"Boys, you must get out of here! You are surrounded!"

Wayside Exhibit - "Boys, you must get out of here! You are surrounded!"

Exhibit Text: The jumbled rocks you see here sheltered the four Union regiments of Miller’s brigade during a hard two-hour-long fight. Rebel bullets whined and ricocheted, wounding
many. Men in blue from Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania grimly held on tight inside this limestone labyrinth.

Then General Sheridan’s troops, who had been fighting on your right, ran out of bullets, broke ranks, and ran. General Negley called for a retreat as waves of gray-clad soldiers
threatened to overwhelm his men on three sides. This stone stronghold turned into an ankle-twisting deathtrap.

Subtext: Many of the men who fought here had seen the huge slaughter pens of Chicago’s meatpackers. When they saw so many dead and wounded men stacked here, the soldiers called this place “the Slaughter Pen.”

 

Return to Stop 2: The Slaughter Pen