The Salt Lake Tribune Wednesday Morning, July 1, 1953 Established April 15, 1871 Issued every morning by The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., Salt Lake City. Utah Decisive Battle That Preserved the Union This is the 90th anniversary of one of the great and, strategically, most decisive battles of history. On the morning of July 1, 1863, at the little south central Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg began a three day battle which was the turning point of the American Civil War. The Confederate Army of Virginia, under the command of the great General Robert E. Lee, had invaded the North, bypassing the Union Army of the Potomac concentrated along the Rappahannock, in Virginia. The Confederacy was at the high tide of its military successes and Lee hoped to force peace by the invasion of Pennsylvania. He was aiming for Harrisburg and, if successful in battle, perhaps Philadelphia and Baltimore. It was an audacious plan and it came within an ace of succeeding. The two armies were well matched some 80,000 odd under the Union General George Meade, some 75,000 under Lee. Meade, rapidly advancing the Union forces northward, compelled Lee to turn and fight the clash coming at Gettysburg. For three days the armies surged back and forth making names like Seminary Ridge, Culps Hill, Little Round Top, Devils Den, the Peach Orchard and Cemetery Ridge famous in American history. It was a bloody, savage contest fought by men who knew how to fight, led by officers who knew the critical nature of the struggle. It was one of the biggest and most sanguinary battles in history at that time. It featured what was at that day probably the greatest artillery duel and one of the bravest assaults in history Picketts famous charge of some 16,000 men, of whom two thirds were reported killed, wounded or missing. The failure of that charge on July 3 broke the spirit of the Confederate Army and compelled it to retreat, with some 30,000 of its 75,000 men killed, wounded or missing. Although it was 21 months to Appomattox, the Confederacy never recovered from the twin blows of Gettysburg, on July 3, 1863, and the surrender of Vicksburg, last Confederate hold on the Mississippi, July 4, the next day. There is no joy in a victory won at the cost of over 50,000 casualties. Yet had it not been for Gettysburg the Union might well have been destroyed and once the precedent of secession was established this nation might have been split not just in two, but into a dozen warring and contending nations. The glory and power of the United States of America was sealed in blood 90 years ago at Gettysburg and we suspect few, either North or South, dispute the essential Tightness of that decision today.