pages, representing the climax of Pickett's charge, is housed in a special building at the Gettysburg battlefield. Painted in 1881 by French Artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux, it is 30 ft. high and 370 ft. in circumference. The view is from behind the Union front line, and as the viewer looks along the painting toward the right, it is as though he is turning from north to east, then toward the south and finally west.

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