Camp Colt: Gettysburg's Tank Training Camp

Gettysburg's own Camp Colt in 1918, stretching over two miles of the historic Gettysburg battlefield.

NPS Photo

In March of 1918 a temporary military camp was established on the fields of Gettysburg National Military Park. The United States had been involved in the First World War for almost a year and the country had transformed itself to meet the challenges of this conflict. Across the country young men were entering the armed forces in record numbers and the majority of them had no military training. It was paramount to get these new recruits ready to head overseas. Training camps were established across the country with several of them being placed on Civil War battlefields. In 1917 an unnamed infantry camp had been created on the battlefield of Gettysburg but since it mostly consisted of canvas tents it was closed before the onset of winter.

When spring arrived in 1918, the US Army decided to establish a new training facility at Gettysburg. It was to be called Camp Colt. This camp focused on the training of men to work with and pilot tanks. Tanks were one of the new inventions of the First World War and the US Army was anxious to create a tank corps dedicated to the use of these new weapons.

The camp was established along the Emmitsburg Road, running south through the fields where the famous “Pickett’s Charge” attack took place on July 3, 1863. The camp ultimately stretched two miles south of the town of Gettysburg. Within the limits of the camp, these new soldiers would learn not only the basics of life as an infantry soldier, but also what it meant to be a tanker.

The Army selected a recent West Point graduate as commanding officer for the new training camp. Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower was transferred to the camp in mid-March and given the task of building Camp Colt into an efficient training center. The men drilled and trained across the historic fields in preparation for either assignment to other camps or to head overseas to the front lines in France.

Eventually in June, the camp received its first and only tank. While the townspeople were puzzled by this strange new vehicle, the men in camp began to familiarize themselves with the FT-17 Renault tank.The camp dominated the battlefield from its inception in March until the war ended in November 1918. The camp had already begun to demobilize before the armistice in preparation for winter but with the end of the war the pace quickened.

By the spring of 1919 almost all signs of Camp Colt had been removed from the landscape. Today Camp Colt is commemorated on the battlefield by a National Park Service wayside panel, as well as a white pine tree close to the Emmitsburg Road on the southern edge of Gettysburg. The tree was planted by Camp Colt veterans in 1954 to commemorate their time in Gettysburg, and to remember their former commander, who was then the President of the United States. On a battlefield of stone monuments, these Camp Colt veterans chose to remember their time with a living memorial, one that still stands today.