William C. Oates

The victory at Chancellorsville encouraged Lee to attempt another invasion of the North in the summer of 1863. This time, he crossed into Pennsylvania, where the Confederate army found itself marching towards the small town of Gettysburg on the first day of July. Opposing Lee was a Union army under the command of General George Gordon Meade. Over three days, Union and Confederate armies would fight an immense battle of cavalry charges, infantry maneuvers, artillery bombardments, trench warfare, and deadly hilltop skirmishes, all for control of a few farmers' fields around Gettysburg.

The battle reached its climax on July 3, when 15,000 Confederate troops charged federal troops and guns entrenched behind a stone wall atop Cemetery Ridge. "Picketts's Charge," as it has come to be known, turned out to be a costly failure, representing the high water mark of the Confederacy. After the...