How did Gettysburg happen?

Answer 1

The question is unclear. If you mean the BATTLE of Gettysburg, than this is how it went on: The Battle of Gettysburg was a meeting engagement, a military term meaning that the opposing armies actually ran into each other without prior preparation or knowledge of each other's dispositions. The Union forces under General George Meade were heading north to intercept the Confederate Army of Robert E. Lee, moving east through southern Pennsylvania. On the morning of July 1, 1863, Henry Heth's division of Confederate infantry was marching southeast from Cashtown, PA to Gettysburg, PA (about 10 miles north of the Maryland border) when they were met by the cavalry screens of the Union Army of the Potomac (still to the south). The first shot at Gettysburg was fired by a 3 inch parrot rifle from Calef's cavalry battery, Buford's first cavalry division, United States Army, at about 10 A.M. down the Cashtown pike. Thus began the Battle of Gettysburg.