The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

On July 1, 1863, General Robert E. Lee’s Southerners stumbled into General George Meade’s vanguard of Federal troops near the town of Gettysburg but eventually drove them from the field. The second day of July brought with it hopes for a decisive victory on both sides—it would prove to be the pivotal and bloodiest of the three-day battle. The second day at Gettysburg has defined what most Americans know today about 1863’s most pivotal campaign in the Civil War’s eastern theater. Two veteran armies in transition clashed desperately, in the process immortalizing sites such as Devil’s Den, the Slaughter Pen, Little Round Top, The Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, Cemetery Ridge, and Culp’s Hill for all time. Not surprisingly, the drama produced a set of controversial and sometimes mythological characters whose names have become synonymous with the Gettysburg landscape—Longstreet, Barksdale, Hood, Hancock, Sickles, Greene, Chamberlain, and many more. The fighting that day had serious implications for both armies that would affect not only the outcome of the bloodiest battle, but the entire war. This fully illustrated account of the second day of Gettysburg explores the troops deployed, the tactics of both armies and how the fighting played out under the hot July sun.