The Side Trip

Gettysburg Battle Field

The educational part of the trip for Tom Jr. was a visit to the Gettysburg Battle Field, this , in my mind covers me taking Jr. out of school. 

The day was bright and sunny and the park was full of visitors, even two bus loads of Amish from central Pennsylvania were at "Little Round Top" Below are some of the photo we took that day, "Devils Den" is to the left.

Looking north west in the direction of  " Picket Charge" looking from Little Round Top, the guy is pointing in the direction of the charge.

Devils Den...........Confederate troops scrambled through woods and boulder strewn pastures around Devil's Den as the battle raged on the slopes of Little Round Top. Located 900 yards west of Little Round Top, Devil's Den lies at the southern end of a forested ridge that separates Plum Run Valley from the Wheatfield. Its rock formations and steep cliff provided an excellent artillery and infantry position. On July 2, 1863, Devil's Den marked the far left of General Sickles' advanced line. Though the large boulders and towering slope were formidable, it was useless as a defensive position because of the route of the Confederate assault against it. Georgia, Texas and Alabama troops charged at the Union troops here from three directions and most of the fighting swept around the dense pile of boulders. (1)

Detailed map of the battle field

 

Tommy standing at the spot were the famous picture of the Rebel Sharpshooter was taken......a little history about the photo 

Text for Plate 41 in Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, published, 1865-66.

On the Fourth of July, 1863, Lee's shattered army withdrew from Gettysburg, and started on its retreat from Pennsylvania to the Potomac. From Culp's Hill, on our right, to the forests that stretched away from Round Top, on the left, the fields were thickly strewn with Confederate dead and wounded, dismounted guns, wrecked caissons, and the debris of a broken army. The artist, in passing over the scene of the previous days' engagements, found in a lonely place the covert of a rebel sharpshooter, and photographed the scene presented here. The Confederate soldier had built up between two huge rocks, a stone wall, from the crevices of which he had directed his shots, and, in comparative security, picked off our officers. The side of the rock on the left shows, by the little white spots, how our sharpshooters and infantry had endeavored to dislodge him. The trees in the vicinity were splintered, and their branches cut off, while the front of the wall looked as if just recovering from an attack of geological small-pox. The sharpshooter had evidently been wounded in the head by a fragment of shell which had exploded over him, and had laid down upon his blanket to await death. There was no means of judging how long he had lived after receiving his wound, but the disordered clothing shows that his sufferings must have been intense. Was he delirious with agony, or did death come slowly to his relief, while memories of home grew dearer as the field of carnage faded before him? What visions, of loved ones far away, may have hovered above his stony pillow! What familiar voices may he not have heard, like whispers beneath the roar of battle, as his eyes grew heavy in their long, last sleep! (2)

And now the rest of the story.................

One of the most widely recognized and often published photographs on the subject of Gettysburg, this melancholy view of a dead Confederate youth laying behind a stone barricade at Devil's Den was taken on July 5 or 6, 1863 by photographer Alexander Gardner and two of associates. Gardner later published the photograph in his "Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War" accompanied by a lavish description of his discovery of the dead soldier who he described as a sharpshooter killed at his post. Gardner also speculated on the dead soldier's final moments in the sniper's nest, adding that he found his bleached bones still lying in the nest while on a later visit to the site. It was not until 1975 when Gettysburg: A Journey In Time by author-historian William Frassanito was published, that this apparent hoax by Gardner was uncovered. This scene was actually posed by Gardner and his associates who carried the corpse into this position and dressed up the scene with relics of war scattered about the area. A final touch was the rifle standing against the barricade, placed by Gardner who had used the weapon in previous photos. Gardner's assistants, James Gibson and his chief photographer Timothy O'Sullivan, took two photographs of the scene, the clearest of which is shown here. They then moved on to photograph other scenes in the adjacent "Slaughter Pen", leaving the body in the sharpshooter's nest.

Though this scene was contrived by Gardner and his men, it does not detract from the fact that this young soldier died on a battlefield far away from a home where his relatives and loved ones were possibly wondering at the very moment this picture was taken, whether he was alive and well or killed in battle. This soldier's identity has been lost in time, his youthful remains forever preserved in a photographer's image that has haunted historians and the curious for over a hundred and thirty five years. Yet, the use of his body as a photographer's prop should not detract from the tragedy of a life snuffed out in battle. The true facts of his death on the rocky slopes of Devil's Den are better known today, but cannot dim the feeling of loss Americans should feel when we gaze upon this scene and realize that he once had a name, a family, and a home. (3)

No doubt that this position was used as a sniping spot as the rocks were piled up in a defensive mode, and a clear view of  Little Round Top lay beyond. To give you an idea what the area of the Devils Den Looked like, below are some pictures of the site

Looking back towards Little Round Top

Same rocks different angle

looking from below where the other two pictures were taken

There were a lots of places to hide from Union musket and artillery fire in the Devils Den

All in all it was a great trip even though we had a light turn out, its always fun to make the side trips and see a little history while we are out here for the nationals.

credits:

1. http://www.planetware.com/gettysburg/devils-den-us-pa-dd.htm

2.  Sketch Book of the Civil War, New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1959)

3.  http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/tstops/tstd2-11ss.htm