Battlelines: Gettysburg: Saturday, July 4, 1863 and beyond

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Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Waud, Army of Northern Virginia, Army of the Potomac, Battlelines: Gettysburg, Edwin Forbes, Edwin Stanton, George Meade, Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee, Vicksburg

Note: The annual anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg was this weekend. To commemorate that, we are posting, with permission, excerpts from Battlelines: Gettysburg, that describe aspects of the battle. Battlelines: Gettysburg contains the battlefield drawings of Alfred Waud and Edwin Forbes, the only two artists who witnessed the battle.

A hard, driving rain drenched Gettysburg on July 4, 1863.

The rain was both merciful and burdensome. It was merciful in that it provided relief from the stifling heat of the previous days. More importantly, it discouraged both armies from attacking each other.

Edwin Forbes drawing of the devastation of the battle of Gettysburg is particularly striking.

It was burdensome because many of the dead and wounded were still lying exposed to the elements or without adequate shelter, and for those still living the rain could not have been helpful. The rain was yet another obstacle in cleaning up the battlefield, finding the dead and wounded, and in getting the army ready to move when the commanders decided it was time.

Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia stood ready to receive an attack from the Army of the Potomac. In some Confederate quarters, there was even hope that this would happen. Southerners still wanted to inflict some pain on their Union counterparts.

Battlelines: Gettysburg: Day 1, Wednesday, July 1, 1863

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Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Pleasonton, Alfred Waud, Army of North Virginia, Army of the Potomac, Battlelines: Gettysburg, Cemetery Hill, Edwin Forbes, George Meade, Gettysburg, Henry Heth, J.E.B. Stuart, John Buford, John Reynolds, McPherson's Ridge, Richard Ewell, Robert E. Lee, William Pender

Note: The annual anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg is this weekend. To commemorate that, we are posting, with permission, excerpts from Battlelines: Gettysburg, that describe aspects of the battle. Battlelines: Gettysburg contains the battlefield drawings of Alfred Waud and Edwin Forbes, the only two artists who witnessed the battle.

Lee had wanted to avoid any major engagements with Union forces until he could determine where they were and could choose a battleground that would give his smaller force an advantage. But, as often happens, the plans of the generals dissipate into the realities of the battlefield.

Early on July 1, Confederate generals Henry Heth and William Pender rode with their forces down the Chambersburg Road toward Gettysburg in order to drive Union forces out of the town. They did not expect to encounter much resistance. Instead, they found Union General John Buford’s division of Federal cavalry about three miles northwest of Gettysburg. That division had no intention of being moved, at least not without a fight.

Heth committed his lines to the fight, and Buford’s lines stiffened. The battle was joined.

Alfred Waud’s drawing of the seminary near Gettysburg.

In this initial battle, the Confederates had the advantage in numbers and position, and the Union forces gradually dropped back. General John Reynolds, hearing that the battle was unfolding, brought his brigades up to join the Union lines on ground known as McPherson’s Ridge. As the fighting began to intensify, Reynolds commanded the lines from his horse and was hit by a bullet at the base of his skull. He died instantly.

Battlelines: The Road to Gettysburg

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Abraham Lincoln, Aldie, Alfred Pleasonton, Alfred Waud, Army of the Potomac, Battlelines: Gettysburg, e, Edwin Forbes, George Meade, Gettysburg, J.E.B. Stuart, Joseph Hooker, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, Upperville

Note: The annual anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg is approaching this weekend. To commemorate that, we are posting, with permission, excerpts from Battlelines: Gettysburg, that describe aspects of the battle. Battlelines: Gettysburg contains the battlefield drawings of Alfred Waud and Edwin Forbes, the only two artists who witnessed the battle.

The story of the battle of Gettysburg begins – if it begins anywhere – with the battle at Chancellorsville on May 1-3, 1863. The Union’s Army of the Potomac, with fresh troops and a new leader in General Joseph Hooker, ran into Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in what amounted to a surprise attack by Lee. In three days of fighting, Lee won an important and surprising victory against vastly superior force, further demoralizing the North and demonstrating, once again, the limits of Northern generals.

But, in his victory, Lee had suffered a devastating blow himself. His best general, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, was wounded on the second day of the battle and died several days later after his arm was amputated. Jackson had proved himself on several occasions in the previous two years of fighting to be a creative and irreplaceable part of the Army of Northern Virginia. Few single casualties of the war were as important as the death of Stonewall Jackson.

Alfred Waud’s drawing of the battle at Upperville on June 21, 1863. The battle occurred as Lee’s army moved north toward Gettysburg.

Despite this loss, Lee had the advantage at least for the moment, and he decided to press that advantage with an invasion of the North.

Civil War Trust provides excellent video introduction to Gettysburg

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Abraham Lincoln, Civil War Trust, George Meade, Gettysburg, Gettysburg Address, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Vicksburg, video

With the approach of the anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3), KCWRT.org will be providing some information about the battle during the next couple of weeks.

A great place to start is the video introduction to the battle produce by the Civil War Trust, which you can see below.

 

Historian Garry Adelman gives a quick run-through of the battle with lots of animation and supplementary footage.

Gettysburg is so iconic — particularly because of the Gettysburg Address that Abraham Lincoln delivered four months after the battle — that we tend to lose sight of what it meant to the people who lived during the war.

Voter fraud and the Lincoln-Douglas debates

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Abraham Lincoln, electorate, George McClellan, Illinois, Illinois Central Railroad, Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas, voters, voting, voting fraud

As it does today, the idea that people will vote when they have no right to — and thus, potentially, misdirect the will of the people — shadowed the 1858 election for U.S. Senator in Illinois, the one that produced the iconic Lincoln-Douglas debates.

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Abraham Lincoln and his Republican cohorts feared the collusion of two forces, the railroads and

A 1958 postage stamp commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debatesd the Irish.

Their fears had some merit.

The Illinois Central Railroad Company had been the recipient of political favors from Sen. Stephen Douglas, who had sponsored legislation that funded railroads through publicly held land. The Illinois Central would certainly want to protect its advantage by supporting his campaign for re-election.

Lincoln and the Republicans feared that support would take a nefarious form.

According to Allen Guelzo, author of Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America, Lincoln and the Republicans envisioned the Illinois Central “sending road gangs of Irish Catholics down the line, dropping them off in strategic districts days or weeks before the election to perform grading and repairs, and to turn up on Election Day to vote as though they were permanent residents.” (208-209) Lincoln himself said as much, without naming the Irish, in one of this speeches.

 

What did Abraham Lincoln look like?

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Abraham Lincoln, Mathew Brady, photography

One of the most famous photographs of Abraham Lincoln was taken by the noted photographer Matthew Brady on February 25, 1860 in New York City.

Abraham Lincoln, photograph by Mathew Brady, 1860

It was the afternoon before Lincoln delivered a famous speech at the Cooper Union that evening. The photo was reproduced widely during Lincoln’s campaign for the presidency that year and later became known as the Cooper Union portrait.

Lincoln later said the photo and the speech he gave that night “made me president.”

The photo is certainly a striking one and presents Lincoln very favorably. Lincoln had the reputation of being a rough-hewn Westerner. This picture shows him as something else — a handsome and rather elegant, serious man. He is youngish but not too young. He is smoothly dressed, but he’s not a dandy. In the picture he looks serious and thoughtful, ready to take on the responsibilities of a nation torn apart by the issues of abolition and slavery.

If this photograph is the one that most people saw during the presidential campaign, it is little wonder that Lincoln gave it a good deal of the credit for getting him elected to the presidency.

But is this what Lincoln really looked like?