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By the morning of the third day at Gettysburg the Union Army of the Potomac under General Meade was fully concentrated and solidly entrenched behind stone walls along the crest of Cemetery Ridge with its right flank anchored on Culp's Hill and its left flank protected by the dominating Little and Big Round Tops. Its battlehardened infantry was supported by some 200 guns. Not only did they outnumber the guns available to General Lee, but the Union artillery was recognized as superior in quality to that of the Confederates. The bulk of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was at that time drawn up along Seminary Ridge, parallel to, and a little over a mile to the west of the Union lines.
On the first day of the battle the Confederates had attacked the Federal right. While gaining some local successes, they had failed to take Culp's Hill. On the second day, two divisions of the First Corps, supported on their left by four brigades of Anderson's division, had advanced up the Emmittsburg Road against the Federal left. They had smashed the main body of the Federal Third Corps which had been sent forward into the Peach Orchard, well in advance of the remainder of the Union army, by the Tammany Hall Major General, the “incredible” Dan Sickles, contrary to orders from General Meade, the Army Commander. Nevertheless, the men in gray had been unable to pierce the main Federal lines along Cemetery Ridge.
As his next move General Lee determined upon a massed frontal attack on the Federal center. Lieutenant-General Longstreet, Lee's experienced senior Corps Commander, favored reverting to the defensive, thereby shifting the burden of attacking to General Meade. As an alternative, he urged General Lee to manoeuvre his army to its right so as to get between Meade and the capital at Washington