Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1863. Gettysburg: 'Great turning point in the history of the rebellion'

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's strategy in invading Pennsylvania was clear to The Journal in July 1863: The "rebel invasion" was an attack on the psyche of the North.

"If [Lee] can overpower our army on the ground now occupied, his victory will yield him larger results than a victory on the plains of Manassas would have furnished," the paper editorialized in its July 2 edition.

But the Union's Army of the Potomac, under Gen. George G. Meade, was "rapidly approaching" Lee's rebel force, the paper reported.

"Where will the great battle take place? Some say near Shippensburg. But in all probability it will be further south. If Lee should take the aggressive, the armies would probably meet in the upper part of the Monocacy valley, not far from Gettysburg."

As those words were being set in type on July 1, the two armies had just begun butchering each other in what would be a three-day struggle, at Gettysburg.

The first word of the fight came by telegraph from Harrisburg, Pa., on the night of July 1. A short item in the paper the next day was headlined: REPORTED FIGHT BETWEEN MEADE AND LEE.

On July 4, the paper published a comprehensive report of the Union victory at Gettysburg, reprinted from the New York Herald.

The Journal was exuberant after the battle, harshly rebuking those "who have for months been asserting that the Army of the Potomac would not fight." (Even though the paper had published a long editorial July 3 -- before the battle results were known -- that recommended contingencies in case the North was defeated.)

In a news analysis on July 8, the paper declared that Gettysburg "must stand as the great turning point in the history of the rebellion."

The following day, July 9, The Journal published a tribute to the fallen soldiers of Gettysburg:

"How many of them now lie sleeping their long sleep on those green fields of Pennsylvania, which shall hereafter be hallowed soil."

Five months later, the paper reported on the Nov. 19 dedication of the national cemetery at the battlefield, and praised the speech delivered that day by the keynote speaker, Edward Everett, a former Massachusetts governor, known as one of the best orators of his time. Everett's two-hour speech was reprinted in full in the paper, consuming nearly a page of tiny type.

The Journal also liked what the president had said at the dedication:

"It is often said that the hardest thing in the world to do is to make a five minutes' speech. But could the most elaborate and studied oration be more beautiful, more touching, more inspiring than those few thrilling words of the President?"

The paper concluded that Lincoln's Gettysburg Address "had, in our humble judgment, the charm and power of the very highest eloquence."