TODAY IN HISTORY

 

Battle of Gettysburg ends

On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end.

In June 1863, following his masterful victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Lee launched his second invasion of the Union in less than a year. He led his 75,000-man Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River, through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, seeking to win a major battle on Northern soil that would further dispirit the Union war effort and induce Britain or France to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf. The 90,000-strong Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederates into Maryland, but its commander, General Joseph Hooker, was still stinging from his defeat at Chancellorsville and seemed reluctant to chase Lee further. Meanwhile, the Confederates divided their forces and investigated various targets, such as Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania capital.

On June 28, President Abraham Lincoln replaced Hooker with General George Meade, and Lee learned of the presence of the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. Lee ordered his army to concentrate in the vicinity of the crossroads town of Gettysburg and prepare to meet the Federal army. At the same time, Meade sent ahead part of his force into Pennsylvania but intended to make a stand at Pipe Creek in Maryland.

On July 1, a Confederate division under General Henry Heth marched into Gettysburg hoping to seize supplies but finding instead three brigades of Union cavalry. Thus began the Battle of Gettysburg, and Lee and Meade ordered their massive armies to converge on the impromptu battle site. The Union cavalrymen defiantly held the field against overwhelming numbers until the arrival of Federal reinforcements. Later, the Confederates were reinforced, and by mid-afternoon some 19,000 Federals faced 24,000 Confederates. Lee arrived to the battlefield soon afterward and ordered a general advance that forced the Union line back to Cemetery Hill, just south of the town.

During the night, the rest of Meade’s force arrived, and by the morning Union General Winfield Hancock had formed a strong Union line. On July 2, against the Union left, General James Longstreet led the main Confederate attack, but it was not carried out until about 4 p.m., and the Federals had time to consolidate their positions. Thus began some of the heaviest fighting of the battle, and Union forces retained control of their strategic positions at heavy cost. After three hours, the battle ended, and the total number of dead at Gettysburg stood in the thousands.

On July 3, Lee, having failed on the right and the left, planned an assault on Meade’s center. A 15,000-man strong column under General George Pickett was organized, and Lee ordered a massive bombardment of the Union positions. The 10,000 Federals answered the Confederate artillery onslaught, and for more than an hour the guns raged in the heaviest cannonade of the Civil War. At 3 p.m., Pickett led his force into no-man’s-land and found that Lee’s bombardment had failed. As Pickett’s force attempted to cross the mile distance to Cemetery Ridge, Union artillery blew great holes in their lines. Meanwhile, Yankee infantry flanked the main body of “Pickett’s charge” and began cutting down the Confederates. Only a few hundred Virginians reached the Union line, and within minutes they all were dead, dying, or captured. In less than an hour, more than 7,000 Confederate troops had been killed or wounded.

Both armies, exhausted, held their positions until the night of July 4, when Lee withdrew. The Army of the Potomac was too weak to pursue the Confederates, and Lee led his army out of the North, never to invade it again. The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War, costing the Union 23,000 killed, wounded, or missing in action. The Confederates suffered some 25,000 casualties. On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address during the dedication of a new national cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865.

1980S

1988

U.S. warship downs Iranian passenger jet

In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship—the aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. 

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1958

President Eisenhower initiates federal flood-control program

On July 3, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Rivers and Harbors Flood Control Bill, which allocates funds to improve flood-control and water-storage systems across the country. Eisenhower had sent back two earlier bills to Congress, but was pleased with the revisions  included in Senate Bill 3910.

WESTWARD EXPANSION

1890

Idaho becomes 43rd state

Idaho is admitted to the union on July 3, 1890.  Exploration of the North American continent mostly proceeded inward from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and northward from Spanish Mexico. Therefore, the rugged territory that would become Idaho long remained untouched by Spanish,  French, British and American trappers and explorers. Even as late as 1805, Idaho Native Americans like the Shoshone had never encountered Europeans.

19TH CENTURY

1887

Gunfighter Clay Allison killed

Clay Allison, eccentric gunfighter and rancher, is believed to have died on July 3, 1887, in a freak wagon accident in Texas. Born around 1840 in Waynesboro, Tennessee, Allison seemed to display odd tendencies from a young age. 

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1969

Brian Jones and Jim Morrison die, two years apart to the day

Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones is found dead of an apparent accidental drowning on July 3, 1969. Two years later to the day, in 1971, Jim Morrison dies of heart failure in a Paris bathtub. For all the highly publicized brushes with the law that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would have in the late 1960s, it was the original leader of the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones, who was the group’s original bad boy—who lived, in the words of Pete Townshend, “on a higher planet of decadence than anyone I would ever meet.”

MIDDLE EAST

1990

Pilgrim stampede kills 1,400

A stampede of religious pilgrims in a pedestrian tunnel in Mecca leaves more than 1,400 people dead on July 3, 1990. This was at the time the most deadly of a series of incidents over 20 years affecting Muslims making the trip to Mecca. 

CRIME

1989

A mother is arrested and accused of killing her four children

Martha Ann Johnson is arrested in Georgia for the 1982 murder of her oldest child, Jennyann Wright, after an Atlanta newspaper initiated a new investigation into her suspicious death. Johnson’s three other children had also mysteriously died between 1977 and 1982. 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1775

George Washington takes command of Continental Army

On July 3, 1775, George Washington rides out in front of the American troops gathered at Cambridge common in Massachusetts and draws his sword, formally taking command of the Continental Army. Washington, a prominent Virginia planter and veteran of the French and Indian War, had been appointed commander in chief by the Continental Congress two weeks before. In agreeing to serve the American colonies in their war for independence, he declined to accept payment for his services beyond reimbursement of future expenses.

WORLD WAR I

1918

Mohammed V, sultan of Turkey, dies

On July 3, 1918, with Turkish forces in the final months of fighting against the Allied powers during World War I, Mohammed V, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, dies at the age of 73. Born in 1844 in Constantinople, Mohammed ascended to the throne in 1909 after the forced abdication of his elder brother, Abdul Hamid, under pressure from the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a rising political party known as the Young Turkey Party, or the Young Turks.