The afternoon of July 2, 1863, found the Union left flank hanging on a rocky prominence called Little Round Top, and with it the fate of the entire battle. Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine held the extreme end of the line, their ammunition nearly gone after wave after wave of Confederate assault. The former rhetoric professor made a desperate decision, ordering a downhill bayonet charge that shattered the attacking force and anchored the army. It was one of the most decisive moments of the three days at Gettysburg, but it was far from the only destiny decided on those Pennsylvania fields.
The battle opened on July 1 with a clash that cost the Union one of its finest minds. General John F. Reynolds had been offered command of the entire Army of the Potomac only weeks earlier but turned it down to remain where he believed decisions mattered most, the front line. Leading his infantry into Herbst Woods to relieve battered cavalry units, Reynolds turned in his saddle to urge his men forward.
In a fraction of a second, a Confederate sharpshooter’s round tore through the base of his neck. He was killed instantly, less than sixty minutes into the engagement, the highest-ranking combat fatality of the battle. Reynolds’ line held because of the sharp eye of cavalry commander John Buford. Recognizing that whoever controlled Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill would control the outcome of the war, Buford dismounted his troopers and fought a savage delaying action against overwhelming Confederate brigades.
His tactical foresight bought the high ground that ultimately saved the Union, but he never lived to see the peace he secured. Worn down by exhaustion and exposure, he contracted typhoid fever and died in Washington five months later at just thirty-seven years old. When Reynolds fell, command defaulted to General Abner Doubleday. Contrary to persistent folklore, Doubleday did not invent baseball.
What he did accomplish was commanding a stubborn, desperate defense on that first day that bought vital hours for the army to concentrate. His reward from high command was sudden removal the following morning. Replaced and humiliated, Doubleday spent the rest of his life writing defensive memoirs and seeking solace in spiritualism, dying three decades later with the sting of Gettysburg unhealed. As the sun dipped on the first day, the Confederate army faced its greatest missed opportunity.
General Richard S. Ewell, newly elevated to command Stonewall Jackson’s veteran corps, received orders from Robert E. Lee to carry the Union heights on Cemetery Hill if practicable. Ewell hesitated, deemed the assault unwise, and halted his troops.
To southern memorialists, that pause cost Lee the battle. Ewell was captured before the war’s end, lived out his years as a quiet farmer in Tennessee, and succumbed to pneumonia in 1872, forever living under the shadow of Stonewall Jackson. Ewell’s uncertainty was worsened by the absence of the South’s most flamboyant cavalryman, General J. E.
B. Stuart. Embarking on a wide, unauthorized raid around the Union perimeter, Stuart severed communication and left Lee marching blind through enemy territory. Arriving on July 2 to an icy rebuke from his commander, a humbled Stuart threw himself into reckless aggression to salvage his standing.
The redemption was cut short. Within ten months he was mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, his reputation forever shadowed by his absence at Gettysburg. No commander invited more controversy than Union General Daniel Sickles. Displeased with his assigned position on July 2, the former politician made a brazen move, advancing his entire Third Corps nearly a mile forward without orders into the Peach Orchard.
The exposed salient was shattered by Confederate assaults, nearly breaking the Union left. When a twelve-pound cannonball crushed his right leg, Sickles puffed calmly on a cigar as he was carried from the field to keep his men from breaking. After amputation, he donated the shattered bone to the Army Medical Museum, returning every year on the anniversary to visit his own leg. Despite near-fatal insubordination, he secured the Medal of Honor, outliving his contemporaries until his death in 1914 at age ninety-four.
Sickles’ blunder unhinged the Union Army, leaving the flank resting on Little Round Top. Chamberlain’s charge held that flank, and he survived multiple severe wounds, presided over the formal Confederate infantry surrender at Appomattox, served four terms as governor of Maine, and remained one of the war’s most celebrated commanders until his death in 1914. In the center, General Oliver O. Howard fought under intense scrutiny.
Having lost an arm earlier in the war, Howard watched his Eleventh Corps routed during the chaos of day one. Despite heavy criticism, he worked tirelessly to secure Cemetery Hill, establishing the fortified artillery platform that shattered later attacks. Following the war, Howard committed his career to civil rights and the education of formerly enslaved people, championing the founding of Howard University in the nation’s capital. Supreme responsibility rested upon General George Gordon Meade, placed in command of the Army of the Potomac just three days before the opening shots.
Cautious, irritable, and methodical, Meade orchestrated the defensive coordination that broke Robert E. Lee’s army. Yet his decision not to launch an immediate pursuit of the retreating Confederates drew harsh censure from President Lincoln. Though he secured the Union’s greatest triumph, Meade was largely sidelined in popular memory, passing away in 1872 from complications caused by his wartime injuries.
On the afternoon of July 3, the contest culminated in Pickett’s Charge. Over twelve thousand Confederate infantrymen stepped into open fire toward the center of Cemetery Ridge. The assault became a killing ground. When a devastated Robert E.
Lee urged Pickett to rally his men against a possible counterattack, Pickett uttered the words that defined him: “General Lee, I have no division. ” Pickett never forgave his commander. He spent his final years working in an insurance office in Richmond, bitter and grieving his lost soldiers until his death in 1875. The deepest human tragedy of the final assault unfolded between Confederate General Lewis Armistead and Union General Winfield Scott Hancock.
Devoted companions before the war, they had parted in tears in California in 1861, anticipating the day their duties would conflict. At the angle, Hancock directed the federal defense while Armistead led the assault directly into his lines, his hat raised high on the tip of his sword. Armistead crossed the stone wall only to be brought down by gunfire, learning as he bled that Hancock had been severely wounded only yards away. Armistead’s dying request was to pass his personal Bible to Hancock’s wife.
Armistead died two days later. Hancock survived, ran for the presidency in 1880, but carried the memory of his fallen friend for the rest of his life. Then came James Longstreet, Lee’s most trusted corps commander. Longstreet had vehemently argued against the frontal assault on day three, giving the final nod to advance in silent dread.
When the war ended, Longstreet broke Southern convention by accepting reconstruction, joining the Republican Party, and standing alongside his close friend Ulysses S. Grant. For this political choice, former comrades turned on him, rewriting history to blame him alone for the defeat at Gettysburg. Longstreet lived in social exile, defending his loyalty and tactical decisions until his death in 1904.
Twenty commanders, three days of fire, one small crossroads town that altered the fate of millions. For the generals of Gettysburg, the battle did not end when the guns fell silent. Its consequences followed them into every remaining year of their lives, through glory, disgrace, bitterness, and grief.