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).

O.O. Howard - Gettysburg

Union Major General Oliver Otis Howard is honored in a statue on East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg. His XI Corps did not fare well on the first day of fighting, driven back to the hill and remaining there for the rest of the battle as part of the main Union line. His corps had already suffered an embarrassing setback in allowing a surprise attack at Chancellorsville, but Howard, who lost an arm earlier in the war, survived to continue a long and varied career in and out of the military. He found more success in the army following Gettysburg while fighting in the West, and went on to a number of high-profile post-war positions, including heading West Point and presiding over the Washington, D.C. university he helped found and to which he lent his name. (Click image for larger view).

North Carolina - Gettysburg

The North Carolina Monument pushes forward toward Cemetery Ridge from its position on Seminary Ridge, the stepping-off point for North Carolina troops in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. 42 regiments and batteries from North Carolina served at Gettysburg, among them, 15 regiments participated in Pickett's Charge. (Click image for larger view).

Federal firepower - Gettysburg

Guns mark Union positions at the Angle, with fog obscuring the Copse of Trees in the background, along Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. Artillery and infantry here stood up to the brunt of Pickett's Charge, and though the line was briefly pierced, it held in the climax of the battle. (Click image for larger view).

View from the cupola - Gettysburg

A foggy morning negates the view from the cupola of Schmucker Hall, but it made a fine lookout from the Lutheran Theological Seminary during the first day of battle at Gettysburg. Union cavalry commander Brigadier General John Buford famously told Major General John Reynolds from the cupola's platform (since rebuilt after a 1913 fire) "The Devil's to pay!" as the battle of Gettysburg was just beginning. (Click image for larger view).

153rd Pa. at Barlow's Knoll - Gettysburg

As the 153rd Pennsylvania, nine month men from Bethlehem, Pa., got set to head into battle on the first day at Gettysburg, an officer addressed them, telling the men their enlistments had expired. "If there was a man in [the] ranks who did not wish to go into battle; he should step out, that it was no disgrace;" a soldier wrote, retelling the officer's words, "but that the enemy was in our native state, and that the people of Pennsylvania looked to us for relief, and that it was our duty to protect our homes... we gave three cheers and not a man stepped out of the ranks." Their officer must have been mistaken, misjudging the enlistment terms by a month. The regiment's survivors mustered out July 24, three weeks after the battle. (Click image for larger view).

The Unknowns - Gettysburg

One of several stones marking the unknown burials at Gettysburg National Cemetery marks a large group of anonymous graves. Of the 3512 Union battle dead buried there, nearly one quarter were interred without identification. (Click image for larger view).

New York at Gettysburg

The New York State Monument stands over graves in the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Only Pennsylvania supplied more troops at the battle, but the New Yorkers suffered the greatest number of casualties: 6,700 killed, wounded or missing out of 23,000 soldiers on hand. (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).

Lee and Traveller - Gettysburg

Robert E. Lee looks out over the field of Pickett's Charge from his favorite mount, Traveller, in their depiction atop the Virginia State Memorial at Gettysburg. Its sculptor, Frederick William Sievers, must have considered his commission to create the largest Confederate monument at Gettysburg to be a high point of his career. But it was by no means his last Rebel effort: Sievers was responsible for crafting numerous Confederate memorials throughout the South. And though the Virginia State Memorial was dedicated in 1917, its sculptor lived to see the centennial of the battle before dying at age 93 in 1966. (Click image for larger view).