Battle of Gettysburg - First Day
The
Battle of Gettysburg occurred over 3 days, July 1-3, 1863 - this post will include opening comments on the activities of the first day of this bloodiest battle of this war.
The first map below is my attempt to add lines to a beautiful map showing 'roughly' the actions that happened on each day; the first day's fighting started unintentionally north and west of the town of Gettysburg (top middle on the map) - my white arrow shows that general location (refer to the more detail map for a better appreciation of the action). On the second day (next post), much of the activity occurred where I've placed the red lines, and most importantly at the bottom around
Little Round Top. The third day (blue lines), had the Confederates placed on
Seminary Ridge and the Union located from
Culp's Hill, down
Cemetery Ridge, to
Little Round Top - the blue arrows indicate the final assault of the rebels.
Quoted below is a beginning summary of the first day (
Source) - the overall commanders in charged were Robert E. Lee & George Gordon Meade, also pictured. Union Brigadier General
John Buford arrived on the scene first and observed the Confederate movements from the cupola of the Lutheran Seminary (images below and location on the second map) - Buford was played by Sam Elliott in the film
Gettysburg (a recommendation). Federal Major General
John Reynolds soon appeared on the scene while the Confederates were getting into position - the second map shows the progress of the battle that first day w/
A.P. Hill leading the southern effort - the Union was forced south to it's second day position as described above.
John Reynolds was killed that day by a Confederate sharp shooter - a pic of his monument is included below; there are approximately 1,328 monuments, markers and memorials at Gettysburg National Military Park (
Source) - one could spend days seeing just the monuments - also shown below is the
North Carolina Monument (my state), which was created by
Gutzon Borglum - some of his other efforts described in the second quote (same link). Numerous maps of the locations of these monuments are available online - just one is shown.
By the end of the first day,
Robert E. Lee and his army were entrenched on
Seminary Ridge, which now has numerous monuments from the southern states, including Florida. The last pic below shows Lee's position (on which we stood on the bus tour) on that ridge looking across the mile length of fields/fences to
Meade's Union line - the middle is highlighted by the
Pennsylvania Monument (arrow). Dave
The
First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the
American Civil War took place on July 1, 1863, and began as an engagement between isolated units of the
Army of Northern Virginia under
ConfederateGeneralRobert E. Lee and the
Army of the Potomac under
Union Maj. Gen.George G. Meade. It soon escalated into a major battle which culminated in the outnumbered and defeated Union forces retreating to the high ground south of
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an
Americanartist and
sculptor famous for creating the monumental
presidents' heads at
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota; the famous carving on
Stone Mountain near
Atlanta; and other public works of art, including a head of
Abraham Lincoln, exhibited in
Theodore Roosevelt's
White Houseand held in the
United States Capitol Crypt in
Washington, D.C.
.
)
