December 09, 2013

If you’re familiar with the Gettysburg tour route, you might know that if you turn right onto Wright Avenue at the 20^TH Maine monument instead of heading straight up Sykes Avenue and Little Round Top, you’ll see a few seldom-visited monuments and markers. I never see many cars back here in the “boondocks”. If you want some photos that aren’t mass-produced all over the internet, this is a good place.

I particularly like visiting the Vermont lion who eternally watches over the position held by the First Vermont Brigade. An exhausted group of men they must have been: they’d spent much of July 2^ND marching over thirty miles, only to arrive on this field of death. The brigade consisted of four Vermont Infantry units and was posted as a precautionary measure, resulting in only one casualty. (Whether or not the man in question was seriously wounded, I have to wonder at his luck . . .)

This nice example of Union artillery belongs to the 3^RD Massachusetts Battery. This particular cannon tube, a Napoleon, was crafted by Revere Copper Co. of Boston in 1862. “Waymarking.com”, which has an entry for this piece and many others, explains that the letters “T. J. R.” refer to the inspector, Thomas J. Rodman. The cannon whose tail-end you can see to the left was produced by Cyrus Alger, also of Boston. The tube dates from 1862.

**HONORED TODAY**

1^ST SGT. CHARLES BUCKLIN

Co. F, 24^TH Michigan Infantry

Born 1833 --- Died July 01, 1863 at age 30

When intrepid North Carolinians and daring Michiganders clashed in Herbst Woods on the first day of battle, Sgt. Bucklin was one of many casualties. Never again would he labor as a wheelwright as he had in peacetime, and the burden of his death was placed on the shoulders of his mother and of his wife Margaret, along with many brothers and sisters. He was later buried at Soop-Pleasantview Cemetery in Wayne County, Michigan.


(c) 2013 Skies of Blue and Gray