The Gettysburg Compiler

First Sergeant Frederick Fuger, First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, and the Medal of Honor

???His noble death . . . should present an example for emulation to patriotic defenders of the country through all time to come???: First Sergeant Frederick Fuger, a native of Germany, arrived on the field at Gettysburg with Battery A of the 4th U.S. …

By Mary Roll

His noble death . . . should present an example for emulation to patriotic defenders of the country through all time to come.

First Sergeant Frederick Fuger, a native of Germany, arrived on the field at Gettysburg with Battery A of the 4th U.S. Artillery early on the morning of July 2, 1863. This battery was attached to General Winfield Scott Hancock’s Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Fuger spent most of that day in command of a section of the battery, which volleyed with Confederate guns on and off throughout the afternoon. Despite the steady exchange of fire, Battery A reported minimal losses on the 2nd. However, July 3rd would prove to be the true test of the battery’s might and the loyal Sergeant Fuger’s leadership qualities.

On the afternoon of July 3rd, from their position near the Angle behind the now-famous stone wall that lines Cemetery Ridge, members of Battery A readily awaited the onslaught of southern troops charging across the open field before them. As Pickett’s Charge reached its climax and the great wave of grey swept up the ridge, the twenty-seven year old Fuger found himself in charge of the battery’s guns. Battery commander First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, 22, had fallen dead in the melee, and all of Fuger’s superior officers were killed or severely wounded. Continue reading “First Sergeant Frederick Fuger, First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, and the Medal of Honor”

Pennsylvania College During the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

By Logan Tapscott ’14

Nineteen thirteen was an eventful year in the United States, as Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as President of the United States, Congress established the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, the 16th and 17th Amendments were ratified, and the nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Between July 1st and 4th, in 100-degree weather, more than 53,000 Civil War veterans from 46 of the 48 states visited Gettysburg where they lived in tents located southwest of the town, about 200 yards from the High Water Mark Monument on the battlefield. The average age of the participants was 72, with New York veteran Micyah Weiss at 112 the oldest, and Colonel John Lincoln Clem, aged 61 (who had run away from home at the age of 10 to serve as a drummer boy in the Union Army of the Cumberland), the youngest.

The first time that Union and Confederate veterans reunited in Gettysburg was in 1887. In 1906, another small reunion occurred in Gettysburg when Union veterans from the Philadelphia Brigade and Confederates from Pickett’s Division met. In April 1908, Brigadier General H.S. Huidekopper, a Civil War veteran who lost his right arm in the battle, suggested to then Pennsylvania Governor Edwin Smart that the state host a 50th anniversary event at the battlefield. Smart used Huidekopper’s idea and organized a special legislative committee to plan the first major reunion of the Blue and Gray. On May 13, 1909, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania created the 50th Anniversary Battle of Gettysburg Commission to consider and arrange for a proper and fitting recognition and observance at Gettysburg. In June 1910, the United States Congress created a Joint Special Committee on the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg to confer with the commission and recommend proper actions to be taken by Congress. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania contributed $450,000 toward the cost of the event. In August 1912, Congress passed a bill that appropriated $150,000, along with the use of Army troops to set up and operate a massive tent city to house the veterans. Altogether, the individual states contributed $1.75 million toward the reunion.
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A Letter Home: Charles E. Goddard and Civil War Medicine

By Natalie Sherif ’14

The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the bloodiest war in American history. The soldiers who fought there were young and sick most of the time, and, perhaps unbeknownst to the population at home, scared. Modern medicine was still in its infancy. They witnessed horrors and endured hardships that we as a modern audience cannot dare to understand. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the average Union mortality from gunshot wounds to the chest was 62% and 87% for abdominal wounds. By contrast, only approximately 3% of all American wounded failed to survive in World War II. Soldiers of both the Federal and Confederate armies, then, had perfectly good reasons to be afraid. Charles E. Goddard, a soldier in Company K of the 1st Minnesota Regiment, certainly experienced horror at Gettysburg. His regiment is best known for its engagement on July 2, 1863, when the men prevented the Confederates from pushing the Union line off of Cemetery Ridge and bought time in which other forces were brought up. During their stand, 215 of the 263 men suffered casualties and their unit’s flag fell and rose five times. Their 82% casualty rate stands as the highest loss by any surviving military unit in American history during a single engagement.

Goddard expressed the fear and horror he experienced in a letter he sent to his mother the day after the battle ended. It reads:

We have engaged the enemy again but this time in a free country and our company as well as the regt has suffered much Ely and myself are bothe wounded. Ely through the side and myself through the leg and the shoulder. I do not know where Ely is this morning…very dangerous. I am not dangerously wounded, feel first rate and i would like you to give yourself no uneasiness on my account, nor do I think there is any need of Mrs Ely worrying about her son I have not seen him for I am not able to help myself on account of my leg or I would have gone to his assistance, he was fetched off the field and brought to the hospital where I was and then the hospital was moved again and I have not seen him since… Well mother good bye don’t be so foolish as to come down here and worry about me for I am getting along fine don’t let anybody see this letter but if they want to know if any of their friends are wounded you can tell them. The Chaplain will make out an official report and then the people of Minn. will know the true story. C.E. Goddard
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Lewis Tway’s Tin Cup

By Katelyn Stauffer

On July 1, 1913, veterans of the American Civil War, both Union and Confederate, gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The anniversary activities served a dual purpose of commemorating the battle and those who perished there, and giving veterans the chance to come together and reminisce and share with each other experiences that few outsiders would be able to appreciate or understand. Despite worries that hostility may lie between veterans from the North and South the event as a whole was a harmonious occasion that ultimately commemorated the anniversary of one of the greatest battles fought on American soil.

For many, mention of the American Civil War conjures up notions of excitement and danger; these elements, while certainly present, had less of a presence than many of us would believe. In fact estimates say that up to 75% of a soldier’s time was spent marching and in camp, in situations that were relatively safe from the threat of combat. This led to periods that soldiers described as times of intense boredom.
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The Veterans’ Home That Wasn’t

The Veterans??? Home That Wasn???t: What the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers can tell us about the tangled themes of place and healing In July of 1913, well over 50,000 Civil War veterans from both the Union and Confederate armies descended upo…

By Brian Johnson ’14

What can the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers can tell us about the tangled themes of place and healing?

In July of 1913, well over 50,000 Civil War veterans from both the Union and Confederate armies descended upon Gettysburg. They had come to commemorate the events that had transpired there 50 years earlier but not the viscerality of the fighting and loss that they had experienced. These silver-haired men came to Gettysburg amidst the triumph of sectional and spiritual reconciliation; healing was the order of the day. And where could healing take place more powerfully and symbolically than at the site of one of the climactic battles of the Civil War? If veterans of the Blue and Gray could shake hands at a place as brutally contested as the stone wall of Pickett’s Charge – and do so amidst sincere good feeling – reconciliation and healing must have been complete.

What does this have to do with the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers? The 1913 Gettysburg Reunion was a testament to how powerful place can be in creating a fitting sense of healing and even closure to a painful historical event. National cemeteries at Civil War battlefields, like the one at Gettysburg, represent the same concept. Many Union soldiers killed during the battle are buried in Gettysburg, the place where they fell, in what is seen as a fitting resting place. But beyond these better known examples of the 1913 Reunion and the National Cemetery, a very similar process – one that utilized a place to create a sense of healing – was also at work in 1867 with the proposal of a veterans’ home known as the Gettysburg Asylum for Invalid Soldiers.
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The Trostle Farm

On July 2, 1863, the Trostle Farm, located about two miles south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was home to unforeseen destruction. During the struggle for the Union???s left flank, Captain John Bigelow???s 9th Massachusetts Battery was ordered to hold …

By Natalie Sherif ’14

On July 2, 1863, the Trostle Farm, located about two miles south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was home to unforeseen destruction. During the struggle for the Union’s left flank, Captain John Bigelow’s 9^th Massachusetts Battery was ordered to hold their position at the Trostle Farm no matter the cost. General William Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade had just broken the Union lines along the Emmitsburg Road and engaged Bigelow’s battery. The Union line made an ultimately unsuccessful effort to maintain their position on the farm and was forced to retire. Despite the death of many soldiers, the capture of four out of six of their field pieces, and the death of around fifty of their horses, the 9^th Massachusetts’ stand gave the Union enough time to establish a secondary position east of the Trostle House. In the struggle, the attacking Confederate brigade strategically shot Union artillery horses to prevent them from maneuvering their cannon. This deliberate slaughter was not uncommon during the battle, as over 1,500 artillery horses were killed, many in attempts to cripple an opposing battery’s mobility.

Alexander Gardner, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, and James F. Gibson were the first photographers on the battlefield, arriving in the late afternoon of July 5th. Unlike many photographers of their time who focused on depicting the layout of the battlefield and the surrounding scenery, Gardner’s team preferred to capture and record the horrors of the war. Back home, the emotional response to photos of the dead was enormous as many people had never seen images of such large-scale carnage. In the photographers’ Gettysburg Series were close to sixty negatives, almost 75% of which contained images of bloated corpses, open graves, dead horses, and related images of death. The work of Gardner and his associates was unusual in relation to other photographers of the time, which begs the question, why were they so insistent on photographing the dead? Could it have been for the emotional response that such powerful, raw images produced at home? Or perhaps it was based more on humans’ natural gravitation toward, and preoccupation with, the concept of death and dying? Whatever their reason, it can only partially explain the impact of the Trostle Farm photos. Next to depictions of soldiers lying dead on the battlefield, why would anyone back home care about this equine barricade? Those men were someone’s brother, husband, or son; what impact would horses have on the general public? Continue reading “The Trostle Farm”

The Court-Martial of Captain Henry Krausneck, 74th Pennsylvania Volunteers

On February 1, 1864, a general court martial assembled on Folly Island, South Carolina to hear a case against Captain Henry Krausneck, Co. D, 74th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Captain Krausneck was charged with two accounts of misbehavior before the e…

By Mary Roll

On February 1, 1864, a general court martial assembled on Folly Island, South Carolina to hear a case against Captain Henry Krausneck, Co. D, 74^th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Captain Krausneck was charged with two accounts of misbehavior before the enemy, both stemming from his actions on the field at Gettysburg on July 1^st and 2^nd, 1863. View the trial transcript.

The reputation of the Eleventh Corps of the Army of the Potomac, of which the 74th Pennyslvania was a part, had suffered greatly in the wake of the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, where it had retreated in the face of a surprise attack by Stonewall Jackson’s troops. By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Eleventh Corps was still very much affected by the stigma of cowardice it had been unable to shake following Chancellorsville. Despite this reputation, the men of the Eleventh Corps came to Gettysburg ready to fight. Corps commander Oliver O. Howard spent much of July 1 deciding where the strongest Union points would be for the coming battle and placing his men in the appropriate positions, focusing a significant portion of his force on Cemetery Hill, from which the Eleventh Corps would fight for the next two days. However, the remainder of the Eleventh Corps and their comrades in the First Corps had to engage the Confederates north and west of Gettysburg so that time could be gained to establish that position. It is here we begin the story of Captain Henry Krausneck.
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The Gatehouse: Entrance to Evergreen Cemetery

Three weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, when photographer Frank Gutekunst took this picture of the Evergreen Cemetery???s gatehouse the people of Gettysburg were still feeling the devastating effects of the battle. Although the Union troops had …

By Katelyn Stauffer

Three weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, when photographer Frank Gutekunst took this picture of the Evergreen Cemetery’s gatehouse the people of Gettysburg were still feeling the devastating effects of the battle. Although the Union troops had effectively repelled Confederate forces from the small Pennsylvania town, the remnants of death and destruction remained. And while the armies returned to Virginia, the task of cleaning up the mess left behind fell to the citizens of Gettysburg. Thousands lay dead across the battlefield; still more remained behind because their injuries proved too severe for travel.
At the time of the battle, the population of Gettysburg numbered approximately 2,400 people. This represents roughly a quarter of the number of soldiers who were killed during the battle. With more corpses than citizens, the townspeople had the arduous task of recovering and burying the bodies in order to minimize the impact that thousands of decaying bodies would have on the air in the days following the battle. Continue reading “The Gatehouse: Entrance to Evergreen Cemetery”

Winfield Scott Hancock: From Soldier to Politician

By Logan Tapscott ’14

From July 1st to 3rd, 1863, Union and Confederate forces clashed in the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. At the end of the third day, Union men rejoiced as they prevented Confederate troops from attacking further north. Unfortunately, more causalities were incurred in this battle than any other Civil War battle. Nevertheless, Union soldiers displayed heroism on the battlefield, risking their lives to hopefully preserve the United States. Among the thousands of brave Union soldiers that July, one in particular stands out – Major Union General Winfield Scott Hancock.
The lithograph above shows Winfield Scott Hancock and his staff on their horses overseeing the fighting of the battle. While the lithograph does not indicate which day of the battle is depicted it is likely the third day of battle. The lithograph shows only the Union side of the battlefield. While Hancock and his staff are sitting on their horses, the Union soldiers are on the attack, charging toward Confederate soldiers. What was the purpose of this lithograph? Why did the artists decide to focus on Hancock?

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George Leo Frankenstein’s View from Oak Hill

This George Leo Frankenstein watercolor highlights some of the most prominent places of fighting during the first day ??? July 1st, 1863 ??? of the Battle of Gettysburg. The view was painted from Oak Hill, and looks to the southeast. In the central ba…

By Brian Johnson ’14

This George Leo Frankenstein watercolor highlights some of the most prominent places of fighting during the first day – July 1st, 1863 – of the Battle of Gettysburg. The view was painted from Oak Hill, and looks to the southeast. In the central background is the white main edifice of Pennsylvania College. To the right of the college is the famed tulip tree on East Cemetery Hill. In the right background are Little and Big Round Top. Frankenstein was clearly a talented artist, but what new perspectives can he bring to our 21st Century understanding of the battle? Is there anything to be learned from the painting that could not be better understood with a map?

Pennsylvania College’s (now Gettysburg College) Pennsylvania Hall can be seen in the middle of the painting. Why did Frankenstein make this the building in the center of his landscape? Standing on Oak Hill today, looking out toward the town of Gettysburg as Frankenstein did, one gets a much different view. Pennsylvania Hall is completely hidden by the modern campus. Ironically, the Musselman Library, which stores several of Frankenstein’s paintings, blocks Penn Hall from sight. While it is well-known that Penn Hall was used as a hospital, not being able to see the building as Frankenstein did somehow obscures this fact. Upon further reflection, however, the viewer becomes aware that Frankenstein has captured the college campus from the viewpoint of Union soldiers during their retreat on July 1st. Because the landscape has changed so drastically, the modern viewer cannot fully understand, without some sort of aid, what Pennsylvania Hall meant to the battle and to the soldiers fighting in it. With this painting, Frankenstein provides that aid, allowing the viewer to visualize what one of the least-visited parts of the Gettysburg battlefield looked like during the fighting. That is an aid that cannot be found in any map or text.

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