In the summer of 1863, the gray tide of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army swept north in a grand offensive to end the war. Union forces under new commander George Meade pursued, and amid the rolling hills and green fields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the two sides clashed in one of the Civil War's most pivotal battles. Combining eyewitness accounts with dramatic narration, Richard Wheeler relates these events as they unfolded, from Lee's strategic planning to Meade's failure to deliver a deathblow to the battered Rebels. The result is a startlingly vivid tapestry of war that brings the battle of Gettysburg to life.