Transcription: The First Day, July 1st. Neither Lee nor Meade had envisaged giving battle at Gettysburg, but the first light of dawn, the light cavalrymen of General John Buford, who formed the advance guard of the First Union Corps, had occupied the town and, dismounting from their horses, had lined up on McPherson Ridge to block the Third Confederate Corps of General Ambrose Hill on the Chambersburg Road. Support for the light cavalrymen was provided by the arrival in the nick of time of the 1st and 9th Unionist Army Corps, who drew up in a crescent formation in defense of Gettysburg, while to the north an ...
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