George Gordon Meade came to the command of the Army of the Potomac under the most trying circumstances. The situation of that army and the country was critical. He had been distinguished as a brigade, division, and corps commander under McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker; in brief, he had won laurels on many fields, especially at Fredericksburg, where he broke through the enemy's right and reached his reserves, yet he never had held an independent command. He was of Revolutionary stock (Pennsylvania), though born in Cadiz, Spain, December 31, 1815, where his parents then resided, his father being a merchant and shipowner there. He was graduated at West Point; was a modest, truthful, industrious, studious man, with the instincts of a soldier. He was wounded at New Market, or Glendale, in the Peninsula campaign (1862). He was commanding in person, and ambitious to succeed, prudent, yet obstinate, and when aroused showed a fierce temper; yet he was, in general, just. On the third day after he assumed command of the army its advance corps opened the battle of Gettysburg. What great soldier ever before took an army and moved it into battle against a formidable adversary in so short a time? It must also be remembered that the troops composing his army were not used to material success. They had never been led to a decisive victory. Some of them had been defeated at Bull Run; some of them on the Peninsula; some of them at the Second Bull Run; some of them were in the drawn battle of Antietam; some of them had suffered repulse at Fredericksburg, and defeat at Chancellorsville, and the army in general had experienced more of defeat than success, although composed of officers and soldiers equal to the best ever called to battle. When Meade assumed command, Lee's army was, in the main, far up the Cumberland Valley, and pressing on; Ewell had orders to take Harrisburg, and was then, with most of his corps, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. York and Wrightsville, Pa., were taken on the 28th by Gordon of Early's division. On the 29th Ewell ordered his engineer, with Jenkins' cavalry, to reconnoitre the defences of Harrisburg, and he was starting for that place himself on the same day when Lee recalled him and his corps to join the main army at Cashtown, or Gettysburg.( 3) Longstreet's corps marched from Fredericksburg, June 3d, _via_ Culpeper Court-House, thence up the Rappahannock and along the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge; on the 19th occupied Ashby's and Snicker's Gaps, leading to the Valley; on the 23d marched _via_ Martinsburg and Williamsport into Maryland, reaching Chambersburg on the 27th; thence marched on the 30th to Greenwood, and the next day to Marsh Creek, four miles from Gettysburg, Pickett's division and Hood's brigade being left, respectively, at Chambersburg and New Guilford.( 4)