Battlefield Landmarks - North and West

Gettysburg, the seat of Adams County, was a farming community of about 2400 people in 1863 with no particular military value, but the ten roads converging there helped bring the armies into confrontation, and after the battle townspeople opened their homes and public buildings to thousands of wounded soldiers. Most of Lee's Confederates approached Gettysburg through Cashtown Pass, a gap in South Mountain, and many of Lee's hospital and supply trains later withdrew from the battlefield the same way. On July 1, Union First Corps troops fought desperately on Oak Ridge against Confederate forces attacking Gettysburg from the north and west, but unable to stop the onslaught, they retreated through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill. The right flank of the Union Eleventh Corps stood on Barlow's Knoll on July 1st, and in the late afternoon a Confederate attack there caused the collapse of the Eleventh Corps position, sending Union troops retreating through town to reform on Cemetery Hill. On Benner's Hill, fourteen Confederate artillery pieces from Ewell's Corps were positioned, and at 4 p.m. on July 2nd they opened fire in support of the Confederate attack; twenty-four Union guns on Cemetery Hill, Culp's Hill, and Stevens' Knoll replied, and the unequal duel lasted for an hour and a half and ended in the severe repulse of the Confederate artillery.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania · United States