Editing Battle of Gettysburg (section)

==Aftermath==
===Casualties===
[[File:Battle of Gettysburg.jpg|thumb|''[[A Harvest of Death]]'', 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]]
[[File:Gettysburg national cemetery img 4164.jpg|thumb|[[Gettysburg National Cemetery]] in July 2003]]
[[File:John L. Burns, veteran of the War of 1812, civilian who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg with Union troops, standing with bayoneted musket - From photographic negative in Brady's National LCCN2017659617.jpg|thumb|[[John L. Burns]], a [[War of 1812]] veteran, who fought with the [[Union army]] during the Battle of Gettysburg as a civilian<ref>[[Mathew Brady]]'s National Photographic Portrait Galleries, photographer. From the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Prints and Photographs Division, [[Library of Congress]]</ref>]] 
The two armies suffered between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties.<ref group=fn>McPherson, p. 664 states Union casualties were 23,000, "more than one-quarter of the army's effectives" and Confederate casualties were 28,000, "more than a third of Lee's army".</ref> Union casualties were 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing),<ref name=Ucasualties/><ref group=fn>The number of Union casualties stated by the U.S. Adjutant General in 1888 was 23,003 (3,042 killed, 14,497 wounded, 5,464 captured or missing). [[Richard C. Drum|Drum, Richard C.]] United States. Adjutant-General's Office. ''Itinerary of the Army of the Potomac, and co-operating forces in the Gettysburg campaign, June 5 - July 31, 1863; organization of the Army of the Potomac and Army of northern Virginia at the battle of Gettysburg; and return of casualties in the Union and Confederate forces.'' Washington: Government Printing Office, 1888. {{OCLC|6512586}}. p. 45. Other Union casualty figures stated by later historians were similar, including Murray and Hsieh, p. 290, 22,625; Trudeau, p. 529, 22,813; McPherson, p. 664, 23,000; Walsh, p. 285, 23,000; Guelzo, p. 445, 24,000 as rounded up by Meade in his later testimony before the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Sears p. 496 states that the Union Army also suffered about 7,300 casualties at the [[Second Battle of Winchester]] on June 13–15, 1863 during Ewell's advance to Gettysburg and in the Union Army pursuit of the Confederate Army after the battle.</ref> while Confederate casualties are more difficult to estimate. Many authors have referred to as many as 28,000 Confederate casualties,<ref group=fn>Examples of the varying Confederate casualties for July 1–3 include Coddington, p. 536 (20,451, "and very likely more"). This is the same figure given by Drum, 1888, p. 69. Drum footnotes the casualty returns for some Confederate units as "Loss, if any, not recorded." For other units, he notes that brigade and regimental numbers sometimes differ and the brigade or larger Confederate unit totals are used. He states on p. 59 that the compilations of Confederate casualties can only be considered as "approximative". This lends weight to the higher numbers of Confederate casualties computed or estimated by historians including Busey and Martin cited in connection with the tables below, as well as Sears, p. 498 (22,625 plus just over 4,500 on the march north); Trudeau, p. 529 (22,874); Eicher, p. 550 (22,874, "but probably actually totaled 28,000 or more"); McPherson, p. 664 (28,000); Esposito, map 99 ("near 28,000"); Clark, p. 150 (20,448, "but probably closer to 28,000"); Woodworth, p. 209 ("at least equal to Meade's and possibly as high as 28,000"); [https://web.archive.org/web/20110513133710/http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/battles/pa002.htm NPS] (28,000).</ref> 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).<ref name="Casualties" /> Nearly a third of Lee's general officers were killed, wounded, or captured.<ref>Glatthaar, p. 282.</ref> The casualties for both sides for the 6-week campaign, according to Sears, were 57,225.<ref name="Sears513">Sears, p. 513.</ref>

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 B. Garnett|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 Moore Scales|Alfred M. Scales]] and Col. [[William Lee J. Lowrance|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.<ref>Sears, pp. 498-499.</ref>

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 [[Daniel Sickles|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.<ref>Sears, p. 496.</ref>

The following tables summarize casualties by corps for the Union and Confederate forces during the three-day battle, according to Busey and Martin.<ref>Busey and Martin, pp. 125–147, 260–315. Headquarters element casualties account for the minor differences in army totals stated previously.</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Union corps !! Casualties (k/w/m)
|-
| I Corps || 6059 (666/3231/2162)
|-
| II Corps || 4369 (797/3194/378)
|-
| III Corps || 4211 (593/3029/589)
|-
| V Corps || 2187 (365/1611/211)
|-
| VI Corps || 242 (27/185/30)
|-
| XI Corps || 3801 (369/1922/1510)
|-
| XII Corps || 1082 (204/812/66)
|-
| Cavalry Corps || 852 (91/354/407)
|-
| Artillery Reserve || 242 (43/187/12)
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Confederate corps !! Casualties (k/w/m)
|-
| First Corps || 7665 (1617/4205/1843)
|-
| Second Corps || 6686 (1301/3629/1756)
|-
| Third Corps || 8495 (1724/4683/2088)
|-
| Cavalry Corps || 380 (66/174/140)
|}

[[Bruce Catton]] wrote, "The town of Gettysburg looked as if some universal moving day had been interrupted by catastrophe."<ref>Catton, p. 325.</ref> 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.<ref>Sears, p. 391.</ref> 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.<ref>Martin, pp. 371-377; Pfanz, ''First Day'', pp. 357-359.</ref> 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<ref>Sears, p. 511.</ref> were burned in a series of piles south of town; townsfolk became violently ill from the stench.<ref>Woodworth, p. 216.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/nursing-the-wounded-at-gettysburg/ |title=Nursing the Wounded at Gettysburg |first=Pat |last=Leonard |date=July 7, 2013 |access-date=July 12, 2017 |archive-date=August 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804014837/https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/nursing-the-wounded-at-gettysburg/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Confederates lost over 31–55 battle flags, with the Union possibly having lost slightly fewer than 40.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nofi |first=Albert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0XQ6DwAAQBAJ&dq=I+have+the+honor+herewith+to+transmit+thirty-one+battle-flags%2C+captured+from+the+enemy+in+the+recent+battle+at+Gettysburg.+Several+other+flags+were+captured+on+that+occasion%2C+but+those+sent+embrace+all+thus+far+sent+in+by+corps+commanders.&pg=PA144 |title=The Blue & Gray Almanac: The Civil War in Facts & Figures, Recipes & Slang |date=2017-08-19 |publisher=Casemate Publishers |isbn=978-1-61200-553-9 |language=en}}</ref> The Confederate battle flags were sent to [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=1863-07-19 |title=THE CAPTURED BATTLE-FLAGS.; Gen. Meade Sends them to Washington, HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, June 8, 1863. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1863/07/19/archives/the-captured-battleflags-gen-meade-sends-them-to-washington.html |access-date=2024-01-01 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

3,000–5,000 horses were killed.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-06-25 |title=The Battle of Gettysburg & the History of the Civil War Horse |url=https://thehorsemenscorral.com/2013/06/25/the-battle-of-gettysburg-the-history-of-the-cival-war-horse/ |access-date=2024-01-03 |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Confederate retreat===
{{further|Retreat from Gettysburg}}
[[File:Gettysburg Campaign Retreat.png|thumb|The [[Gettysburg campaign]] 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.<ref>Starr, p. 443.</ref> In a heavy rain, the armies stared at one another across the bloody fields, on the same day that, some {{convert|920|mi}} away, the [[Battle of Vicksburg|Vicksburg]] garrison surrendered to Major General [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. Lee had reformed his lines into a defensive position on Seminary Ridge the night of July{{nbsp}}3, 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.<ref>Eicher, p. 550; Coddington, pp. 539–544; Clark, pp. 146–147; Sears, p. 469; Wert, p. 300.</ref>

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, Pennsylvania|Cashtown]] and [[Greencastle, Pennsylvania|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, Pennsylvania|Fairfield]].<ref>Coddington, p. 538.</ref> 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.<ref>Coddington, p. 539.</ref>

{{Quote box
|align=right
|width=30%;background-color:#E6F2FF"
|quote="Now, if General Meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee's army, the rebellion will be over."
|source=Abraham Lincoln<ref>Coddington, p. 564.</ref>
}}
Union cavalry had some minor successes pursuing Lee's army. The first major encounter took place in the mountains at [[Fight at Monterey Pass|Monterey Pass]] on July{{nbsp}}4, where Kilpatrick's cavalry division captured 150 to 300 wagons and took 1,300 to 1,500 prisoners.<ref>Starr, pp. 447-450.</ref> Beginning July 6, additional cavalry fighting took place closer to the Potomac River in Maryland's [[Battle of Williamsport|Williamsport-Hagerstown area]].<ref>Sears, pp. 481-484, Eicher, p.552.</ref> 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, West Virginia|Falling Waters]] had been destroyed.{{#tag:ref|Lee had left intact a pontoon bridge located at Falling Waters. This bridge had originally been used during the movement north into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Union cavalry under the command of Brigadier General [[William H. French]] destroyed the bridge on July 4. Lee's options for crossing the Potomac River were either a ferry at Williamsport that could handle only two wagons per crossing, or the Falling Waters location {{convert|6|mi|km|spell=in}} downstream.<ref>Sears, p. 481.</ref>|group=fn}} Meade's infantry did not fully pursue Lee until July{{nbsp}}7, and despite repeated pleas from Lincoln and Halleck, was not aggressive enough to destroy Lee's army.<ref>Coddington, pp. 552, 564.</ref> A new pontoon bridge was constructed at Falling Waters, and lower water levels allowed the Confederates to begin crossing after dark on July{{nbsp}}13.<ref>Sears, p. 490.</ref> 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 July{{nbsp}}14. Union cavalry took 500 prisoners, and Confederate Brigadier General Pettigrew was mortally wounded, but Lee's army completed its Potomac crossing.<ref>Eicher, p. 552.</ref> The campaign continued south of the Potomac until the [[Battle of Manassas Gap]] on July{{nbsp}}23, when Lee escaped and Meade abandoned the pursuit.<ref>Coddington, pp. 535–574; Sears, pp. 496–497; Eicher, p. 596; Wittenberg et al., ''One Continuous Fight'', pp. 345–346.</ref>

===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! [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]] Eclipsed!" New York diarist [[George Templeton Strong]] wrote:<ref>McPherson, p. 664.</ref>

{{Blockquote|The results of this victory are priceless. ... The charm of Robert E. Lee's invincibility is broken. The Army of the Potomac has at last found a general that can handle it, and has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures. ... [[Copperhead (politics)|Copperheads]] are palsied and dumb for the moment at least. ... Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad.|George Templeton Strong|Diary, p. 330.}}

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!"<ref>Donald, p. 446; Woodworth, p. 217.</ref> Brigadier General [[Alexander S. Webb]] wrote to his father on July 17, stating that such Washington politicians as "[[Salmon P. Chase|Chase]], [[William H. Seward|Seward]] and others", disgusted with Meade, "write to me that Lee really won that Battle!"<ref>Coddington, p. 573.</ref>

===Effect on the Confederacy===
In fact, the Confederates had lost militarily and also politically. During the final hours of the battle, [[Vice President of the Confederate States of America|Confederate Vice President]] [[Alexander Stephens]] was approaching the Union lines at [[Norfolk, Virginia]], under a [[White flag|flag of truce]]. Although his formal instructions from [[President of the Confederate States of America|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."<ref>McPherson, pp. 650, 664.</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/vicksburg |title=Vicksburg |publisher=American Battlefield Trust |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-date=June 2, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220602022538/https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/vicksburg |url-status=live }}</ref>

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.<ref>Gallagher, ''Lee and His Army'', pp. 86, 93, 102–05; Sears, pp. 501–502; McPherson, p. 665, in contrast to Gallagher, depicts Lee as "profoundly depressed" about the battle.</ref>

===Gettysburg Address===
{{main|Gettysburg Address}}
[[File:Crowd of citizens, soldiers, and etc. with Lincoln at Gettysburg. - NARA - 529085 -crop.jpg|thumb|On November 19, 1863, U.S. President [[Abraham Lincoln]] 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Conant |first=Sean |date=2015 |title=The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln's Greatest Speech |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bmyBwAAQBAJ&pg=PR9 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=ix |isbn=978-0-19-022745-6}}</ref><ref name="Holsinger 1999 102"/> A crowd of citizens and soldiers surround Lincoln (with a red arrow pointing to his location in photo).]]

The ravages of war were still evident in Gettysburg more than four months later when, on November 19, Soldiers' National Cemetery, later renamed [[Gettysburg National Cemetery]], was dedicated. During this ceremony, Lincoln honored the fallen and redefined the purpose of the war in his historic [[Gettysburg Address]], a 271-word address that is widely considered one of the most famous and significant speeches in American history.<ref>White, p. 251.</ref><ref group=fn>White, p.251. refers to Lincoln's use of the term "new birth of freedom" and writes, "The ''new birth'' that slowly emerged in Lincoln's politics meant that on November 19 at Gettysburg he was no longer, as in his inaugural address, defending an old Union but proclaiming a new Union. The old Union contained and attempted to restrain slavery. The new Union would fulfill the promise of liberty, the crucial step into the future that the Founders had failed to take."</ref>

===Medal of Honor===
{{main|List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Gettysburg Campaign}}
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.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bradley |first1=Mark |title=Medal of Honor – 1st Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing |url=https://history.army.mil/News/2014/140900a_mohCushing/ |website=U.S. Army Center of Military History |access-date=September 21, 2018 |archive-date=September 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180921230138/https://history.army.mil/news/2014/140900a_mohCushing.html |url-status=live }}</ref>