The 115th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment was heavily engaged during the early stages of the struggle for the Wheatfield in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. This paper will try to retrace the regiment's movements during the Gettysburg campaign so that descendants of soldiers who served in the regiment or other interested persons can visit the sites themselves and imagine the regiment's role.

The regiment's status at Gettysburg was defined by its extensive losses at the Battle of Chacellorsville two months earlier. There the regiment, comparatively small to begin with (fewer than 250 effectives entering the battle), had 111 casualties: 9 were killed, 72 wounded and 29 missing.(1) By the time the regiment took the field at Gettysburg, it numbered only "140 muskets."(2) In contrast, several nearby Union regiments brought over 300 effectives to the Wheatfield.

After Chancellorsville, a substantial defeat for the Union, the regiment re-crossed the Rappahannock River and made camp near Falmouth, Virginia.(3) For over a month, from early May until about mid-June, the regiment simply camped in place near Falmouth. In Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, the author noted that for this unit "the monotony of camp life was little varied" for the next four or five weeks.(4)

Beginning on June 11, 1863, the "monotony of camp life" was replaced by the more strenuous monotony of marching toward the eventual engagement with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.(5) By this time the regiment was part of Burling's Brigade, Humphreys' Division, Third Corps (Sickles). The Confederate army had started north, and the Union Army of the Potomac began to follow, keeping itself between the Confederate army and Washington while marching north. The entire march of Burling's brigade from Falmouth to Gettysburg covered at least 125 miles. The route taken by the brigade is set out in more detail in Appendix B.

When the Sickles' Third Corps reached Maryland late in June, it was back on Union soil for the first time in many months. The troops were treated to cheers along the road and in the towns through which they marched. Still, everyone knew that a battle with Lee's troops was bound to come soon.

At noon on July 1, Burling's brigade reached Emmitsburg, Maryland, following a relatively short march from Bridgeport. At this point the brigade was still about 8 miles away from the place where it would do battle the next day. The brigade went no further on July 1: instead, it was ordered to guard the Hagerstown Road against the possibility of an attack from the rear.(6)

As darkness approached on the evening of July 1, Burling's brigade encamped for the night. De Trobriand's brigade, of Birney's division, was likewise still in the Emmitsburg vicinity. The rest of the Third Corps had already reached Gettysburg. General Meade in the early evening issued orders for these two brigades to move north, but these orders did not reach Burling until 1:30 a.m. on July 2.(7) It was nearly 4 a.m. before the two brigades actually began their march north.(8) Burling's brigade led the two. The march stopped for a time after three miles so that the men could make coffee; ten-minute breaks were taken every hour thereafter.(9)

Burling's brigade reached the rest of the Corps at 9 a.m,(10) with De Trobriand's coming in about an hour later. Historian Harry Pfanz has noted that the march went too slowly in view of the apparent need for troops at Cemetery Ridge, and that the slowness of the march was perhaps caused by the presence of ammunition wagons.(11) The delay does not seem to have made any difference, though, since the two brigades were not assigned a place for several more hours.

The ultimate position of the 115th Pennsylvania by the time it engaged in battle in the late afternoon was dictated by the much-criticized decision of the corps commander, General Dan Sickles, to post his corps well to the west of Cemetery Ridge. General Meade's intention had been for the Third Corps be posted along Cemetery Ridge to the left of the Second Corps, which occupied the center of the north-south line of Cemetery Ridge, but Sickles had his own ideas. Had Sickles not moved his corps to the west as he did, the Third Corps instead of the Fifth Corps probably would have been the corps which fought at Little Round Top. Even though the 115th was probably too small to have been the unit assigned to the farthest left position (the one defended by Chamberlain and the 20th Maine), it might still have been present at that engagement, the one many regard as the pivotal episode of the battle. But Sickles's deployment of his Corps led it to the west and the Wheatfield instead.

Burling's brigade, including the 115th, joined its division (Humphreys') at 9 a.m. on July 2, as already noted. Humphreys stated that on that morning, his division was "near the crest of the ridge running from the cemetery of Gettysburg [Cemetery Ridge], in a southerly direction, to a rugged, conical-shaped hill, which I find goes by the name of Round Top. "(12) Humphreys' division was about two-thirds of the way south to Little Round Top, and to the left of the Second Corps, when Burling's brigade joined it at 9 a.m. Burling's brigade probably arrived there by coming all the way north on Emmitsburg Road and turning right on the road now known as Wheatfield Road and then proceeding east to Cemetery Ridge.(13)

Once the brigade reached the division at 9 a.m., it seems to have stayed in place until noon or a little later. It was during the morning that Sickles and Meade were communicating, or miscommunicating, their conflicting opinions about where the Third Corps should be posted. Shortly after noon, Sickles ordered his Corps to extend itself to the west.(14)

By 1:00 p.m. or so, Humphreys had moved his troops into an initial battle line. This line was to the north of Wheatfield Road; the line ran north and south, approximately parallel to Emmitsburg Road and 300 yards east of it. Two hundred yards behind the front line was the Second Brigade (Brewster) and another 200 yards to the east was the Third Brigade, including the 115th Pennsylvania, serving as a secondary reserve. This probably placed the115th only about 100 yards in front of Caldwell's division on Cemetery Ridge, and means that the regiment did not have to move very far at all in order to assume this initial position. The overall position of Sickles's Third Corps was a difficult one which has been much criticized. As Pfanz has summarized it, the corps extended almost a mile and a half from flank to flank, twice as long as it would have been if the Corps had stayed on Cemetery Ridge, as Meade the professional soldier had intended. Pfanz notes further that there were soft spots and gaps along the front, there was virtually no reserve strength within the Corps, and the enemy was beginning his assault.(15) As will be seen, the opening Confederate attacks in the Wheatfield were met by five Union regiments (including the 115th), three of which were separated from their brigades. This command confusion was largely the result of the attenuated position of the Third Corps front at the outset.

Burling's brigade was in its initial secondary reserve position for only a short time. Not long after its took that position, Sickles ordered the brigade to be moved to the left as a reserve for Birney's first division, which by this time was split up between the Peach Orchard (Graham's brigade) and the general area of Devil's Den (Ward's brigade). Birney's other brigade, under Col. Regis De Trobriand, had been posted near Trostle's Woods, in the woods of the Stony Hill across the Wheatfield Road to the south. Burling's brigade, including the 115th, was guided to Trostle's Woods, more or less halfway between the leftward and rightward extensions of these Ward's and Graham's brigades under Birney. Once reassigned in this fashion, Burling's brigade became subject to Birney's commands instead of those of Humphreys.

The next events were described by Burling as follows:

In a short time [2 p.m.?] skirmishing commenced very heavily along [Birney's] front. I was then ordered by General Birney out of the woods on an open field. Immediately on our unmasking ourselves, then enemy opened with a terrific artillery fire on our left flank, at a distance of not more than 1,000 yards.(16)

A member of Sickles's staff rode up and "in an excited manner" expressed his displeasure with this withdrawal.(20) But before the brigade could start back out into the open field, Burling received orders from Birney to detail two of his largest divisions westward to General Graham. This began the rapid dismantlement or cannibalization of the Third Brigade. In response to this first request, Burling detailed his largest two regiments, the 2nd New Hampshire (354 effectives) and the 7th New Jersey (275 effectives).(21) These regiments proceeded to the west near the Peach Orchard and Emmitsburg Road. At around this time, if not earlier, Burling had moved his brigade to the open area on the southern side of Wheatfield Road and just to the north of the woods on the Stony Hill.(22) (Note: maps of the Wheatfield in the opening stages of the battle can be found in Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day, p. 246 and in Gettysburg magazine, Issue No. 14 (January 1, 1996), pp. 66 and 71, where they are part of Jay Jorgenson's article "Anderson Attacks the Wheatfield."(23) These maps show differing views about the location of the 115th, and the view set forth below is a bit different from both of those.)

Soon thereafter, Birney requested that the strongest remaining regiment be sent to General Humphreys for picket duty; Burling this time sent off the 5th New Jersey (206 effectives). This left Burling with three small regiments, including the 115th.

Before long, Birney requested that the largest remaining regiment be sent to the left to support General Ward, who was between Devil's Den and the eastern side of Rose's Woods. The 6th New Jersey (207 effectives) was sent off as a result. At the same time, Burling said, the 8th New Jersey (170 effectives) was taken from him without his knowledge. The 115th went along with the 8th New Jersey, and in fact was probably commandeered by the same order (presumably from Birney) which caused the detachment of the 8th New Jersey. The 8th New Jersey probably followed the 115th as the two headed south across the Wheatfield to its southwestern edge.(24) By now the time was probably between 3 and 4 p.m.

The reason for all the hasty maneuvering and reassigning, of course, was that the en echelon attack of Longstreet's forces had begun to approach the Wheatfield by coming through Rose's Woods, with hopes of crossing the Wheatfield and heading northeast toward Cemetery Ridge. Sickles' Third Corps, spread thin and with gaps in its line and in its command structure, was the Union's first line of defense.(25) The position about to be occupied by the 115th was coming under attack from the brigade of General George T. Anderson.(26)

Anderson's brigade consisted of five Georgia regiments (7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 59th). These were comparatively large regiments, with even the smallest (the 11th) containing 328 men; all but the 11th participated in the attack.

The four Georgia regiments of Anderson's brigade had started out in or behind Bieseker's Woods, just west of Emmitsburg Road. They crossed the road and proceeded northwest through a field into Rose's Woods, through which the west branch of Plum Run meanders. From the Confederate left to right, the 9th and 8th Georgia regiments crossed Plum Run and began to attack right side of the Union troops defending the Wheatfield. Maps showing the line of approach of the Georgia regiments indicate that they were ideally positioned to come through Rose's Woods in a direction which would place them on the right flank of the Union troops.

The attack of Benning's brigade in the area of Devil's Den had forced a number of Union regiments to shift or to be detailed left, i.e., to the east and southeast, toward that area. This left a gap between Ward's regiments, in battle on the eastern side of Rose's Woods, and De Trobriand's regiments, stationed along the Stony Hill west and northwest of the Wheatfield. The location of this gap was a line at least 300 yards long at the southern end of the Wheatfield, where a stone wall ran east and west.

The accounts of the participants contain a variety of views about how the southern edge of the Wheatfield was defended in the initial stages of the battle. This diversity of battlefield recollections is hardly unique to this battle. For now, this paper will tend to accept the view taken by persons connected with the 115th Pa. or the 8th New Jersey. Another view is taken by several officers of the 17th Maine. Those officers asserted that the 17th Maine held the stone wall unaided by other regiments during the opening part of the battle. Most historians, however, have tended to credit the substance of the claims made by the 115th Pennsylvania and the 8th New Jersey. Historians credit the 17th Maine with making a brave stand at the wall and with making a second charge after having to withdraw, but tend to reject the views of the officers of the 17th Maine about what other regiments were doing at the time.

The opinion of Col John B. Bachelder is of special interest. Bachelder was the 19th century individual who devoted practically all his time from 1863 through his death in 1894 to determining what went on at Gettysburg. For over 20 years, he corresponded with persons who were in the battle at every level of the ranks.(28) Bachelder summarized the situation in the opening part of the Wheatfield battle as follows:

Unfortunately there is no official report of the 8th New Jersey or the 115th PV, Colonel Burling's report [quoted in part above] is very meagre in details, and the case is complicated by the fact that these troops fought behind the same stone wall as the 17th Maine. The fact is that each command was eventually forced to leave that position and neither knew whether it was afterwards held by any other command.(29)

I have found only one account of the battle not written by someone attached to either the 115th Pa. or the 17th Maine. Samuel Toombs, an officer with a New Jersey regiment located elsewhere at the time, in 1888 described the movements of the 115th Pa. and the 8th New Jersey as follows:

The Eighth New Jersey was ordered in to the right of Ward's brigade, probably by General Birney's direct order, as Colonel Burling did not know what disposition had been made of it, and the One Hundred and Fifteenth Pennsylvania Regiment took position to the left of the Eighth in like manner, thus closing a gap which existed on the line between Ward and De Trobriand.(31)

The 115th Pennsylvania and the 8th New Jersey probably arrived at the southwest part of the Wheatfield at about the same time, the 115th to the left and the 8th to the right. The stone wall separating the Wheatfield from Rose's Woods was about 300 yards long, ending toward the southwest corner of the Wheatfield and giving way to a low marshy area in which alders grew. To the north and northwest of this marshy area, the ground rises, forming the area now known as the Stony Hill. The Stony Hill was already occupied by the 5th Michigan, toward the left, and by the 110th Pennsylvania, which formed the right flank of the troops who were still under De Trobriand's control. The lowlying area at the southwest corner of the Wheatfield was an area 50 yards or more long which made up the least desirable and most confined part of a line which extended about 500 yards from east to west.

According to Dunne's 1863 report, the 115th was "placed in position along the edge of a wood in which the enemy's skirmishers and our own were engaged. The front of our line was partly protected by a stone fence."(32) The skirmishers may have been some of Berdan's U.S. Sharpshooters, part of Ward's brigade.(33) Every indication is that the 115th deployed to the southwestern corner of the Wheatfield. Dunne's statement that his line was "partly" protected by a stone fence means that some of the regiment was not behind the fence. Thus, part of the unit must have been either behind or to the right (west) of the part of the regiment which was actually behind the fence. It is possible that the 17th Maine was already present and in occupation of the larger part of the stone fence, that is, the fence's extension eastward.

The photograph below shows the area today.  The monument of the 115th is near the center of the picture, with the larger one of the 17th Maine to the left, and the monument of the 8th New Jersey barely visible in the trees on the right.  The stone wall can be seen along the edge of the woods.  The Confederate troops emerged from these woods behind the stone wall.  To a certain extent the lowlying nature of the area between the 115th Pennsylvania and the 8th New Jersey ("a low marshy area in which alders grew") can be seen to the right of the photograph.  The paved road was not there in 1863.
 
 

Below is another view of the same area taken in the 1890's.  This is from Vanderslice, Gettysburg Then and Now (1899, Morningside Reprint 2000), p. 13.  Due to differing camera angles, the large monument in the forefront of this photo does not appear in the more recent one.  The moument of the 115th Pennsylvania is in the middle of this picture;  that of the 8th New Jersey can be seen more clearly.  The woods appear to be not as thick as they are today.
 

Toombs says that the 8th New Jersey originally took position "behind a stone wall, from whence they were ordered further to the right, placing them in an exposed position, with the stone wall on their left, and a rocky hill [the "Stony Hill"] on their right."(34) Since the 115th was to the left of the 8th New Jersey as they headed south across the Wheatfield, it is likely that the 115th took a position behind whatever part of the wall was not occupied, which meant that the only place for the 8th New Jersey to go was still farther right. Of all the five Union regiments which met Anderson's first attack,(35) the 8th New Jersey was undoubtedly in the least protected position. Its men tried to stack some nearby fence rails to form a cover, but they soon came under attack from their right. The 8th New Jersey was forced to fall back.

Dunne stated in 1863 that after the regiment had been in its position for about a half hour, "our skirmishers were driven in and the enemy came out of the woods in force."(36) In 1884, Dunne added that the 8th New Jersey received a heavy fire from the enemy, causing it to retire, "which left my right flank exposed and the enemy coming round on that flank, I was compelled to fall back."(37) The 17th Maine was probably to the left of the 115th by this time (and perhaps throughout the 115th's time at the wall), and when the 115th fell back, it in turn exposed the right flank of the 17th Maine. That unit, which was over twice the size of the 115th, refused its line on the right in an effort to hold off the flanking fire of the Confederates.

As the 115th was falling back, it came alongside Capt. George B. Winslow's Battery D, 1st New York Artillery Brigade, Third Corps. Dunne said in 1863 that the regiment stood by the battery in order to protect it from capture. In 1884, he elaborated by saying that he ordered the regiment to kneel down in the wheat, most of which was still standing, and to keep up a continuous fire on the enemy. Dunne says that the regiment's losses occurred while it was kneeling in the wheat by the battery.(38)  Winslow's Battery can be seen in the photo below.  The 115th's monument is in the distance to the right of the large monument.
 

After a time defending the battery, the regiment was relieved by other troops, its ammunition having run out. Once relieved, the regiment rejoined its brigade near the Taneytown Road about a half mile from the front.(39)

The regiment's total losses were 3 killed, 18 wounded and 3 missing.(40)

The third and final day of the battle, July 3, 1863, was mostly anticlimactic for the regiment, as it was for many others which had been heavily engaged on the second day. The entire Third Brigade was marched, sometime after noon on July 3, to its right, probably somewhere along the left center of the Union line, to support batteries. It lay there under artillery fire, Burling reported, until night ended the battle.(41) The regiment spent most of the rest of July heading south with the Army of the Potomac in pursuit of Lee's army. By the end of July, the regiment was back near Warrenton, Virginia, where it remained encamped for the next several months.

Back to  115th Homepage.
 
 
 

Appendix A
 
 

 
 

Date	Starting place	Ending place	Est.  Miles
June 11	Boscobel, VA, near Falmouth	Hartwood Church, VA	15
June 12	Hartwood Church, VA	Bealeton, VA	22
June 13	In camp	In camp	0
June 14	Bealeton, VA	Manassas Junction, VA
June 15	In camp	In camp	0
June 16	In camp	In camp	0
June 17	Manassas Junction, VA	Centreville, VA
June 18	In camp	In camp	0
June 19	Centreville, VA	Gum Springs, VA
June 20	In camp (Gum Springs)	In camp (Gum Springs)	0
June 21	In camp (Gum Springs)	In camp (Gum Springs)	0
June 22	In camp (Gum Springs)	In camp (Gum Springs)	0
June 23	In camp (Gum Springs)	In camp (Gum Springs)	0
June 24	In camp (Gum Springs)	In camp (Gum Springs)	0
June 25	Gum Springs, VA	N. side Potomac at mouth of Monancy
June 26	N. side Potomac at mouth of Monancy	Point of Rocks, MD
June 27	Point of Rocks, MD	Middleton, MD (via Jefferson, MD)
June 28	Middleton, MD	Near Woodsborough, MD
June 29	Near Woodsborough, MD	Taneytown, MD
June 30	Taneytown, MD	Bridgeport, MD
July 1	Bridgeport, MD	Emmitsburg, MD
July 2	Emmitsburg, MD	Field of battle, Gettysburg, PA

1. United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70 vols. in 128 parts (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), series 1, vol. 27, p. 481-482 (hereinafter cited as O.R.).

2. O.R. 27(1): 571.

3. Id.

4. Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, Vol. VI, p. 1211 (1869-1871).

5. OR, 27(1): 140.

6. OR, 27(1): 570.

7. OR 27(1):570.

8. Id.

9. Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 93 (1987), citing Hamilton, "The 110th [Pennsylvania] Regiment in the Gettysburg Campaign," from Philadelphia Weekly Press, February 24, 1886 (also available at http://www.gdg.org/v6pt2k.html. Company C of the 110th Pennsylvania was placed at the rear to bring up stragglers and skulkers. At one point a squad from the 110th was sent "to gather a number of men who were hid in a meadow. We could see dozens of them in the tall grass as we came in sight. They were watching for the rear guard. As soon as they saw us every head disappeared like a lot of turtles in a pond when a stone is pitched at them." Id.

10. OR 27(1):570.

11. Pfanz, p. 92.

12. OR 27(1), 531.

13. A map of the location of Burling's brigade upon its arrival is at http://www.gdg.org/gbm7map2.jpg

14. Pfanz, 102-103.

15. Pfanz, pp. 147-148.

16. OR 27(1): 570.

17. Pfanz, p. 304.

18. OR 27(1): 570.

19. Pfanz, p. 304. Burling was only the acting commander of the brigade, the previous commander having been wounded at Chancellorsville. Burling had been the regimental commander of the 6th New Jersey, one of the six regiments in the brigade, so it is no surprise that he would be deferential to commanders who so recently had been his equals.

20. OR 27(1): 570 (Burling's Report).

21. Most regimental counts are taken from Busey and Martin, Regimental Strengths at Gettysburg (Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1982), pp. 51 (De Trobriand) and 54 (Burling). The 115th's "140 muskets" is found in Burling's report, O.R. 27(1): 571.

22. See Ladd, David L. and Ladd, Audrey J., eds., The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in Their Own Words (Dayton: Morningside, 1994), p. 1009, for Burling's hand-drawn diagram of the brigade's various locations.

23. Back issues of Gettysburg magazine are available from the publisher, Morningside Books (http://www.morningsidebooks.com/) or at the bookstore at the Gettysburg Visitors' Center.

24. Rollins and Schutz, Guide to Pennsylvania Troops at Gettysburg, p. 45 (1996).

25. The Confederate marches toward Little Round Top and Devil's Den had already begun.

26. Anderson's brigade was the fourth Confederate brigade to make an attack that afternoon. The first three had been Law's, Benning's and Robertson's, which had headed in the direction of Little Round Top and Devil's Den.

28. Interestingly enough, when Bachelder came to write his own history of the battle, he decided to rely primarily on the contemporaneous official reports. He did not use most of the information which was in his correspondence, primarily because he found too many opposing opinions in the memories of the soldiers.

29. Ladd and Ladd, eds., John Bachelder's History of the Battle of Gettysburg (Dayton: Morningside Press, 1997), p. 483. Long after Bachelder wrote this in the latter part of the 19th century, a semi-official report by Col. John Peter Dunne, the commanding officer of the 115th, was unearthed in the records of the Adjutant-General of the State of Pennsylvania. This report is reprinted in Hewett, et al. eds., Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Part I, Vol. 5, pp. 195-96 (Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1995). Dunne's report is dated July 29, 1863, making it by far the earliest first-hand report of the activities of the 115th in the Wheatfield which has yet been discovered. This report and Dunne's letter to Bachelder written 21 years later are the main sources on which this paper will rely. The letter from Dunne to Bachelder is dated June 30, 1884. It was accompanied by a sketch drawn by Dunne showing the 115th's locations in the Wheatfield. The 1884letter is published in Ladd, David L. and Ladd, Audrey J., eds., The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in Their Own Words (Dayton: Morningside, 1994), pp. 1049-1053.

30. From Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 5; also at http://www.gdg.org/shlong1.html.

31. Samuel Toombs, New Jersey in the Gettysburg Campaign (Orange, N.J.: Evening Mail Publishing House, 1888), p. 219.

32. Id. (Emphasis added).

33. Toombs, p. 219.

34. Toombs, p. 219.

35. From left to right, these were the 17th Maine, the 115th Pa., the 8th New Jersey, the 5th Michigan and the 110th Pa.

36. Supplement, p. 185.

37. Dunne to Bachelder, Bachelder Papers, p. 1050.

38. Id., p. 1051. The author's great-great grandfather, Richard Gennett of Co. K, had his photograph taken in the 1920's standing at the stone wall more or less due south of the nearby regimental monument. According to family tradition, he said that that was the location where he received the gunshot wound to the leg which kept him in hospitals for nearly two years thereafter and which rendered him partially disabled until he died in 1934. If this family tradition is true, not all of the 115th's losses were suffered as the regiment protected the battery by kneeling in the wheat.

39. Supplement, p. 186.

40. O.R. 27(1): 178.

41. O.R. 27(1): 571.

42. Source: OR, 27(1): 140-145.