Casualties '', a photo of dead
Union army soldiers on the
Gettysburg Battlefield, which was taken by
Timothy H. O'Sullivan on either July 5 or July 6, 1863 in July 2003 , a
War of 1812 veteran, who fought with the
Union army during the Battle of Gettysburg as a civilian The two armies suffered between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties. Union casualties were 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing), while Confederate casualties are more difficult to estimate. Many authors have referred to as many as 28,000 Confederate casualties, and Busey and Martin's more recent 2005 work,
Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, documents 23,231 (4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing). The casualties for both sides for the 6-week campaign, according to Sears, were 57,225. In addition to being the deadliest battle of the war, Gettysburg also had the most generals killed in action. Several generals also were wounded. The Confederacy lost generals
Paul Jones Semmes,
William Barksdale, William Dorsey Pender,
Richard Garnett, and
Lewis Armistead, as well as J. Johnston Pettigrew during the retreat after the battle. Confederate generals who were wounded included Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood who lost the use of his left arm and Maj. Gen. Henry Heth who received a shot to the head on the first day of battle (though incapacitated for the rest of the battle, he remarkably survived without long-term injuries, credited in part due to his hat stuffed full of paper dispatches). Confederate generals
James L. Kemper and
Isaac R. Trimble were severely wounded during Pickett's charge and captured during the Confederate retreat. Confederate Brig. Gen. James J. Archer, in command of a brigade that most likely was responsible for killing Reynolds, was taken prisoner shortly after Reynolds' death. In the Confederate 1st Corps, eight of Longstreet's fourteen division and brigade commanders were killed or wounded, including Brig. Gen.
George T. Anderson and Brig. Gen.
Jerome B. Robertson, who were wounded. In Ewell's 2nd Corps, Brig. Gen. Isaac E. Avery was mortally wounded and Brig. Gen.
John M. Jones was wounded. In Hill's 3rd Corps, in addition to Pender and Pettigrew being killed, Maj. Gen. Henry Heth and Col.
Birkett D. Fry (later brigadier general), in temporary brigade command were wounded. In Hill's 3rd Corp, Brig. Gen.
Alfred M. Scales and Col.
William L. J. Lowrance, in temporary brigade command, were wounded. In the Confederate Cavalry Division, Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton and Brig. Gen.
Albert G. Jenkins were wounded. Union generals killed were John Reynolds,
Samuel K. Zook, and
Stephen H. Weed, as well as Elon J. Farnsworth, assigned as brigadier general by Maj. Gen. Pleasanton based on his nomination although his promotion was confirmed posthumously, and Strong Vincent, who after being mortally wounded was given a deathbed promotion to brigadier general. Additional senior officer casualties included the wounding of Union Generals
Dan Sickles (lost a leg), Francis C. Barlow,
Daniel Butterfield, and
Winfield Scott Hancock. Five of seven brigade commanders in Reynolds's First Corps were wounded. In addition to Hancock and Brig. Gen. John Gibbon being wounded in the Second Corps, three of ten brigade commanders were killed and three were wounded. The following tables summarize casualties by corps for the Union and Confederate forces during the three-day battle, according to Busey and Martin.
Bruce Catton wrote, "The town of Gettysburg looked as if some universal moving day had been interrupted by catastrophe." But there was only one documented civilian death during the battle:
Ginnie Wade (also widely known as Jennie), 20 years old, was hit by a stray bullet that passed through her kitchen in town while she was making bread. Another notable civilian casualty was
John L. Burns, a 69-year-old veteran of the War of 1812 who walked to the front lines on the first day of battle and participated in heavy combat as a volunteer, receiving numerous wounds in the process. Though aged and injured, Burns survived the battle and lived until 1872. Nearly 8,000 had been killed outright; these bodies, lying in the hot summer sun, needed to be buried quickly. More than 3,000 horse carcasses were burned in a series of piles south of town; townsfolk became violently ill from the stench. Meanwhile, the town of Gettysburg, with its population of just 2,400, found itself tasked with taking care of 14,000 wounded Union troops and an additional 8,000 Confederate prisoners. Confederates lost over 31–55 battle flags, with the Union possibly having lost slightly fewer than 40. The Confederate battle flags were sent to
Washington. 3,000–5,000 horses were killed.
Confederate retreat of the
American Civil War, which lasted from July 5, 1863, until July 14, 1863 On the morning of July 4, with Lee's army still present, Meade ordered his cavalry to get to the rear of Lee's army. In a heavy rain, the armies stared at one another across the bloody fields, on the same day that, some away, the
Vicksburg garrison surrendered to Major General
Ulysses S. Grant. Lee had reformed his lines into a defensive position on Seminary Ridge the night of July3, evacuating the town of Gettysburg. The Confederates remained on the battlefield's west side, hoping that Meade would attack, but the cautious Union commander decided against the risk, a decision for which he would later be criticized. Both armies began to collect their remaining wounded and bury some of the dead. A proposal by Lee for a prisoner exchange was rejected by Meade. Late in the rainy afternoon, Lee started moving the non-fighting portion of his army back to Virginia. Cavalry under Brigadier General
John D. Imboden was entrusted to escort the seventeen-mile long wagon train of supplies and wounded men, using a long route through
Cashtown and
Greencastle to
Williamsport, Maryland. After sunset, the fighting portion of Lee's army began its retreat to Virginia using a more direct (but more mountainous) route that began on the road to
Fairfield. Although Lee knew exactly what he needed to do, Meade's situation was different. Meade needed to remain at Gettysburg until he was certain Lee was gone. If Meade left first, he could possibly leave an opening for Lee to get to Washington or Baltimore. In addition, the army that left the battlefield first was often considered the defeated army. Union cavalry had some minor successes pursuing Lee's army. The first major encounter took place in the mountains at
Monterey Pass on July4, where Kilpatrick's cavalry division captured 150 to 300 wagons and took 1,300 to 1,500 prisoners. Beginning July 6, additional cavalry fighting took place closer to the Potomac River in Maryland's
Williamsport-Hagerstown area. Lee's army was trapped and delayed from crossing the Potomac River because rainy weather had caused the river to swell, and the
pontoon bridge at
Falling Waters had been destroyed. Meade's infantry did not fully pursue Lee until July7, and despite repeated pleas from Lincoln and Halleck, was not aggressive enough to destroy Lee's army. A new pontoon bridge was constructed at Falling Waters, and lower water levels allowed the Confederates to begin crossing after dark on July13. Although Meade's infantry had reached the area on July 12, it was his cavalry that attacked the Confederate rear guard on the morning of July14. Union cavalry took 500 prisoners, and Confederate Brigadier General Pettigrew was mortally wounded, but Lee's army completed its Potomac crossing. The campaign continued south of the Potomac until the
Battle of Manassas Gap on July23, when Lee escaped and Meade abandoned the pursuit.
Union reaction to the news of the victory The news of the Union victory electrified the North. A headline in
The Philadelphia Inquirer proclaimed, "Victory!
Waterloo Eclipsed!" New York diarist
George Templeton Strong wrote: Union enthusiasm soon dissipated, however, as the public realized that Lee's army had escaped destruction and the war would continue. Lincoln complained to
Gideon Welles, his Secretary of the Navy, that "Our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it!" Brigadier General
Alexander S. Webb wrote to his father on July 17, stating that such Washington politicians as "
Chase,
Seward and others", disgusted with Meade, "write to me that Lee really won that Battle!"
Effect on the Confederacy In fact, the Confederates had lost militarily and also politically. During the final hours of the battle,
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens was approaching the Union lines at
Norfolk, Virginia, under a
flag of truce. Although his formal instructions from
Confederate President Jefferson Davis had limited his powers to negotiate on prisoner exchanges and other procedural matters, historian
James M. McPherson speculates that he had informal goals of presenting peace overtures. Davis had hoped that Stephens would reach Washington from the south while Lee's victorious army was marching toward it from the north. President Lincoln, upon hearing of the Gettysburg results, refused Stephens's request to pass through the lines. Furthermore, when the news reached London, any lingering hopes of European recognition of the Confederacy were finally abandoned.
Henry Adams, whose father was serving as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom at the time, wrote, "The disasters of the rebels are unredeemed by even any hope of success. It is now conceded that all idea of intervention is at an end." Compounding the effects of the defeat was the end of the
Siege of Vicksburg, which surrendered to Grant's Federal armies in the West on July 4, the day after the Gettysburg battle, costing the Confederacy an additional 30,000 men, along with all their arms and stores. The immediate reaction of the Southern military and public sectors was that Gettysburg was a setback, not a disaster. The sentiment was that Lee had been successful on July 1 and had fought a valiant battle on July 2–3, but could not dislodge the Union Army from the strong defensive position to which it fled. The Confederates successfully stood their ground on July 4 and withdrew only after they realized Meade would not attack them. The withdrawal to the Potomac that could have been a disaster was handled masterfully. Furthermore, the Army of the Potomac had been kept away from Virginia farmlands for the summer and all predicted that Meade would be too timid to threaten them for the rest of the year. Lee himself had a positive view of the campaign, writing to his wife that the army had returned "rather sooner than I had originally contemplated, but having accomplished what I proposed on leaving the Rappahannock, viz., relieving the Valley of the presence of the enemy and drawing his Army north of the Potomac". He was quoted as saying to Maj. John Seddon, brother of the Confederate secretary of war, "Sir, we did whip them at Gettysburg, and it will be seen for the next six months that
that army will be as quiet as a sucking dove." Some Southern publications, such as the
Charleston Mercury, were critical of Lee's actions. On August 8, Lee offered his resignation to President Davis, who quickly rejected it.
Gettysburg Address arrived at present-day
Gettysburg National Cemetery, where he participated in its commemoration and delivered the
Gettysburg Address, a 271-word speech that lasted only two minutes but has come to be considered one of the most famous speeches in American history.
Medal of Honor There were 72
Medals of Honor awarded for the Gettysburg Campaign, 64 of which were for actions taken during the battle itself. The first recipient was awarded in December 1864, while the most recent was posthumously awarded to Lieutenant
Alonzo Cushing in 2014. ==Historical assessment==