The Gettysburg Campaign

After the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville, Robert E. Lee carried the Army of Northern Virginia north through the Shenandoah Valley and into Pennsylvania. His 1863 invasion threatened Northern cities, drew the Army of the Potomac away from Virginia and created the possibility that another Confederate victory might alter political support for the war. Only days before the armies met at Gettysburg, George G. Meade replaced Joseph Hooker in Union command.

The book follows the campaign from the movement north through the three days of battle at Gettysburg and Lee’s retreat toward Virginia. It examines command decisions, cavalry operations, civilian experiences, battlefield medicine and the strategic consequences of the Confederate defeat. Gettysburg ended Lee’s most ambitious invasion of the North and became one of the defining military and political turning points of the Civil War.