Gettysburg interactive panorama: Devil's Den

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From tourists to soldiers to ghost hunters, visitors to Gettysburg are drawn to Devil's Den, scene of intense fighting on July 2, 1863. I shot the interactive image above of the iconic spot during an early April visit ... 

... early photographers at the site posed "dead" soldiers on the massive boulders, perhaps eager that such scenes would lead to a spike in sales. This image was taken in Devil's Den on Nov. 11, 1863 by Peter Weaver, a Hanover, Pa., photographer, according to research by William Frassanito. (Hat tip: John Cummings of Spotsylvania Civil War blog) ... 

... an enlargement of the photograph, which is available on the Library of Congress web site, shows three"dead" men and their muskets ... 

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

... and these 8th Connecticut veterans and their families visited Devil's Den on Oct. 9, 1894 en route to Antietam, where the regiment nearly broke through the Rebel lines on Sept. 17, 1862. This image is in the Connecticut State Libary archives ...

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

... years later, these soldiers in Company C of the 303rd U.S. Army Tank Corps posed in Devil's Den before they sailed for Europe to fight the Germans during World War I.  This photograph appeared in the Hartford Courant on Aug. 11, 1918. ...


... of course, no visit to Gettysburg is complete without a ghost tour or a little paranormal activity. In April 2008, I met Stewart Cornelius of the Mason Dixon Paranormal Society in Devil's Den, where he was conducting an "investigation." Before I departed, Stewart played a recording of an EVP -- Electronic Voice Phenomena for the uninitiated -- that his group recorded of a Civil War soldier in Gettysburg. "Help me," the "soldier" pleads in a low voice. Real or nutty? Judge for yourself by clicking on the video above.

Gettysburg interactive panorama: East Cemetery Hill

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                   South slope of East Cemetery Hill photographed from near Stevens Knoll.

Major Allen Brady took over the
 17th Connecticut  at Gettysburg after
 its commanding officer was killed.
 This image shows him in 1861, when he
 was an officer in the 3rd Connecticut.
(Photo courtesy Dale Call)

If you're a Civil War buff and have $16,000 to spare, you may want to pick up this 17th Connecticut regimental field report from the Battle of Gettysburg as well as sundry other related post-war documents in The New York Times Store, which features "rare and newsworthy items." Written on July 4, 1863 by Major Allen G. Brady of the 17th Connecticut, it details in military language the regiment's retreat into Gettysburg on the first day of the battle and its stand with the rest of the XI Corps at East Cemetery Hill the next day.

In layman's terms, the 17th Connecticut got the tar knocked out of it on the July 1, 1863 at Blocher's Knoll (now Barlow's Knoll), where its commander, Lt. Colonel Douglas Fowler, was decapitated by artillery fire or gunfire as he sat astride his white horse. Brady succeeded Fowler as commander of the 17th Connecticut, which retreated pell-mell through town and re-formed near East Cemetery Hill, where it was part of a desperate stand by the Union army.

On the evening of July 2, the XI Corps held off North Carolina and Louisiana troops that sought to take strategic high ground at Cemetery Hill. In his field report, Brady referenced his wounding in the right shoulder blade by a shell fragment. Last week, I shot a panorama of East Cemetery Hill from near Stevens Knoll as well as a photo of the nearby 17th Connecticut monument, one of two monuments to the regiment at Gettysburg.

17th Connecticut monument on Wainwright Avenue at Gettysburg. Another monument to the
 regiment is at Barlow's Knoll, where the 17th Connecticut was routed on July 1, 1863.

Gettysburg interactive panoramas: The Wheatfield

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27th Connecticut monument marks where Lt. Col. Henry Merwin was mortally wounded.
            61st New York monument.  The regiment suffered six killed, 56 wounded here.

Lieutenant colonel Henry Merwin was 
mortally wounded at the Wheatfield 
at Gettysburg.

"My poor regiment is suffering terribly," 23-year-old Henry Merwin reportedly whispered after he was cut down leading his little band of men at The Wheatfield at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. From New Haven, Conn., the lieutenant colonel commanded the 75 soldiers in the 27th Connecticut, the smallest regiment in the Union army at Gettysburg. Nearly 50 percent -- 10 killed,  23 wounded and four captured -- became casualties there.

The 27th Connecticut had been  thrasheed at Fredericksburg in December 1862 (19 killed, 86 wounded, three prisoners) and on May 3, 1863 at Chancellorsville, where 280 men surrendered after they were surrounded -- one of the greatest humiliations for a Union regiment during the war.

"Only five minutes before, the men stood at their posts undisturbed by even a doubt of their security," a regimental historian wrote about the Chancellorsville disaster. "Now, astonished at the sudden denouement, we found ourselves about to enter upon the terrible uncertainties of rebel captivity." Among those captured, Merwin was sent to Richmond and then paroled 20 days after his regiment's surrender.

The 27th Connecticut monument at Gettysburg, dedicated on Oct. 27, 1885, marks the spot were Merwin was mortally wounded. It's one of two monuments dedicated to the regiment at the battlefield.