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On a hot July morning in 1863, two great armies collided in the rolling farmlands of southern

Pennsylvania. What followed was the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.

For three days, the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia

were locked in a brutal contest over ridge lines and hilltops that are now etched into the American National Memory.

McPherson's Ridge, little round top, cemetery hill.

Firearms forged by the machines of the 19th century industrial revolution,

fired volleys tearing through units of men as tightly packed as their 18th century forebears had been in the Revolutionary War.

Cannons spat a hail of iron.

Officers and enlisted men alike grappled in the chaos of gunsmoke.

Charges were launched and propulsed.

The fortunes of war veered back and forth.

Gettysburg was fought for control of a crossroads. And indeed it was a figurative crossroads for the American Republic. At the climax of the battle, the Union Line held. It withstood

a massive Confederate assault. And General Robert E. Lee's daring, desperate, foolhardy, optimistic attack was

repulsed with shocking losses. The climax of that Confederate assault, the brief moments that they

...