General George Gordon Meade was assigned the task of stopping Lee at Gettysburg.
When General Robert E. Lee launched his offensive against Pennsylvania from June 3, 1863, Meade was chosen to assume as commander of the Army on June 28, 1863, just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, after Major General John Reynolds declined to be named himself. Meade thought at first about establishing a defensive line behind Pipe Creek, but accepted Winfield Scott Hancock's recommendation that he would do better if he concentrated the troops at Gettysburg. Facing Lee's bloody offensive in Gettysburg, he distributed his troops among the threatened places on the federal lines, just in time to stop each of the assaults of the Confederate Army chief. After three days of desperate, bloody and deadly fighting, Meade achieved victory in one of the decisive battles of the war, a success for which he received the congratulations of the United States Congress.