January 20, 2014

You can probably guess why I like this view of the “back end” of the High Water Mark from Emmitsburg Road. Lots of monuments to identify! (Click for a larger view) Left to right: Battery A, 1^ST Rhode Island Artillery and three of their guns; the 26^TH North Carolina (behind the wall, slightly down over the swale); possibly an “Army of the Potomac” marker; explanatory signs; Battery A, 4^TH United States Artillery and marker; unidentifiable; the top of the Gen. Alexander Webb statue or 1^ST Pennsylvania Cavalry; the 106^TH Pennsylvania; the 71^ST Pennsylvania (large monument at the rear of the High Water Mark); the 72^ND Pennsylvania; and, far to the right, possibly the 69^TH Pennsylvania and the United States Regular Army monument.

Whew! And then of course there’s the Copse, which has been looking worse for wear for the past few years. Save for the monuments and a hint of modern-day Emmitsburg Road, the Virginians, North Carolinians, Mississippians, and many others who embarked on the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge would have seen much of the same terrain. You can imagine the soldiers hopping a fence very similar to the one shown here, stepping onto the uneven ground on the other side. By this time, many of those who started out from Seminary Ridge would be dead or wounded.

**HONORED TODAY**

1^ST LT. JUNIUS BUTLER FRENCH

23^RD North Carolina Infantry

Born August 07, 1837 --- Died July 02, 1863 at age 25

Lt. French was a lawyer in his prewar life, but though that life may have been exciting at times, little could have prepared him for the brutal “excitement” of battle. At the age of 24 he enlisted in the Confederate army and soon received the first of his three Gettysburg wounds. The other two shots came as he lay bleeding and was unable to take up arms.


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