AT GETTYSBURG

Second Day of the --------  
Details ------------The Trip

Correspondence of the Gazette

------ ----- Gettysburg , Pa. , June 2.-The Fifteenth Regiment battlefield excursionists have had another day which from first to last has been ---- full of interesting duties and pleasures.  The day has been cloudy but that was all the better, for the start was made at 7;30 o’clock this morning, and we did not get back to the hotel for dinner until after 3 o’clock .  The time was occupied on a trip to the battlefield and dedication of the monuments of the 15^th and Colonel Ward.  On the tour of the field the party was accompanied by Sergeant Holtzworth, one of the most interesting lecturers we have heard.  He pointed out the progress of the battle from point to point.  

 Before the start the party received a paper clover leaf of the Second Corps.  It was cut out by Amos Plaisted of Co. B. 15^th, who is an inmate of the Soldiers Home in Boston , and sent on by him to one of his comrades.  The first point visited on this battlefield, which covers over 25 square miles, was Cemetery Hill, where were pointed out many of the positions  of the first day’s fight.  From this hill could be seen the town and its prominent features.  It is a beautiful country; here and there a heavy wood, here a rocky hollow.  The various points are marked by tablets and monuments.  From Cemetery hill we went to Culp’s Hill.  Here on the entrenchments in the woods we picked up the first bullets.  Then we went by Spangler’s Spring to the extreme right of the line, after which we returned to the National Cemetery , where is the statue of Gen. John Reynolds , the graves of the unknown dead and the National Monument.  Each grave is marked with a white head stone.  There are 3579 of them. 

 The National monument stands where President Lincoln made that immortal address.  On it is cut in stone one-third of the speech as follows:

 “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from their honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last and full measure of devotion; that we here resolve that their dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  The National Monument is a noble shaft, more massive than the soldiers monument in Worcester, but somewhat like it in design except that the statues at the base are all in a sitting posture and represent “War”, a soldier grasping the barrel of a gun, the stock at his feet; “Plenty,” a mechanic with some of his tools; and “History,” sitting with pen and tablet in hand.   

 Leaving the National Cemetery we took the Tarrytown road passing General Meade’s headquarters and many other points of interest, directly to the monument of the 15^th Regiment which has been described in the Gazette as well as the exercise of dedication.  The next halt was at “Little Round Top”.  A more romantic spot it would be hard to find; hardly a square yard that is not covered with small stone or huge boulders and so steep that even with the roads which have been built since the war it was to steep to draw up a load.  Here the brave men succeeded in  by almost miraculous strength to pull up the guns, and here it was that some of the most terrible work of the battle was done.

 Down a steep wall ran the men with the much needed water, while the ground was the target of the sharpshooters, and the poor men thirsting for water were the bulls eye at which they were striving to make to make. We hear again the story told of men crawling between the rocks in hopes to get a drop of water; of the wounded man who picked up a man with two legs and no arms carrying the man with two arms and no legs.

 On the summit of Little round Top we saw at the right Round Top. directly in front was the Devil’s Den, such a place is appropriately named.  Almost in front was the Wheat Field and Peach Orchid, a little to the right of that the Cadori barn and farm and fields; close by the Emmitsburg Road where Colonel Ward fell, while in the background was the long Seminary Ridge; a little to the right was Cemetery Hill and near to that Culp’s Hill, while back of Cemetery Hill could be seen the town of Gettysburg.  It would take more than one letter to describe the beauty of the scenery on every hand.  We passed down between Round Top and Little Round Top and around the Devil’s Den on to the Emmitsburg Road directly to the Ward monument, which was dedicated the details of which have already been described.

 At the close of the address of General Sprague and congressman Rice, the President of the Association  ordered Hon. Church Howe, President of the Senate of Nebraska, to the front, and a few pleasing words were said.  After the dedication the monuments were turned over to the Gettysburg Battlefield Association, and the care and custody was accepted by John M. Krauth, Esq., the Secretary.  He in a very complimentary manner, referred to the liberal and munificent manner in which Massachusetts had provided for the remembrance of the men who had represented her in the great struggle.  The state has long been recognized by all and he assured them that the monument would be carefully watched as a perpetual memorial to the heroism, courage, sacrifice and patriotism of the men of the gallant 15^th Massachusetts Volunteers.

 The party then moved up a little further from the Cadori barn where Sergeant Holtzworth further explained the progress of the battle and the charge of Picket's Brigade.  On every hand we have seen to-day the destructive and terrible effects of war; fences and trees with marks of shot and bullet and shell.  On many locations the hasty construction of fortifications, the headquarters of Meade and Sedgewick and Sykes and Lee, as well as house after house riddled with bullets.  The scars still left to tell the story of the hot fight of those three days.  Said a prominent citizen of Worcester , who has done much valuable service for the soldier, as well as for the state of Massachusetts , “I never before knew or realized what a battle was; how did a man live to tell the story?”  

 We saw the house and picture of Miss Jennie Wade, the only woman killed at the battle of Gettysburg .  She was at work making bread for the soldiers when a stray shot from the Confederate army did its fatal work.  Corporal Skelly to whom she was engaged, was as she supposed, at that day in the Union army doing as she was, what each could do for the cause of the Union .  She little knew that just before she was summoned to the altar of her God her lover had that same day preceded her but a few hours. Some of us saw and talked with Drummer Gilbert’s wife.  He was on Little Round Top when the Confederates took possession of his home, and the good wife with her child in her arms, made her way under cover of darkness, to her husband, and he helped her to a place of safety.

 The appropriations thus far by the states, for the purpose of marking the locations of regiments and points of  interest are as follows:  Pennsylvania, $16,000; Minnesota, $1500; Massachusetts, $18,000; Connecticut, $2500; Rhode Island, $3000; New York, $10,000; New Hampshire, $3000; New Jersey, $2500; Ohio, $5000, and Indiana, $3000.

 Memorial structures have already been erected at different points of the field as follows: From Pennsylvania the 27^th, 28^th, 29^th, 72d, 88^th, 91^st, 93d, 98^th,  106^th, 118^th, 119^th, 140^th, 147^th, and 153d regiments: Battery B, 1^st Artillery; Knap’s Battery, E. Hampton’s Battery C and F; from Massachusetts, the 1^st Cavalry, 2d, 7^th, 9th, 11^th, 12^th, 13^th, 16^th, 18^th, 19^th, 20^th, 32d, 33d, and 37^th Infantry, 1^st, 3d, 5^th, and 9^th Batteries, Also 1^st and 2d Company of Andrew’s Sharpshooters; from Connecticut, 14^th, 17^th, 20^th, and 27^th; from New York, the 124^th; from Wisconsin, 2d; from Indiana, 7^th, 14^th and 19^th, 20^th, and 27^th; from Delaware, 1^st and 2d; from New Jersey, 12^th; also memorials to Col. C. Frederick Faylor, 1?th Pa. Reserves; Lieut.-Col. Henry C. Merwin, 27^th Conn.;  Gen. George W. Ward, 15^th Mass., Gen. Zook Post No. 11 of Morristown, Pa. and Gen. Strong Vincent Post No. 67, of Eire, Pa.

 Some idea may be formed of the extent of the battle when we are told that over 500 tons of iron and lead was used as projectiles alone in this battle.

 It will be interesting to those of the 15^th who-----   ------ to know that at each monument a view was taken by Mr. W. H. Tifton, the Gettysburg photographer, who has secured an excellent view of each, also a view of the regimental monument; with only the veterans grouped in front.  He has a collection of views which he took directly after the battle, as well as a view of every regiment or monumental association that has been on the field.