It’s easy to forget on a July 4th weekend that the signing of the Declaration of Independence is not the only profound event that we should commemorate on that day. One hundred and forty two years ago, in a little town in southeastern Pennsylvania, the back of the Confederacy was broken. Today is the anniversary of Pickett’s Charge, a disastrous event that represented a watershed–it ended the supremacy of Lee’s army of Northern Virginia and cost them the Battle of Gettysburg, and ultimately, combined with the fall of Vicksburg the next day to Grant, the war itself. Here‘s what I wrote two years ago on the one hundred and fortieth anniversary.

Yesterday, July 2nd, was the anniversary of two critical turning points in that battle, the day before the denoument on Cemetary Ridge–the last-minute defense of Little Round Top, and the suicidal charge of the Minnesotans that broke a gray advance. Powerline has more.