Gettysburg National Military Park
Virtual Tour - Day Two
Little Round Top: Colonel Patrick O'Rorke

"Ideal of a soldier and gentleman."

Patrick O'Rorke
U.S.M.H.I.
By the age of 27, Irish-born Patrick O’Rorke had successfully overcome many obstacles in his life. Born in 1836 into a family including six brothers and sisters, O'Rorke came to America as an infant. The family settled in Rochester, New York where the elder O'Rorke worked for the railroad until he was killed in an accident. O'Rorke's family was nearly destitute, yet Patrick excelled in his studies and in 1857 received an appointment to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. Being Irish and Catholic in that era added to O'Rorke's obstacles, as both were looked down upon by most Americans. Nevertheless, he excelled and graduated first in the class of 1861. Commissioned to the rank of second lieutenant, O'Rorke participated in the Battle of Bull Run, Virginia in July 1861. A bullet passed through his coat and a horse was killed beneath him, but O’Rorke otherwise escaped unharmed. In July 1862 Lieutenant O’Rorke received a furlough (the army’s term for a vacation) and returned home to Rochester, where he married his childhood sweetheart, Clara Wadsworth Bishop. Soon after his marriage, O’Rorke offered his services to the state of New York, was promoted to colonel, and placed in command of the newly-raised 140th New York Infantry Regiment. Although Colonel O’Rorke believed in strict discipline, one of his soldiers wrote that every man in the regiment "knew that in his Colonel, as long as he did his duty, he had a kind friend." Another soldier in the 140th described O’Rorke as the "ideal of a soldier and gentleman."

On the afternoon of July 2, O'Rorke was leading his regiment out the Wheatfield Road when an excited officer rode up to him. It was General Gouverneur K. Warren, Meade's chief engineer, who had just come from the small hill that O'Rorke's regiment had marched by. Warren quickly explained that re-enforcements were needed on the hill, Little Round Top. Though his regiment was at the back of the column and his orders were to follow his brigade toward the Peach Orchard, Colonel O'Rorke realized that Warren was sincere and the situation critical. He sent a courier forward to find his brigade commander, General Weed, and then turned his regiment around. The young colonel's New Yorkers trotted up the north slope of Little Round Top, reaching the summit just as the Texans were turning the flank of the 16th Michigan. Drawing his sword, O'Rorke led his column on foot down the slope. "Here they are men!", he shouted. "Commence firing!"

These were O'Rorke's last words. In an instant, a bullet cut through the colonel's neck and he fell without a sound as his regiment continued their charge down the slope. The 140th New York managed to stop the Confederate attack, but the cost was high. Besides O'Rorke, twenty five other men in the 140th were killed, 89 were wounded, and 18 were missing in action, probably captured. Lieutenant Porter Farley, the acting adjutant of the regiment, had loved his colonel like a brother and as the battle subsided, he gazed down upon his lifeless body. "Up to that time in my life I had never felt a grief so sharply, nor realized the significance of death so well as then," he recalled later; "for him to die was to me like losing a brother, and that brother almost the perfection of the manly graces."

O'Rorke had died within seconds of receiving his fatal wound. His body was carried back to a Union field hospital several hours later where it was laid on the porch of a house beside those of two other officers who fought at Little Round Top including General Stephen Weed, his brigade commander.

Clara O'Rorke, Patrick's childhood sweetheart and wife of just day's less than one year, waited in tense anticipation after hearing of the fighting at Gettysburg. On July 6, the New York Herald reported the death of Colonel O'Rorke at Gettysburg, though it was not until the next day that Mrs. O'Rorke received confirmation of the sad news. A military escort transported O'Rorke's body to Rochester on July 14. After a service at St. Bridget's Church in Rochester, he was buried in a Catholic cemetery on Pinnacle Hill. Clara never remarried. She entered a convent and lived and worked in Providence, Rhode Island until her own death in 1893.

On September 17, 1889, the state of New York erected a monument to the 140th New York Infantry on Little Round Top. The western face of the monument features a bust of the regiment's beloved colonel, Patrick O'Rorke. Many of O'Rorke's old comrades gathered once more on the slopes of that hill to dedicate their monument and remember their colonel and other fallen comrades. Despite the passage of 26 years, the memory of July 2, 1863 remained vivid for them all. Among the group of veterans was Porter Farley. Although time had tempered his grief, Farley was visibly moved as he spoke to the gathering of his old commander: "we shall always cherish his memory with a loving regard and admiration, which only a noble nature could inspire."

Inspiration and admiration for this brave officer has continued into this century. In 2004, "The Colonel Patrick O'Rorke Memorial Bridge", spanning the Genesee River in Rochester, New York, was dedicated by the citizens of Rochester and Monroe County. Also in attendance were more than thirty five of the colonel's descendents.

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Gettysburg National Military Park
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