July 4, 1863

ABC:LHS #088   July 4, 1863...

...is the day that the Confederacy knew their days were numbered. At Gettysburg, Philadelphian General George Gordon Meade stopped Pickett's charge and sent Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back south licking their wounds. On the same day, Philadelphian and Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. The two men, who had briefly roomed together at West Point, will always be remembered for that famed day.