Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee's invasion of the North.
118th Infantry Regiment (United States)
In December of the same year, General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia defeated Union General Ambrose E. Burnside's Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Fredericksburg, where Union forces repeatedly made frontal assaults across open ground against fortified Confederate positions. The string of southern victories came to an end when Robert E. Lee was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettsyburg between 1 and 3 July 1863 by the Army of the Potomac under General George G. Meade. This is regarded by most historians as the turning point of the Civil War. The Retreat from Gettysburg was arduous, and the weakened South Carolinians were defeated again at the Battle of Lookout Mountain in November 1863. The survivors of the original 1st South Carolina would go on to retreat from Union forces at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm in September 1864, but in their last major action of the war, the Second Battle of Deep Bottom, they forced a Union retreat. After the South's surrender, the 1st South Carolina was called up again in 1898 to participate in the Spanish–American War, but did not see any major combat.