The Alabama state memorial on West Confederate Avenue at Gettysburg stands near where troops from that state stepped off on attacks on the second day of fighting. Three figures are the focus of the memorial, dedicated in 1933. A female personification of Alabama urges an older soldier forward as he takes a cartridge box from a younger, wounded comrade who has dropped his weapon. The monument reads: "Alabamians! Your names are inscribed on fame's immortal scroll." (Click image for larger view.)
Monuments -including one for the 27th Connecticut (left)- line Brooke Avenue at Gettysburg, where Union forces briefly held a slight ridge after sweeping the Wheatfield on the second day of fighting. The gains would be held for a short time only in the back-and-forth struggle for the Wheatfield. Col. John Brooke's brigade was soon hard pressed, with Confederates coming up on both flanks. In fifteen minutes they were pushed from the position before the Wheatfield fell finally into Rebel hands for good. One soldier wrote that the position on the ridge was the "hottest place we came across that day." Low on ammunition and without support, Brooke's exposed men were forced to withdraw. (Click image for larger view).
A simple monument marks the location where Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Armistead was shot down leading rebels in a breakthrough at The Angle during Pickett's Charge. Moments before his wounding, Armistead stepped over the low stone wall defining the Union line, exhorting his men in now immortal words: "Come forward, Virginians! Come on, boys, we must give them the cold steel! Who will follow me?" (Click image for larger view).
