 Gettysburg National Military Park
Virtual Tour - Day Two
Seminary Ridge
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Confederate batteries still stand on Seminary Ridge
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Seminary Ridge was the primary Confederate position west of Gettysburg for the final two days of the battle. Named for the Lutheran Theological Seminary that overlooks Gettysburg from its northern point, the ridge runs southward to the Millerstown Road where it becomes Warfield Ridge. This latter ridge extends further southward, turns to the southeast and intersects the Emmitsburg Road. For General Lee, this ridge offered him high ground for observation of the distant Union line and an excellent artillery position to bombard Union positions on Cemetery Hill. Seminary Ridge also offered his troops cover from prying Union eyes, acting as a barrier for him to shift his troops north, south, or against the Union line. On the evening of July 1st, General A.P. Hill aligned the tired infantrymen of his corps along this ridge and these troops occupied it throughout the remainder of the battle. The guns in this photograph stand in an area south of the McMillan Farm. Infantry fighting did not extend up to this location on July 2, but batteries here supported the Confederate attack on Cemetery Ridge, approximately one mile distant.
Tree cover on Seminary Ridge concealed Confederate troops and artillery from view until the attack began.
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Early on the morning of July 2nd, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was positioned on Seminary Ridge and extended northward, through Gettysburg and then east on the Hanover Road. Meade's Army of the Potomac occupied Culp's and Cemetery Hills, with his line extended southward on Cemetery Ridge toward Little Round Top. The U-shaped lines of both armies matched each other. General Lee still held an advantage in numbers that morning and decided to move his troops into positions to strike at Meade from both flanks. General James Longstreet's Corps was ordered southward toward the southern tip of the Confederate line to attack the Union left flank near the Round Tops. Once Longstreet's troops were engaged, General Ewell would send his Confederates against Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill on the Union right flank. General A.P. Hill's Corps was positioned between the two other corps and remained on Seminary Ridge at this location. Hill's men were ordered to lay in reserve until they were needed to support the attack, though heavy skirmishing with Union troops took place in the fields west of the ridge throughout the day. Darkness called a halt to the Confederate assault before the last of Hill's troops could be called into battle.
Cemetery Ridge from Seminary Ridge at the McMillan Farm. Little & Big Round Top are to the right.
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It was from this location on July 3, that Confederates commanded by Generals Pettigrew and Trimble stepped off to participate in the attack on the Union center. Though this attack is called "Pickett's Charge", it was not just Virginia troops under General Pickett who made the assault- regiments from North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi made up the column that marched from this area. The long treeless slope ahead of the Confederates offered no cover from the withering Union cannon fire on Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. When the left brigade of Pettigrew's line began to crumble and retreat, General Trimble pushed his two brigades to the left to fill the gap. The men marched on to the Emmitsburg Road and assaulted the Union line north of the Angle. Like Pickett's men, they too were thrown back after considerable loss.
Seminary Ridge today is marked by West Confederate Avenue, a park road designed and constructed at the turn of the century. It is lined with markers to Confederate brigades and artillery batteries accompanied by almost 80 artillery pieces, including many original guns of Confederate manufacture, that mark the general locations of Confederate units during the battle. The majority of monuments erected by southern states are located on West Confederate Avenue, most notably the North Carolina and Tennessee monuments, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Arkansas monuments, and the Virginia Monument, which has the equestrian statue of General Lee.
Commander of a Division for One Charge
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Major General Isaac R. Trimble accompanied the Army of Northern Virginia northward to Gettysburg without troops to command though he was an experienced officer having previously served under "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley and at Second Manassas where he had been wounded. Reorganization of the army after Chancellorsville left the general without troops to command, so he rode with the army attached to General Ewell's headquarters, a role he was evidently dissatisfied with and expressed his displeasure to General Lee. As fate would have it, the injury to General William Dorsey Pender on July 2nd left a vacancy that Trimble could fill and he was assigned to command Pender's Division in the great attack on the Union center known as "Pickett's Charge." Unfortunately, Trimble's tenure in command was short. He was seriously wounded near the Emmitsburg Road during the charge when a musket ball slammed into his leg, shattering the bone. He relinquished command with the remark: "If the troops (I) had the honor to command today for the first time cannot take that position, all hell can not take it!" That night, the general's leg was amputated in a Confederate field hospital. Captured when the Confederate army retreated, the general convalesced in a Federal hospital for prisoners in Philadelphia. Trimble was exchanged in 1865 but his career as a field officer was finished. After the close of the war, he returned to the city of Baltimore where he had previously been employed as general superintendent of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, and lived a quiet life as a consulting engineer until his death in 1888.
North Carolina's Sacrifice at Gettysburg
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Located at this tour stop is the North Carolina Monument, dedicated to the forty-two regiments and batteries from that state which served at Gettysburg. The North Carolina legislature appointed a special commission of veterans to visit the battlefield park in 1913 and return with a design proposal for a state monument to be place there, but the advent of World War I put the state's plans on hold. It was not until 1927 when the plan was rekindled by the North Carolina Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Governor Angus McLean. The state appropriated $50,000 to purchase the site, contract with an artist for the design and manufacture, and provide landscape features as an appropriate setting.
Dedicated on July 3, 1929, the North Carolina Monument is the work of world re-known sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) whose most famous work is the four presidents on Mount Rushmore. The monument represents a group of North Carolina soldiers in "Pickett's Charge". Fifteen North Carolina infantry regiments, all of which had suffered heavily during the first day's battle, participated in the attack. The monument is accompanied by dogwoods, which is the state tree, and a stone monolith that lists the North Carolina commands present at Gettysburg.
The state's sacrifice at the Battle of Gettysburg was humbling- one in every four Confederate soldiers who fell here was from the "Old North State".
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National Park Service
Gettysburg National Military Park
1195 Baltimore Pike, Suite 100
Gettysburg, PA 17325
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