 Gettysburg National Military Park
Virtual Tour - Day Two
The Wheatfield
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Aerial view of George Rose's wheatfield.
Gettysburg NMP |
Charge and counter charge on the afternoon of July 2 left this field and nearby woods strewn with more than 4,000 dead and wounded Union and Confederate soldiers. Thousands of troops fought in this area and veterans compared it to a whirlpool- a stream of eddies and tides that flowed around the 19 acres of wheat owned by farmer George Rose, that changed hands six times. This aerial view of the field is toward the west with the Peach Orchard at the central top. The woods that border the field were not as dense in 1863 as they are today, but they did provide cover for the Confederates as they maneuvered around Union positions here. Fighting began in earnest around 4:30 when a Georgia Brigade commanded by Brig. General George Anderson swept through the woods to the south and ran into Brig. General Regis deTrobriand's Union regiments stationed behind a stone wall on the southern end of the field. Some of deTrobriand's regiments had been peeled off to support the positions at Devil's Den, and though he was outnumbered by Anderson's larger regiments, his remaining soldiers kept the Confederates at bay for nearly an hour.
Soldiers who fought in the wheatfield, a platoon of the 110th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
National Archives |
Anderson skillfully maneuvered his soldiers in front of the Union troops, conserving ammunition and manpower, while the overtaxed northeners stubbornly held their position. Re-enforcements were desperately needed as ammunition ran out. DeTrobriand's 17th Maine Infantry had used up all of their ammunition and ordered to withdraw, the regiment backed through the Wheatfield closely followed by Anderson's men who triumphantly swarmed over the wall. General David Birney, commanding this section of the line, ordered the 17th Maine to about face and led them in a desperate bayonet charge. Birney's counterattack temporarily swept Anderson's men from the field, but the southerners were not to be denied. Rallied by their officers, the Georgians renewed their attack as Union re-enforcements marched onto the scene.
Gettysburg NMP | As the fighting raged in the southern end of the Wheatfield, Union troops filtered into the woods to the east and west to slug it out with Confederates moving in from the direction of the Rose Farm. General Joseph B. Kershaw's Brigade of South Carolina soldiers crossed the Rose Farm and attacked Union troops on a small rocky knoll that borders the west side of the field. The fighting swelled to a crescendo and raged steadily for a hour, when the Union troops began to pull out. The famous Irish Brigade arrived and tramped through the wheatfield to, in turn, push the Confederates off the knoll. A determined Kershaw threw his men back into the attack, re-enforced with a Georgia Brigade under Brig. General Paul Semmes. Semmes led two of his regiments into a gap on Kershaw's right in the lower part of the wheatfield, where he was seriously wounded and his men counterattacked by a fresh Union brigade under Colonel John Brooke. At the point of the bayonet, Brooke's small regiments drove Semmes' men back to the Rose Farm orchards south of the house and the two sides fought it out in a see-saw struggle. Southern pressure was relentless and the Union forces began to withdraw from the wheatfield and surrounding woods. The fighting was close and, for a time, hand to hand. Colonel Harrison Jeffords of the 4th Michigan Infantry was bayonetted by a Confederate soldier as he rushed to save the flag of his regiment from capture. Finally, Brig. General Wofford's brigade swept the field and all was quiet except for the groans of the thousands of wounded and dying. George Rose's wheatfield is truly one of the bloodiest sites on the battlefield.
Gen. Semmes
Blue & Gray |
Two generals were mortally wounded during the severe contest in the Wheatfield. Shot in the leg as he led his troops toward the wheatfield, Brig. General Paul Semmes was carried back to a field hospital that night. Weak and pale from loss of blood, Confederate surgeons did all they could to save the general's life. After treatment by the surgeons, the general was taken by ambulance to Martinsburg, West Virginia for further medical care and he appeared to be improving. Then an unstoppable infection set in and there was little the doctors could do to stop it. Semmes lingered in great pain until his death on July 10. The blood-stained uniform coat the general wore at Gettysburg is preserved in the collection of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.
Gen. Zook
Battles & Leaders |
Like General Semmes, Brig. General Samuel Kosciuszko Zook was wounded as he led his brigade into action to engage Confederates in the woods on the west side of the Wheatfield. Born in Pennsylvania and raised near Valley Forge, the charismatic officer commanded one of four brigades from the Second Corps that were rushed to the scene that afternoon. To get his regiments into the field, General Zook ordered his soldiers to march over a protrate line of disorganized Union soldiers and had ridden ahead of his men when he was struck in the abdomen by a Confederate bullet. Aides carried the general to an ambulance that transported him to a Union field hospital on the Baltimore Pike. Here, surgeons pronounced the wound mortal and the general died soon after midnight. General Zook is buried in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
The Loyal Irishmen
Gettysburg NMP |
Set in the woods adjacent to the Wheatfield is one of the park's more impressive and memorable monuments dedicated to the memory of the three New York regiments of the "Irish Brigade", raised from the Irish population of New York City. Many of the soldiers in these celebrated regiments were immigrants who had come to the United States to escape political repression and the "Potato Famine" of the 1850's when thousands starved to death. The brigade was the brainchild of Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish-born transplant and ambitious activist who began the war as a captain in the 69th New York Militia. Meagher returned to New York from the battlefield of First Bull Run, obsessed with organizing an entire brigade of Irish regiments. Over 2,500 Irish soldiers were recruited to fill the ranks of the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York Infantry Regiments of the new brigade, which was later joined by the 28th Massachusetts Infantry. Appointed brigadier general in 1862 and given command of the brigade, Meagher drilled his regiments in the defenses of Washington before they were sent to join the Army of the Potomac. The brigade fought with great distinction and great gallantry during the Peninsular Campaign, Antietam, and at Fredericksburg where the brigade suffered high casualties in the attack against fortified Confederate positions. By the opening of the Gettysburg campaign, the brigade, including the 116th Pennsylvania Infantry, barely mustered 530 men; 198 became casualties during the battle within these woods.
In 1888, a handful of veterans returned to Gettysburg to dedicate their monument of green granite topped by a celtic cross and adorned with the likeness of an Irish Wolfhound, the traditional Irish symbol of loyalty. The work of sculptor Rudolph O'Donovan, it is one of the more unique monuments in the battlefield park.
"Of those who in their manhood died to blot out Slavery's stain,
And rear aloft in all its pride, fair Freedom's flag again!
'Tis ours to raise this cross on high above the Irish dead,
Who showed mankind the way to die, when Truth and Freedom led."
-from Our Fallen Comrades, by William Collins, 1888.
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Gettysburg National Military Park
97 Taneytown Road
Gettysburg, PA 17325
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