e numbers engaged were not as
great as those at Antietam, Spottsylvania, and a few other bloody
struggles of our war; but in the aggregate the losses were greatest.
Gettysburg was in truth the high tide of the American Civil War. Never
before and never afterward was there a crisis such as that which broke
in the dreadful struggle for the mastery of Cemetery Ridge.

The invasion of the Northern States by General Lee had been undertaken
at the close of the previous summer. That invasion had ended
disastrously at the battle of Antietam. Once more the Confederate
commander would make the trial. So well had he been able to beat back
every invasion of Virginia by the Union forces that he now thought to
end the war by turning its tide of devastation into Pennsylvania.

Doubtless Lee realized that he was placing everything upon the cast of
a die. He undertook the campaign with a measure of confidence. He,
almost as much as Grant, was a taciturn man, not much given to
revelations of his purposes and hopes. No doubt he was somewhat
surprised at the successful rising of the Union forces against him.
Besides the Army of the Potomac, Pennsylvania seemed to rise for the
emergency.

It has not generally been observed that before the great battle
General Meade was in a position seriously to threaten the Confederate
rear. Armies in the field rarely meet each other at the place and time
expected. There is always something obscure and uncertain in the
oncoming of the actual conflict. The fact is that General Lee was
receding somewhat at the time of the crisis. Then it was that he
determined to fight a great battle, and if successful then march on
Washington. Should he not be successful, he would keep a way open by
direct route for retreat into Virginia.

By the first of July, 1863, a situation had been prepared which
signified a decisive battle with far-reaching consequences to the one
side or the other, accordingly as victory should incline to this or to
that. By this date General Reynolds, who commanded the advance line of
the Union army, met the corresponding line of the Confederates at the
village of Gettysburg, and the rest followed as if by logical
necessity.

On July 1 and 2, the great body of the Union and Confederate armies
came up to the position where battle had already begun between the
advance divisions and the pressure of the one side upon the other
became greater and greater with each hour. At the first the
Confedera