Prelude To Gettysburg / Gettysburg Showdown

Gettysburg and the surrounding counties experienced both the military struggle and the civilian upheaval of the Civil War. In six counties near Gettysburg, civilians and militia answered the first call to arms, endured threats and property destruction, and women raised funds for the war and nursed tens of thousands of wounded soldiers left from battles in orchards and fields. Part of the battlefield was owned by Freeman, Abraham Brien. Although a number of Gettysburg area Black men joined volunteer militias or USCT regiments during the war, no Black veteran was interred in Soldiers' National Cemetery until 1884; still, free men and freed men enlisted to fight for their own rights, and children also sacrificed their security and sometimes their lives. As the Union army approached through Maryland, the Confederate army abandoned its effort to capture Harrisburg and concentrated toward Gettysburg for a showdown battle. In three days, 165,000 troops converged there in the largest battle ever fought on American soil. Afterward, as the Confederate army retreated along different roads through Adams County and Union cavalry pursued, several engagements followed, including a fierce skirmish at Monterey Pass in Blue Ridge Summit near the Franklin and Adams county border. By July 4, the retreating armies had left 22,000 injured soldiers out of 51,000 total human casualties, thousands of dead horses, ravaged fields, undrinkable water, and little to no food. In a town of 2,400, farm fields became graveyards and churches, public buildings, and private homes became hospitals. Long after President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, men such as Basil Biggs were still helping move slain soldiers to proper burials, and it was years before southern families came to retrieve their dead. In those three hot days in July 1863, Gettysburg became the High Water Mark of the Confederacy and a turning point of the Civil War.

Pennsylvania · United States