Piercing the Union Line

In 1863, the Sherfy family's peach orchard and brick home stood along the Emmitsburg Road. Around noon on July 2, part of Union General Daniel Sickles' ten thousand-man Third Army Corps occupied the orchard after Sickles, originally assigned a position three-quarters of a mile away, decided that the high ground there was stronger and advanced without orders from Union army commander General Meade. His mile-long line formed a salient there, making it vulnerable to attack from two directions and leaving a gap in the main Union position. At 5:30 p.m., after an intense artillery duel, Confederate troops attacked the orchard's southern and then western face, drove the Union defenders back in retreat, and crushed Sickles' salient. In a painting of the scene, Sickles rides ahead of his staff to inspect the front lines of his threatened Third Corps, and the John Rose barn shown there no longer stands.

Pennsylvania · United States