Getting To Know. . .Eliakim Parker Scammon

I'm willing to bet not many out there in the Civil War community are readily familiar with Union general Eliakim Parker Scammon. . .the cool name notwithstanding. So let's take the time to get to know this rather obscure officer.

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Educated at West Point, Colonel Eliakim Scammon seemed to enjoy more success as a scholar in the classroom than as a commander on the field of battle. Born in Whitefield, Maine in 1816, Scammon graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1837, ranking ninth in a class of fifty graduates. Among Scammon’s classmates in the illustrious Class of 1837 were future Civil War Generals Braxton Bragg, Jubal Early, John Pemberton, John Sedgwick, and Joseph Hooker. He entered the artillery upon his graduation, but one year later was transferred to the corps of Topographical Engineers. Scammon served against the Seminoles in Florida, then, as a first lieutenant, saw action in the Mexican-American War as a member of General Winfield Scott’s staff, serving alongside Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan. Following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the war with Mexico in 1848, Scammon performed surveying duties along the northern lakes. In 1855, he was promoted to captain and the following year, was sent to the New Mexico Territory to help map and construct roadways. However, on June 4, 1856, Scammon was dismissed from the service for disobedience of orders and for “Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Military Discipline.” Apparently unconcerned with his dismissal, Scammon began his career in education later that same year when he accepted a professorship at St. Mary’s College in Ohio. After teaching here for two years, Scammon then became president of Cincinnati College, a position he held until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
On June 14, 1861, a little more than five years after being forced out of the army, Scammon was named commander of the 23rd Ohio Volunteers, a unit known to history as the “President’s Regiment,” for in its ranks served a young Rutherford Hayes and a young William McKinley. The 23rd was assigned to what became known as the Kanawha Division, which initially served in the mountains of western Virginia. Scammon must have impressed his superiors, for in the fall of 1861 the forty-five-year-old professor was given brigade command. In the spring of 1862, the Kanawha Division, under the command of General Jacob Cox, was transferred to John Pope’s Army of Virginia, and then, in the early September reorganization of the Army of the Potomac, was attached to the 9th Corps. Scammon’s brigade was heavily engaged at South Mountain on September 14, 1862. During this battle, Lieutenant Colonel Hayes, leading Scammon’s 23rd Ohio, fell grievously wounded, and General Jesse Reno, commanding the 9th Corps, was killed. Command of the Ninth Corps devolved upon General Jacob Cox upon Reno’s death. Succeeding Cox in command of the Kanawha Division was Colonel Scammon, the division’s senior brigadier. Scammon thus held divisional command for less than three days before the battle of Antietam.
Although Scammon held command of the Ninth Corps’s Kanawha Division, his role at the battle of Antietam was minimal as he was left, essentially, without a command. His first brigade, under Colonel Hugh Ewing was attached to Isaac Rodman’s Division, which crossed Snavely’s Ford and supported the advance of Rodman’s two brigades during its attack on the afternoon of September 17. Scammon’s second brigade, under Colonel George Crook, made an aborted attack against the Lower, or Burnside’s Bridge, and later supported General Willcox’s Division in its advance toward Sharpsburg. The two brigades were thus separated. Total casualties in Scammon’s Kanawha Division at Antietam numbered 255, a figure that included 37 killed, 191 wounded, and 27 missing.
Despite his limited role at Antietam, Scammon was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers less than one month later, but was soon detached from the Army of the Potomac with the rest of the Kanawha Division and sent back to the mountains of western Virginia. Here Scammon served as both the commander of the Subdistrict of the Kanawha in the Department of the Ohio, and as the commander of the 1st Brigade in the Kanawha Division. In the early spring of 1863, he was once again given divisional command in this department. On February 3, 1864, Scammon was captured by Confederate guerillas while sleeping onboard on the SS Levi, a steamer that was anchored in the Kanawha River near Red House Shoals, West Virginia. Scammon was held as a prisoner of war for six months until exchanged on August 3, 1864. Upon his exchange, it was evident that Scammon’s health had greatly deteriorated during his months of imprisonment. In an effort to restore his well-being, Scammon was sent to South Carolina where, in October, he took command of the Northern District, Department of the South. Remarkably, a little more than two weeks after his arrival here, the hard-luck Scammon was once again taken prisoner. His time in confinement this time, however, lasted just five days. After his second exchange from a Confederate prison camp, Scammon was sent further south, where he served out the duration of the war as commander of the District of Florida, in the Department of the South.
Eliakim Scammon was mustered out of United States service on August 24, 1865. After the war, Scammon continued to serve his country, but this time in a diplomatic role. In 1866, he was made U.S. Consul to Prince Edward Island in Canada, a position he held for four years. Scammon then settled in New Jersey, where, in 1875, he once again entered the academic world, becoming a professor of mathematics at Seton Hall College. Retiring ten years later, Scammon spent the final years of his life in New York City. On December 7, 1894, ten days shy of his seventy-eighth birthday, Scammon succumbed to cancer. His remains were laid to rest in Long Island’s Cavalry Cemetery.

"His Death Cry. . .Is Still Heard In The Ear of Imagination:" The Death of Sergeant Alexander Prince, Co. B, 48th Pennsylvania

At the Battle of Antietam, the 48th Pennsylvania suffered a loss of 8 men killed and 51 wounded. While most of these losses were sustained on that bloody Wednesday, September 17, 1862, there were at least two men who lost their lives as a result of fighting on the following day. They were nineteen-year-old Private John Robinson, a laborer from Pottsville, and nineteen-year-old Sergeant Alexander Prince, a laborer from St. Clair, both of Company B. 

Prince was shot and killed while trying to succor a wounded man caught between the lines. To be gunned down while in this act of mercy within full view of the regiment naturally left a deep impression upon the soldiers of the 48th. Accounts of the incident were recorded in Captain James Wren's diary, as well as both regimental histories. 

On September 18, 1874, the twelfth anniversary of Prince's death, Oliver Christian Bosbyshell, former major of the 48th, penned the following account, which appeared in Pottsville's Miners' Journal:

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Position held by the 48th PA skirmishers at Antietam on September 18, 1862. . .Fence lines the Otto Farm Lane, looking west toward Branch Avenue, where Confederate pickets from A.P. Hill's and D.R. Jones's divisions exchanged shots with the 48th's skirmishers. 

The Story of Alexander Prince, Company B, 48th Pennsylvania

Miners' Journal, September 18, 1874

By Oliver C. Bosbyshell

"Who of the old members of the 48th regiment can ever forget Alex Prince, that noble Sergeant of Company B? He was a grand soldier and the embodiment of all the virtues that go to make up the true man. Handsome in person, tall, well built; a compact rounded figure straight as an arrow, a fine, clean, honest continence with large light lustrous, frank eyes. Foremost in the manner of the duty, strict in the discharge, but kind without fault, a soldier to be proud of, a friend to cherish and his nature to emulate. We read of a being who came to earth and took upon himself the nature of man, who lives a pure, spotless life and died ignominious of death for what that and through the sacrifice of humanity could gain eternal life. He gave his life a ransom with a reverence be it said. Prince gave his life a ransom, but let me recall the incident.

The work of the bloody 17 September 1862 at Antietam closed only with the dark shadows of night. The bridge so tenaciously held and so staunchly assailed, that we wrested from the enemy. A whole afternoon was spent in stubborn fighting on the summit of a shallow hill, yes I write to the boys of the 48th, remember the spot? The 48th under [Lt. Col. Joshua] Sigfried with the 51st under [Col. John] Hartranft determined to hold the line with cold steel before yielding. We picketed the same ground all that night and in the morning of the 18th found us still on the same line. During the day we shifted our position further to the left. The main body of the regiment covered by a corn field. This corn field and the clearing to the left was occupied by our skirmish line. Constant firing was kept up through the whole day and between the opposing skirmishers. Prince occupied a small rifle pit burrowed in the ground in a clearing to the left of the corn field. The regular sharp crack of his rifle evidenced his alertness. The ground between the lines fought over the previous day was strewn with dead men, and here and there a badly wounded soldier lay unable to crawl into either line. Relief could not be extended for so close were the contestants, that the least exposure of the person would result in instant injury.

A wounded soldier lay near Prince's position and his piteous cries for water touched to the heart of our gallant comrade. 'Water! Water! For the love of God water!,' begged the crippled man. Prince's warm nature could not rest at the call for help, this wounded probably dying comrade might be saved, if not whether he wore blue or gray, a fellow being suffering within sight and hearing prompted action and Alex, despite the risk, determined to aid him. He knew full well his own danger in the attempt; his strong buoyant spirit could not bear to remain quiet witness to such suffering; relieve him he must. Removing his canteen from his shoulder and fastening the strap clearly to the point of the bayonet, he pushed it out over the top of the pit to the full extent of his arm. Too short his reach, the sufferer could not be aided without a greater effort. Realizing his task and nobly determined to take it, the prize, the saving of a life. He threw himself over the side of the rifle pit, hug close to the ground, the object of his great love eagerly watching the long forth draft, his very eagerness elegantly urging Prince on. He had almost reached with the life saving water, his nearing grasp when bang, whiz, and the death bearing lead sinks deep into the heart of the poor Alex. A wild spring in the air, an earthly shriek that rises above the din of the battle, and Prince falls. A sacrifice. He died to save his fellow man, can anything be more sublime? Prince by name, a very prince by nature.

When the monument rises to commemorate the men of the 48th and give bright and dearing praises to [Col. George] Gowen [killed in action at Petersburg on April 2, 1865], think in the fullest of Alex Prince who gave a ransom. Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends."

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Twenty-one years after writing this account for the Miners' Journal, Bosbyshell published a regimental history of the 48th Pennsylvania. In it, he also discussed Prince's heroic and selfless act, adding that Prince's "death cry as he leaped into the air, and fell to rise no more, is still heard in the ear of imagination."(1)

After being struck down and killed, Sergeant Prince's lifeless body lay in the open. His comrades in the 48th back on the skirmish line--shocked and some no doubt outraged about the manner of his death--"were very ancious [sic] to get his Body," wrote Captain James Wren, but "We dare not go into him as the enemy had range on that ground." Finally, and unable to bear it any longer, several members of Company B crawled forward and were able to bring it back to their line. Captain Wren detailed several men to carry the body back across the Antietam Creek and "had it Buried in the field near the [Burnside] Bridge." The following day, Wren met Sergeant Prince's brother Elbridge Prince, who served in a 9th Corps artillery unit. "He told me he saw his Brother before he was Buried," recorded Wren, "and I am glad he had seen him, even if he was dead. I gave him his pocket book, which contained $1.30 Cents in money & 3 rings & 5 buttons & also the Bible."(2)  While not known for certain, it is likely Prince's body was later removed and reburied  buried as an "Unknown" in the Antietam National Cemetery.

Notes:

(1) Oliver C. Bosbyshell. The 48th In The War. (Philadelphia: The Avil Printing Company, 1895). 82. 

(2) James Wren. Captain James Wren's Civil War Diary: From New Bern to Fredericksburg, edited by John Michael Priest. (New York: Berkeley Books, 1990): 95.

Arranging A General's Funeral. . .

This past weekend, I had the great privilege to participate in the "Sparks Around the Campfire" event in Schuylkill County. This four-day-long series of special programs highlighted my native county's Civil War history. By all accounts, the event was an unqualified success, drawing hundreds to the various programs. (You can read more about the success of this event by clicking here ). It was an honor for me to asked to participate, and I have to thank Stu Richards and the members of the planning committee for the invitation. (Read Stu's excellent blog on Schuylkill County Military history).

On Saturday morning, along with fellow Schuylkill County Civil War buff and friend Tom Shay, I led a walking tour of the Presbyterian Cemetery in Pottsville, and despite the rain, we had about 30 people come along. In the afternoon, I delivered a presentation on the life and forgotten service of James Nagle. In the end, I could not have been more pleased. Before the morning program, I was approached by an older man, a native of Pottsville, who had been in the antiques business for years. He had with him a photocopy of one of his Civil War documents, thinking that both Tom and I would be interested. He was absolutely correct. What he had was a copy of the Funeral Arrangements for General James Nagle, of interest to me, certainly, but also a great little piece of history.

The funeral arrangements were prepared on August 23, 1866, just the day after the general's death. Planning the arrangements was Joshua K. Sigfried, former colonel of the 48th Pennsylvania and assisting him was Oliver Christian Bosbyshell, former major of the 48th and the regimental historian. The copy this gentleman from Pottsville had was sent to Henry Krebs, and reads as follows:

Pottsville, Aug. 23, 1866
To Lieut. Henry Krebs.
You are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of the late Brig-General James Nagle, on Saturday Afternoon, next, at 2 o'clock. Please reply

Respectfully Yours,
J.K. Sigfried

N.B. Specially requested to wear uniforms if convenient.

At the bottom of the invitation was a note penned by Bosbyshell:

Gen. Sigfried desires me to state that you are appointed one of his Aides. Please invite all soldiers in your neighborhood to participate in the funeral. See enclosed Programme.

The program included the following:

The following order of Parade will be observed at the Funeral of the late Brig. Gen. James Nagle on,

Saturday, August 25, 1866

The line will be formed at 1 o'clock P.M. in Centre Street, right resting on Market Street, in the following order:
1st Brig. Gen. J.K. Sigfried Commanding and Staff
2d All mounted Officers in uniform
3d Uniformed Military Organizations--according to rank.
4th Soldiers' Central League of Pottsville, consisting of discharged Soldiers in Citizens's Dress, with Fatgue Cap, White Gloves and mourning badge on left arm.

The order of march from the house to the Cemetery will be as follows:

Military Escort

Pall Bearers Hearse Pall Bearers

Horse and Groom

Mourners

Citizens in Carriages

Fire Department

Members of the Boro Council and Boro Officers

Members of the Court and Bar, and County Officers

Citizens of Foot

The line will move over the following route: From hourse to Market Street; down Market to Centre; down Centre to Mahantango; up Mahantango to Clay; down Clay to Howard Avenue; down Howard Avenue to Cemetery.

All soldiers who have uniforms are requested to wear them, and those without to attend in fatigue cap and white gloves.

All soldiers not connected with the Soldiers' Central League, are invited to meet at its room, in Clayton's Hall, at 12 o'clock to join in with it.

The citizens of Pottsville are requested to suspend business between the hours of 1 and 4 o'clock P.M. on Saturday, 25th inst., and that colors and hourse along the route be draped in mourning.

General James Nagle died at the age of 44 on August 22, 1866; his funeral was held on Saturday, August 25.

Lieutenant Henry Krebs was among the thousands that turned out that Saturday to pay their last respects to the general.

I cannot thank the kind gentleman from Pottsville enough for generously providing me with a great piece of Schuylkill County Civil War history.

Major General Napoleon J.T. Dana

Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana

(www.generalsandbrevets.com)

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With his father an officer in the regular army who fought in the War of 1812, his grandfather a veteran of the Revolution, and being as he was named after three of the greatest military leaders of the Nineteenth Century, it seemed only logical that Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana would himself make a career out of the military. A graduate of West Point, Dana was severely wounded during the Mexican-American War, and during the Civil War was struck down with a serious wound at the battle of Antietam, keeping him out of service for the next ten months. Upon his return, Dana was assigned to backwater command posts along the Gulf Coast. Fearless and highly competent as an officer on the field of battle, Dana nonetheless remains as somewhat of an overlooked figure in Civil War history.
Napoleon J.T. Dana was born on April 15, 1822, in Fort Sullivan, Eastport, Maine, where his father, Nathaniel Dana, a West Point graduate and officer in the 1st U.S. Artillery, was then stationed. Sadly, Nathaniel Dana died when his son Napoleon was just eleven years old. While Dana’a paternal grandfather, Captain Luther Dana, served as a naval officer during the Revolution, his maternal grandfather, Woodbury Langdon, served as a member of the Continental Congress alongside his brother John Langdon, who would later become first President pro-tempore of the U.S. Senate as well as governor of New Hampshire.
Five years after his father’s death, at the age of sixteen, Napoleon Dana entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, and four years later, in 1842, graduated twenty-ninth in a class of fifty-six. West Point’s Class of 1842 remains as one of its most illustrious, for in addition to Dana, a number of other soldiers who later gained distinction during the Civil War graduated that year including James Longstreet, Daniel Harvey Hill, William Rosecrans, John Pope, John Newton, George Sykes, Richard H. Anderson, and Abner Doubleday. Upon graduation, Dana was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 7th U.S. Infantry and assigned to garrison duty at Fort Pike, Louisiana, where he spent most of the next three years.
In 1845, with war clouds looming, Dana was sent with his regiment to Texas where they formed part of Zachary Taylor’s Army of Occupation. When hostilities finally erupted, Dana turned in commendable performances during the battles of Fort Brown, Texas, in May 1846, and at Monterrey in September. Promoted to first lieutenant the following February, Dana then traveled south and under General Winfield Scott took part in the siege of Vera Cruz. During the battle of Cerro Gordo on April 18, 1847, while charging the entrenched Mexican position on Telegraph Hill, Lieutenant Dana was struck in the hip and fell gravely wounded. So severe was Dana’s wound that he was left for dead on the field of battle, and lay there for some thirty-six hours until rescued by a burial detail. Brevetted captain for his actions at Cerro Gordo, Dana next served two years on recruiting duty and as Assistant Quartermaster at the rank of captain in Boston. Transferred to Minnesota late in 1848, Dana served for six years at Fort Snelling at Fort Ridgely before resigning from the army on March 1, 1855. Following his resignation, Dana settled in St. Paul and became a banker. Unable to keep away from the military life, Dana also served as brigadier general in the Minnesota State Militia from 1857 until civil war erupted in 1861.
Offering his service to the United States, Dana was commissioned colonel of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers following the promotion of Willis Gorman to brigade command on October 2, 1861. Leading his regiment at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Dana assumed command of the Second Brigade of Charles Stone’s Division following the Union fiasco there. On February 3, 1862, Dana was promoted to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers and one month later was given command of the Third Brigade, Second Division, in the Army of the Potomac’s Second Corps. During the Peninsula Campaign and Seven Days’ Battles in the late spring and early summer of 1862, Dana saw action at the battles of Yorktown, Seven Pines, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill, all the while earning a reputation as a solid and dependable officer. Shortly after the latter battle in early July 1862, however, Dana fell ill and sought medical treatment. His doctors determined that he was suffering from a serious case of remittent fever and sent him to Philadelphia, where he spent the next six weeks recovering from his illness. He returned to his command at the outset of the Maryland Campaign.
At the battle of Antietam, Dana’s Brigade suffered heavy loss in the fierce fighting in the West Woods. Sometime around 7:30 on the morning of September 17, Dana’s men crossed the Antietam at Pry’s Ford and marched to the support of the First and Twelfth Corps on the right of the Union line. Second Corps Commander Edwin Sumner arranged his Second Division, under the command of John Sedgwick, into three parallel lines of battle, with Dana’s Brigade constituting the second line. Planning to push this division due west and drive what remained of the Confederate forces to his front through the village of Sharpsburg and toward the Potomac River, Sumner led his men through the East Woods, across the Hagerstown Turnpike, and into the West Woods. Dana’s Brigade, marching some fifty yards in rear of Willis Gorman’s lead brigade, came under artillery fire as they neared the Turnpike but continued to push forward. Dana’s New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan volunteers entered the West Woods at about the same time as Gorman’s Brigade became engaged on the western edge of the woodlot. Just moments after the last of Dana’s troops entered the woods, however, his left flank was struck by the advancing Confederate troops of McLaws’s and J.G. Walker’s Divisions. Struck hard on the flank and in danger of being surrounded, Dana scrambled to meet the oncoming threat and get his men to safety. Being the middle of Sedgwick’s three brigades, however, it was tough for Dana to maneuver his troops. Sometime during the fight, he was struck in the left leg by a musket ball but he remained with his command until they reached the relative safety of the Miller Farm. By this time the pain in his leg had become unbearable. Dana turned command of his brigade over to Colonel Norman Hall of the 7th Michigan before being carried from the field and to a Union field hospital.
Sedgwick’s Division had lost nearly half its number in just thirty minutes of combat in the West Woods. Casualties in Dana’s Third Brigade equaled 900 men killed, wounded, and missing, with the highest loss occurring in the 59th New York and 7th Michigan. Dana was himself cared for in a field hospital for two days in nearby Keedysville before being sent first to Washington and then to Philadelphia to recuperate.
Although promoted to major general of volunteers on November 29, 1862, Dana did not return to duty until July 1863, when, during the Gettysburg Campaign, he commanded the Defenses of Philadelphia and a short time later the Second Division of General Darius Couch’s Department of the Susquehanna. After General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was turned back at Gettysburg and retreated across the Potomac, General Dana was sent to the Gulf of Mexico where he saw limited action at Fordoche Bayou and in the expedition that landed at Brazos Santiago and marched to Laredo, Texas. Given divisional command in the 13th Army Corps, Department of the Gulf, in September 1863, Dana subsequently commanded the District of Vicksburg from August 19 to December 8, 1864, when he was named head of the Department of Mississippi. Serving in this capacity until May 14, 1865, Major General Napoleon Dana tendered his resignation from the army two weeks later and returned to civilian life.
In the years following the Civil War, Dana engaged himself in a variety of occupations and endeavors. In 1866, he was named as a general agent for the American-Russian Commercial Company of San Francisco and for the next five years worked for this company in California, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. Dana next entered the railroad business and became superintendent of a number of lines, mainly in Illinois, including the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. In 1885, he was named president of the Montana and Union Railway Company. Retiring from his work on the railroads in the 1890s, General Dana next served as Deputy Commissioner for the United States Department of Pensions. In 1894, in a Special Act of Congress, Dana was commissioned back into the army at the rank of captain and then placed on the retired list so as to enable him to receive a pension.
Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana lived out the final years of his life in peaceful retirement in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His death, attributed to apoplexy, came on July 15, 1905. The old soldier was laid to rest in Portsmouth’s Harmony Grove Cemetery.

General Dana's Final Resting Place. . .

(www.findagrave.com)

Gettysburg Scrapbook: The First Day

I woke this morning a little after six o'clock, and after opening a window in my living room I noticed it rained quite a bit over night. By the time I was up, however, the rain had ended and the weather showed all the promise of a beautiful summer morning. Temps were low, a light breeze was blowing, so I figured I'd do something I don't often do. . .tramp around the Gettysburg battlefield. I've been living here for four years already, but it seems I spent more time on the fields before I moved. During the springs and summers at least, I spend five days a week at the Antietam battlefield, and by the time I get home, well, there just isn't that much time. I thought this morning, then, that I would go out and maybe recapture that almost indescribable feeling I got when I didn't live in Gettysburg, but years back when I traveled here on weekends or while on vacation with my family.

It was a glorious morning, and I had my camera along. So here are just a few images I captured early today while tramping north and west of Gettysburg, on the fields where the three-day battle began. . .

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General John Buford's Statue, and, just yards behind. . .

The equestrian statue of General John F. Reynolds.

The McPherson Farm, with the McPherson Woods behind. Reynolds was slain early that Wednesday morning, July 1, 1863, leading his 1st Corps into action.
Another view of the McPherson barn, this time looking north-east from the woodline.
It's soon going to be time for harvest, I suppose. Here is the statue of General Abner Doubleday (you know, the guy who didn't invent baseball) rising above and behind the rows of corn.
And, of course, the famed Lutheran Seminary.
Cannon atop Oak Hill (McPherson barn in far distance, to the right of the barrel).

This picture is looking south-westerly over Gettysburg. . .the heights south of town, where the Army of the Potomac would rally after their reverse on the First Day can be seen beyond.

A rare Whitworth Gun with the Peace Light beyond. . .
Looking north toward Oak Hill from modern-day Howard Avenue, where the 11th Corps would go into position. By the time Howard's men arrived, Rodes's Confederates had already reached Oak Hill and were hammering away on the right flank of the Federal 1st Corps, held by General John Robinson's men. . .two brigades, which, by the way, had seen terrible combat in the Cornfield at Antietam nine and half months earlier.
Another view of Oak Hill (far distance, right. . .you might see the Peace Light). Oak Ridge, where Robinson's men tenaciously held on despite terrible loss before being driven back is to the left. . .This picture was also taken from the perspective of the 11th Corps. Soon after settling into line, Howard's men came under attack from General George Doles's Confederate brigade, which advanced north-to-south, or right-to-left on this picture.
The Monument of the 74th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Schimmelfennig's brigade, 11th Corps.
Francis Barlow (who commanded a New York regiment in the 2nd Corps at Antietam) fell seriously wounded at Gettysburg while in command of a division in the 11th Corps.
A close-up on Barlow's statue has him clutching his kepi as he surveys the ground. . .and Jubal Early's advancing Rebs.

An eagle, with clipped wing, precariously situated atop the small monument to the 27th Pennsylvania along Coster Avenue in town. . .

The 153rd Pennsylvania, recruited from the Lehigh Valley

I could not have asked for a better morning. . .spending two hours on the Gettysburg battlefield on my off-day from work at Antietam.

Schuylkill County Civil War Commemoration. . .

As noted earlier this week, I will be participating in a days' long commemoration of my native Schuylkill County's Civil War history, which will take place in Pottsville in early September. More informtaion regarding this upcoming event can be found here.