Gettysburg National Military Park Virtual Tour, Stop#3- Oak Hill

Gettysburg National Military Park
Virtual Tour - Day One
Oak Hill

Oak Hill & the Eternal Light Peace Memorial

Oak Hill from the west. The Eternal Light Peace Memorial sits on the summit of the hill.
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Oak Hill was an important position for the Confederates on July 1st. The gentle slope of this hill and open terrain to the south offered an excellent field of fire for artillery that could send shells into the Union positions at the McPherson Farm and Seminary Ridge, with little opportunity for the Union gunners to reply. A part of the John Forney Farm, Oak Hill rises just north of the Mummasburg Road and in 1863 had an expansive apple orchard on its southern slope. Some time after noon, the Confederate infantry division of Major General Robert E. Rodes arrived and deployed behind the hill, using trees to screen their movement from Union observers. Having received word that troops from A.P. Hill's Corps were going to attack at 1 P.M., Rodes moved his infantry southward to attack from this hill and threaten the Union forces in positions on the McPherson Farm and Oak Ridge.

Gen. Rodes
Miller's History

Confederate gunners set up their artillery pieces amongst the fruit-laden trees of Forney's orchard and opened fire on the Union positions approximately one-half mile to the south once the infantry had passed through. Rodes watched his formations go forward. "(The enemy) had apparently been surprised;" Rodes reported, "only a desultory fire of artillery was going on between his troops and General Hill's; but before my dispositions were made, the enemy began to show large bodies of men in front of the town." Seeing Union troops move up the ridge toward Oak Hill, Rodes quickly ordered three of his brigades to attack. But the movement was uncoordinated and two of his brigades faltered when they encountered stiff Union resistance, heavy artillery fire and unforseen obstacles.

View south from Oak Hill toward the McPherson Farm. The main Union line was positioned on the farm and along the Chambersburg Pike.
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Brig. General Alfred Iverson's Brigade of North Carolina troops set off to strike the flank of Union positions located on Oak Ridge, the northern extension of Seminary Ridge and southwest of this hill. The Carolinians moved southeast toward Oak Ridge in perfect alignment with flags swaying, closing on the suspected Union line without actually seeing the Union positions. Suddenly a host of Union soldiers, the regiments of Brig. General Baxter's brigade, rose from behind a stone wall on the ridge and loosed a volley into the Confederate ranks, knocking down scores of men and officers and stopping the brigade in its tracks. For the survivors of the initial volley, the ensuing fifteen minutes were filled with horror. Every musket shot aimed toward the Union line was answered by a storm of musketry. A number of soldiers in one regiment were able to evade the deadly fire by taking cover behind a slight rise of ground, but the others were frozen as if locked in place while Union fire unmercifully rained down on them.

Captain Lewis Hicks of the 20th North Carolina recalled, "We carried three hundred (soldiers) in(to) action. (The) result of two and one-half hours battle forced us to surrender, and only sixty-two men left. A little ravine in the hillside saved this number. In the absence of white flags the wounded men hoisted their boots and hats on their bayonets to show their desperation. The firing continued about ten minutes, our firing ceased and the Federals moved on us to effect our capture. The smoke was so dense you could not perceive an object ten feet from you. The awful gloom of the moment is beyond description... We felt and heard the tread of the enemy, our minds were in tumult, whether to lie still, to yield, or to die fighting. I jumped up and found myself confronted with a bayonet of a Union soldier pointed at my breast. I grasped the blade and reversed the handle of my sword in a twinkle and offered to surrender. The soldier said in the excitement, he thought I had run him through and he dropped his gun. By that time I was almost over-powered by other Federals rushing at me, so to protect myself I grabbed up the half-dazed Yankee... In a few more seconds their passions cooled and they gave me my life. A long hard imprisonment was ahead of me at Johnson's Island." (from the Agnes Paton Memoir, collection 362, East Carolina University)

Forney's Field near Oak Ridge
The field where Iverson's North Carolinians were trapped by Union troops firing from Oak Ridge on the left of this picture. The McPherson Farm is in the distance.
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Hicks and other survivors were herded to the rear as more troops rushed into the field. Despite efforts to get support to his trapped regiments, General Iverson was helpless to stop the destruction of his command. He had made the error of not scouting the ground in front of his brigade nor had he gone in with them to provide orders and extract them from the trap. The general reported afterward that "no greater gallantry and heroism has been displayed during this war."

Only General Junius Daniel's North Carolina Brigade was successful in bypassing the disaster that befell Iverson's men, and engaged in the fighting near the railroad bed and McPherson Farm. Confederate batteries on Oak Hill renewed their fire on the Union positions while General Rodes reorganized his troops for another effort, sending forward his reserve brigade to strike Oak Ridge and support Daniel's men. Outnumbered and out of ammunition, Union troops eventually abandoned Oak Ridge, allowing Rodes' troops to push southward toward the Seminary and Gettysburg.

By 5 PM, Oak Hill had been abandoned for more favorable positions on Oak Ridge, your next stop.

"Peace Eternal in a Nation United."

The Eternal Light Peace Memorial
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Located on the summit of Oak Hill and surrounded by guns that mark Confederate artillery positions, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial overlooks the July 1st battlefield. The memorial was the sentimental brainchild of Union and Confederate veterans who first proposed the monument during the 1913 Anniversary and reunion celebration at Gettysburg. Funds for the project were difficult to find and the Great Depression postponed its construction. Through the personal efforts of governors, veteran groups and several state legislatures, the memorial project was revived and finally came to fruition.

It was a torridly hot afternoon on July 3, 1938, when former Union and Confederate soldiers met to dedicate this memorial to "Peace Eternal in a Nation United" during the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the battle. A Union and a Confederate veteran pulled the ropes to unveil the memorial shaft that towers 47 1/2 feet above Oak Hill. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the featured speaker at the ceremony and pushed the button which lit the gas flame on top of the monument shaft. "Immortal deeds and immortal words have created here at Gettysburg a shrine of American patriotism," the president began. "We are encompassed by 'the last full measure' of many men and by the simple words in which Abraham Lincoln expressed the simple faith for which they died." The president went on to compare the task set before Lincoln and the American people in 1863, with the task set before Americans in 1938. Of the veterans in blue and gray, Roosevelt reminded the audience, "All of them we honor, not asking under which Flag they fought then- thankful that they stand together under one Flag now."

Dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial

The crowd at the dedication ceremony for the Eternal Light Peace Memorial on July 3, 1938.
PA at Gettysburg

President Roosevelt waves to the crowd before his introduction by Governor Earle of Pennsylvania.
PA at Gettysburg

Pennsylvania State Police estimated that 250,000 people attended the dedication while another 100,000 remained stuck on automobile-packed highways.

The memorial cost $60,000 with contributions from many states including New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. The dark colored stone base was constructed of Maine granite and the lighter colored shaft of Alabama Rockwood Limestone. The memorial has undergone two restoration projects since its construction, the last in 1988 when the gas flame was restored and the monument rededicated with an appropriate ceremony that featured Dr. Carl Sagan as the keynote speaker. Except for a period during the energy crisis of the mid-1970's followed by a nine-year span when it was electrified, the gas-fueled flame has burned continuously twenty four hours a day.

The dedication of the memorial by President Roosevelt was the highlight of four days of activities commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the battle and hosted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. More than 1,800 aged Civil War veterans attended the last great reunion, much of which took place on the Gettysburg College campus. Veterans were housed in white canvas tent camps erected in the fields north of the college, each camp having wooden boardwalks, electric lights, and large mess tents for food service. Parades and military demonstrations by the United States Army featured mounted cavalry charges, infantry demonstrations, and a display of army tanks and vehicles.

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Gettysburg National Military Park
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