Confederates drive the Union forces back through Gettysburg to strong defensive positions on Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill on July 1.

Confederates occupy Seminary Ridge, a partially wooded rise running parallel to the north and south of Union position.

The first day of battle sees considerable fighting in the area, Union use of newly issued Spencer repeating carbines, heavy casualties on each side, and the simultaneous conclusion by both commanders that Gettysburg is the place to fight.

General Meade, with a numerical superiority of fifteen thousand men, drives Confederate General Jubal A. Early off Seminary Ridge in a decisive action on July 2.

This second day sees great number of desperate attacks and counterattacks in an attempt to gain control of such locations as Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill, Devil's Den, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard.

There are again heavy losses on both sides.

Ewell is driven down Culp's Hill on July 3.

Lee, determined to attack, orders a reluctant Longstreet to make a direct attack on the powerfully fortified Cemetery Hill, held by about ten thousand Federal infantrymen.

During their approach, Longstreet's troops, fifteen thousand strong at the outset, are mowed down by withering Union artillery and musketry.

The Southern spearhead breaks through and penetrates the ridge, but here it can do no more.

Critically weakened, formations hopelessly tangled, lacking reinforcement, and under savage attack from three sides, the Southerners retreat, leaving nineteen battle flags and hundreds of prisoners.

Lee, waiting for an attack that never comes, takes advantage of a heavy rain and withdraws on the night of July 4 to ...

...a position west of Sharpsburg, where the flooded Potomac blocks his retreat.

Despite Lincoln's orders, he is not pursued by Union troops (for which historians criticize Meade), but escapes to Virginia on July 13, his invasion of the North stopped.

Lee's defeat is the result of overconfidence in his troops, Ewell's inability to fill the boots of the slain Stonewall Jackson, and faulty reconnaissance.

The Union's dead number 3,155, with 14,529 wounded, and 5,365 missing, their losses totaling 23,049 of their original 88,289 troops.

The Confederates engaged the Union with 75,000 troops, of which during the battle 3,903 were killed, 18,735 wounded, and 5,425 missing, for a total 28,063 casualties.

General Jubal Early, following a series of unsuccessful Union attacks on his flanks, decides on July 19, to withdraw from his precarious position at Berryville to a more secure position near Strasburg.

During the evacuation of the military hospitals and storage depots at Winchester, Union forces under Brigadier General William W. Averell win a rare victory over Confederate forces under Major General Stephen D. Ramseur at the Battle of Rutherford's Farm.

The poor Confederate performance at the battle, as well as a series of small cavalry engagements south of Winchester the following day, lead Union commanders George Crook and Horatio G. Wright to conclude the Confederates are merely fighting a rearguard action and that Early is leaving the Valley and heading for Richmond to reinforce the Army of Northern Virginia.

With the threat to Washington, D.C., seemingly over, Wright withdraws the VI Corps and XIX Corp from the valley to return to the aid of Grant's siege of Petersburg, Virginia, on July 20, leaving only the three-division strong Army of West Virginia in the Valley.

The following two days are relatively quiet with both armies resting in their camps some fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) from each other.

On July 23, Confederate cavalry attack the Union advanced picket line at Kernstown, leading to a sharp cavalry skirmish.

From prisoners caught in the skirmish Early learns of Wright's departure.

In order to continue to be of service to Lee in the Valley, Early realizes he has to attack the diminished force in front of him to ensure that Grant's force at Petersburg will not be reinforced.

Early marches his army north against Crook on the morning of July 24.

Confederate cavalry encounters its Union counterpart south of Kernstown in the morning and heavy skirmishing broke out.

Couriers alert Crook to the attack.

Crook still believes Early's infantry had left the Valley and sent only two of his division with cavalry support to meet the attack.

In the early afternoon, the infantry of both armies had arrived on the field.

The Confederate position extends well to each side of the Valley pike south of Kernstown, anchored on each flank on high ground and screened by cavalry.

Major General John B. Gordon's division forms the Confederate center along the Valley Turnpike.

Ramseur's division forms on his left with its flank resting on Sandy Ridge to the west of Kernstown, screened by Col. William "Mudwall" Jackson's cavalry.

Brigadier General Gabriel C. Wharton's division, led by Major General John C. Breckinridge, forms the Confederate right, with its flank screened by Brigadier General John C. Vaughn's cavalry.

Early initially conceals his infantry in a woods, sending out his cavalry and skirmish line of sharpshooters to draw the Federals into battle, thus playing into Crook's misconception that the Confederate infantry has left the Valley.

The Union infantry position remains clustered around the Valley Pike in Kernstown anchored by Colonel James A. Mulligan's division on Pritchard's Hill, one of the keys to the Union success at the First Battle of Kernstown in 1862.

To his right, Colonel Joseph Thoburn's division forms on Sandy Ridge.

To his left, future president Rutherford B. Hayes's brigade forms east of the Valley turnpike.

Crook dispatches cavalry under Averell to ride around the Confederate right flank and get in its rear.

As the two armies skirmishers encounter one another the battle gets under way.

It soon becomes apparent to the Federal divisional commanders that they are facing a superior Confederate force which they are hesitant to attack and relay the information to Crook.

Crook quickly becomes impatient by the lack of his divisional commanders to attack the Confederate position, and distrusts their report of the Confederate strength.

He orders Mulligan to attack the Confederates with Hayes's division in support.

At 1 p.m., the Union infantry reluctantly moves out, abandoning Pritchard's Hill.

Mulligan's division bitterly holds its ground at Opequon Church where its advance is halted by Gordon's men.

As Hayes's brigade advances in support, Breckinridge marches Wharton's division to the northeast into a deep ravine that runs perpendicular to the Valley Turnpike.

He turns the division into the ravine, which screens his movement from the Federals on the turnpike.

As Hayes comes up the road past the ravine, Breckinridge orders a charge and the Confederates assault Hayes's exposed flank and send his division reeling in retreat, taking many casualties.

Thoburn is supposed to support Mulligan's right flank in the attack, but because of the topography of the battlefield, he becomes separated from Mulligan and sees little action during the battle.

Gordon's Confederates exploit the gap in the Union line to get on Mulligan's right and when Hayes's division breaks, Mulligan finds himself caught between two Confederate divisions.

Mulligan immediately orders a withdrawal, and is mortally wounded as he tries to rally his troops and prevent a full rout during the retreat.

The Confederate infantry presses the fleeing Federals all the way back through Winchester and the cavalry keep at their heels well into West Virginia.

Averell's cavalry had attempted to flank the Confederates as ordered but had runs headlong into Vaughn's cavalry on the Front Royal Pike.

The shock of the unexpected Confederate cavalry attack sends the Federal cavalry racing towards Martinsburg.

When the fleeing cavalry encounter the retreating wagon and artillery trains north of Winchester, it incites a panic among the Federal teamsters, causing many to abandoned their charges as they get caught up in retreat.

Many of the wagons have to be burned to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands.

As night falls, the Confederate cavalry sweeps the countryside looking for Federals who had become lost from their units in retreat.

Most of the Federals spend the night out in the rain, scattered across countryside, trying to evade capture.

The victory marks the high-water point for the Confederacy in the Valley in 1864.

Crook's broken army retreats to the Potomac River and crosses near Williamsport, Maryland, on July 26.

With the Shenandoah Valley clear of Union forces, Early launches a raid into northern territory, the last made by a substantial Confederate force during the war, burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania as retribution for David Hunter's burning of civilian houses and farms earlier in the campaign. (Hunter had also burned the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, but Early's orders to his cavalry under John McCausland did not mention this as a justification.)

They also attack Union garrisons protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Cumberland, Maryland.

As a result of this defeat and McCausland's burning of Chambersburg on July 30, Grant returns the VI and XIX Corps to the Valley and appoints Major General Philip Sheridan as commander of Union forces here, turning the tide once and for all against the Confederates in the Valley.