CASSIE & TOM'S GETTYSBURG PHOTOS

When Robert E. Lee ordered General Ewell to "take that hill if practical", the hill in question was Culp's Hill. The failure to capture the hill on July 1 was possibly the Confederacy's greatest blunder of the 3 day battle. By the 3rd day Union troops were fighting behind near impregnable fortifications on Culp's Hill. Even so, the Confederates launched a pre-dawn attack on July 3 which lasted nearly 7 hours. The Union line held it's ground forcing the exhausted Confederates to withdrawl. Today many historians agree that General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson would have taken the hill on July 1 had he still been in command of Ewell's troops. However Jackson, one of Lee's most brilliant commanders, was killed by friendly fire 2 months earlier at Chancellorsville. What if he had been at Gettysburg? What if he had taken Culp's Hill? What if...?

This page and the next shows various views of some of the heaviest monumented areas of the battlefield but least visited.

View of Culp's Hill from Benner's Hill.

Pardee Field was named after Lieut. - Col. Ario Pardee Jr. of the 147th Pennsylvania Infantry. He led his men in an attack across this field that defied orders but captured a stone wall that served as an effective fortification. Remnants of the wall are still visible.

Spangler's Spring provided water for men from both armies.	The Indiana state monument was erected in Spangler's Meadow in 1970.

The earliest monuments placed at Gettysburg are in the National Cemetery. One is the Soldiers National Monument and the other is a memorial urn erected for the 1st Minnesota Infantry. The first regimental monument placed on the battlefield itself, shown in this photo, was to the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry near Spangler's Meadow in 1879.

Much like Little Round Top to the south, Culp's Hill is strewn with boulders.	This is a view of east Cemetery Hill taken from Steven's Knoll on the western slope of Culp's Hill.

One of the remaining 3 observation towers on the battlefield is on the summit of Culp's Hill.

Music playing is "Greensleeves"