Firepower in the Cemetery - Gettysburg

What is today the peaceful National Cemetery at Gettysburg was crowded with artillery during the battle. Cemetery Hill, prominently situated overlooking Gettysburg, became home to dozens of artillery pieces that anchored the center of the Union line and were splayed in nearly all directions. Among them was Taft's New York battery, outfitted with 20-pounder Parrots, the largest artillery carried in the army. A diminutive rendering of one of the large guns now tops the monument to Taft's men and their Cemetery Hill position. (Click image for larger view).

Dilger on Day One - Gettysburg

Guns mark one of the positions held by Capt. Hubert Dilger's battery of Ohio men on the first day at Gettysburg. Dilger's efforts were one of the few success stories for the Union army fighting north of the town. He held several positions, taking on both enemy artillery and infantry with great effect. His opening shots against a Confederate battery provided a memorable, if unlikely, sequence of events as reported by one witness:

"The first shot from the Ohio Battery flew over the Confederate Battery. At this time the rebels yelled in derision. Capt. Dilger now sighted the gun himself and fired it. The shot dismounted a rebel gun and killed the horses. Capt. Dilger tried it a second time, sighting and firing the gun. No effect being visible with the naked eye, Col. Brown who was near, asked, 'what effect, Capt. Dilger?' Capt. Dilger, after looking through his glass, replied. 'I have spiked a gun for them plugging it at the muzzle.' "

Guns of the Wheatfield Road - Gettysburg

Union artillery lines the Wheatfield Road at the Peach Orchard, scene of massed Union cannon the second day at Gettysburg. The Confederates won the day on this ground, but not before the artillerists exacted a cost, according to one witness: "Masses of Kershaw's and Wofford's brigades had been swept from the muzzles of the guns, which had been loaded either with double-shotted, or spherical case, with fuses cut to one second, to explode near the muzzles. They were literally blown to atoms. Corpses strewed the ground at every step." (Click image for larger view).

'Don't give up your guns' - Rickett's Battery, Gettysburg

The monument to Rickett's Battery on East Cemetery Hill belies the chaos that swirled around his and other batteries on the hill at nightfall on the second day at Gettysburg. A Confederate attack briefly overran the hill, including a section of Rickett's guns. As his gunners fought off the attackers in hand-to-hand combat on his left, his right continued to fire cannister at other rebels less successful at gaining the crest. The order: "Die on the soil of your State, but don't give up your guns," was carried out to the extreme by three cannoneers among the battery's casualties that night. (Click image for larger view).

'Hold this position' - The Peach Orchard, Gettysburg

A Union gun peers over the Peach Orchard, scene of massed artillery and sharp fighting on the second day at Gettysburg. Union corps commander Major General Dan Sickles knew when he extended his line to form a salient here that the work would be hard. "Hold this position while you have a shot in your limbers and a man to work your guns," he told one battery commander. It was not a unique order on a day filled with similar directives - and it was nearly carried out as commanded when the batteries were threatened or overrun in what became a rout of the position. The Peach Orchard trees are undergoing replacement in a rehabilitation of the orchard, and are currently much smaller than the mature trees pictured here. (Click image for larger view).

Louisiana and Mississippi at Gettysburg

The Louisiana and Mississippi state monuments stand on Seminary Ridge on land best known as the starting off point for the Mississippians under Bigadier General William Barksdale as they stepped off in their crushing assault on the Peach Orchard on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg. Barksdale had been impatiently waiting for his chance to bring his brigade against the Federal salient, and finally got his chance after watching hours of fighting sap Union strength in the sector. His charge crushed the Union's Peach Orchard position, touching off the collapse of the rest of the Emmitsburg Road line. "The most magnificent charge of the war," one witness claimed. (Click image for larger view).

Rhode Island at Pickett's Charge - Gettysburg

Leaden clouds hang over the monument to Arnold's Battery at the Angle at Gettysburg, where its Rhode Islanders helped repel Pickett's Charge - but not before first surviving action on the second day, as well. From its spot on the low crest of Cemetery Ridge, the battery's gunners countered the bombardment preceding the Charge, then those who remained witnessed the awful effectiveness of the Union artillery on the advancing rebels. "Men, or fragments of men, were being thrown in the air every moment," one of them wrote. (Click image for larger view).

Boom with a view - Gettysburg

Smith's 4th New York Battery monument stands on Houck's Ridge atop Devil's Den at Gettysburg, in front of Little Round Top and the 44th and 12th New York monument. The view today is radically altered - in two ways. The vandalized Smith battery monument awaits repair after a vicious 2006 attack, and the park's landscape restoration project has cleared most trees, (including the one at center) from this end of Houck's Ridge, bringing it more closely to its 1863 appearance. (Click image for larger view).

Sunset from Little Round Top - Gettysburg

A cannon points at Confederate positions from the Union-held crest of Little Round Top, scene of fighting on the second day at Gettysburg. Gun crews struggled to push their weapons to the top of the hill as both sides met at what had been just a short time before a virtually unoccupied position. The next day, the artillery here would be put to use before and during the distant Pickett's Charge. (Click image for larger view).

'Limber up and get out' -Gettysburg

The position held by the 9th Massachusetts Battery, the last to leave the Wheatfield Road line of artillery, is marked with a stone monument and a pair of cannon near the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg. It was at a nearby farmhouse, however, where the battery was hardest pressed. Capt. John Bigelow, ordered to 'limber up and get out" as the Confederates collapsed the Union's Peach Orchard salient, feared his gunners would be shot down if they stopped firing the cannons to pull them out. Instead, he ordered firing on the run, moving back with each gun's blast. The battery was finally ready for a more traditional withdrawal when Bigelow was ordered to hold his ground in a tight corner of land at the Trostle House as the Union artillery line was reformed on Cemetery Ridge. Guns were lost as the rebels mixed with the battery before the final chaotic withdrawal. Bigelow reported his battery had fired three tons of ammunition. He also lost 8 killed, 18 wounded and two missing, plus 45 horses, essential sacrifices to buy time. (Click image for larger view.)

Artillery on Powers Hill - Gettysburg

A monument to one of three Union batteries posted on Powers Hill stands in isolation in heavy woods near Granite Schoolhouse Lane at Gettysburg. The hill was a better artillery platform during the battle, when trees did not obscure the sightlines to Culp's Hill. (Click image for larger view.)

Shadows on Cemetery Ridge - Gettysburg

Federal artillery stands on Cemetery Ridge, marking the Union line near the Angle at Gettysburg. (Click image for larger view).

Towering over the Angle - Gettysburg

The National Tower (top right) stands over the battlefield as seen from the Angle at Gettysburg. The commercial sight-seeing attraction was demolished in 2000 as the spearhead of a wave of change and restoration at the park this decade. Next up: removal of the Cyclorama Center and old Visitor Center. (Click image for larger view).

'Screaming shells and shot' - Gettysburg

Fog surrounds a Union cannon on Cemetery Ridge where the cannonade preceding Pickett's Charge on the third day at Gettysburg was directed. Both lines were soon clouded by smoke at the onset of the barrage. "The air is darkened with sulphurous clouds. The whole valley is enveloped," declared one participant, recounting decades later. "The sun, lately so glaring, is itself obscured. Nothing can be seen but the flashing light leaping from the cannon's mouth amidst the surrounding smoke. The air which was so silent and serene is now full of exploding and screaming shells and shot..." (Click image for larger view).

Cemetery Ridge - Gettysburg

Union cannon rests on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, scene of fighting during both the second and third day of battle. Confederate artillery officer E.P. Alexander later wrote about the cannonade that targeted the Northern guns such as these, as well as the men on Cemetery Ridge before Pickett's Charge: "It was not meant simply to make a noise, but to try and cripple him - to tear him limbless, as it were, if possible." (Click image for larger view).

Artillery of The Wheatfield - Gettysburg

The position held by Captain George Winslow's Battery D, First New York Light Artillery, is marked in The Wheatfield at Gettysburg. Operating in the restricted space of a farmer's field hemmed in by trees, Winslow's guns helped slow the Confederate attacks on the second day. But in the back-and-forth fighting of The Wheatfield they were forced back. "All of my pieces could not have been brought off had my men been less brave," Winslow reported. (Click image for larger view).

Artillery on Little Round Top - Gettysburg

Cannons of Battery L, First Ohio Artillery, point toward Confederate positions from the rocky north end of Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Artillery hastily brought by hand to the rough ground here helped solidify the crumbling Union line on the second day of fighting. "So rapidly were the guns worked that they became too hot to lay the hand on," reported Capt. Frank C. Gibbs. He continued: "But for the position of the battery, and the gallantry with which it was handled by the men, I have no doubt the enemy would have accomplished his purpose of breaking our lines at this point, and possibly changed the fortunes of the day." (Click image for larger view).

Meade and Moonrise - Gettysburg

A full moon rises above the statue to Union Major General George Gordon Meade on Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg. Among the Union monuments and cannon of Arnold's Battery marking the ground near The Angle is the 26th North Carolina monument (lower left). The marker to the Confederate unit is likely hundreds of feet misplaced - it pressed close to wall in Pickett's Charge, but not before Arnold's Battery (which had withdrawn and left only one operational gun during the Charge). The monument's 1986 placement was likely influenced by a desire to place it closer to the prestigious site of the breakthrough at the Angle (and further up the ridge). Regardless, the 26th NC suffered a staggering 81 percent casualty rate in fighting on the first and third days at Gettysburg. (Click image for larger view).

Barlow's Knoll - Gettysburg

Cannons mark the line held by Union gunners under Lt. Bayard Wilkeson on Barlow's Knoll on the field of the first day of fighting at Gettysburg. Wilkeson put his battery in place and was just under way engaging Confederates when he was mortally struck in the leg. The Union line would not hold much longer against the overpowering rebels, who stormed through this position before sweeping the Federals through the town.

Steven's Knoll - Gettysburg

Union artillery on this hill, now topped by a monument to Major General Henry Slocum, defended against the Confederate attack on East Cemetery Hill as darkness fell over the battlefield on the second day. Before the rebels began their charge the bloody day seemed to be ending peacefully, until a shout of "Look! Look at those men!" turned the artillerists to their guns as a rare night attack began. (Click image for larger view).