The Battle of Gettysburg reenactments through the years
See photos from reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg through the years.
It might have been the Battle of Taneytown
By Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun
June 29, 2013
If Union Gen. George Gordon Meade had his way, the battle that changed the course of the Civil War would have taken place on Maryland soil.
A fight in a Pennsylvania crossroads town called Gettysburg wasn’t in his plans for July 1, 1863. Nor was the Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee, looking for a fight that day and in that place. But a chance encounter of a Confederate unit in search of supples and Union cavalry on patrol foiled Meade’s plans to set a trap for Lee in Carroll County.
What might have gone down in history as the Battle of Taneytown — or Big Pipe Creek — never happened. Instead the three-day battle took place about 15 miles up the road and across the state line. It would end in a Confederate defeat, after Lee’s attempt to storm Union-held Cemetery Ridge ended in the bloody repulse of Pickett’s Charge.
A century and a half later, the Battle of Gettysburg still grips the imagination of scholars and ordinary Americans. Over the next weekweek, an estimated 200,000 people are expected to jam the area for dozens of events that commemorate the battle. That includes a ceremony Sunday, followed by a procession to the national cemetery established after the battle.