HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

108th NY “Rochester Regiment”

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

108th N.Y. Inft’y Occupied this position July 2 and 3, 1863, supporting Battery I, 1st U.S. Art. During the artillery duel on the afternoon of July 3, it sustained a terrific fire without being able to return a shot.

The Story

The 108th New York Infantry, raised largely around Rochester and known as the 'Rochester Regiment,' held this ground on July 2 and 3, 1863, supporting Battery I of the 1st U.S. Artillery near the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. On the afternoon of July 3 the position endured the massive Confederate bombardment that preceded Pickett's Charge — one of the greatest artillery duels of the war — pinned down and unable to reply. Their steadiness under that fire helped hold the line at the battle's climax.

Why it matters

The regiment's ordeal captures the terror and discipline of Gettysburg's final day, when Union troops absorbed a storm of shellfire to keep the center intact and turn back the Confederacy's high-water mark.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In the summer of 1863, the Civil War reached a terrible peak in the rolling farmland around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. For three days in early July, two great armies collided across ridges, orchards, and wheat fields, and the quiet Adams County countryside became the site of the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.

By the war's third year, regiments carried the identities of the towns and counties that raised them. Men marched, fought, and died alongside neighbors, and a regiment's reputation was tied to the home it came from. The unit remembered here was drawn largely from around Rochester, New York, and was known with local pride as the "Rochester Regiment."

The ground it held lay near the Union center on Cemetery Ridge — the hinge of the whole defensive line. Whoever held that high ground would, in large part, decide the battle.

People & events

The 108th New York Infantry took its position here on July 2 and 3, 1863, with a specific and dangerous job: to support Battery I of the 1st U.S. Artillery, one of the gun crews anchoring the center of the line. Infantry stationed beside the guns had to stand their ground so the artillerymen could do their work, and so the enemy could not seize the cannon.

On the afternoon of July 3 came one of the most fearsome ordeals of the war. Confederate artillery opened a massive bombardment on the Union center — one of the largest cannonades ever heard on the continent — meant to shatter the line before an infantry assault. The 108th lay in the middle of it. As the inscription plainly records, the regiment endured a terrific fire without being able to return a shot.

That detail is the heart of their story. Infantrymen could not answer artillery with their muskets; they could only hunker down and take it. Hour upon hour, the men held their place under shellfire that killed without warning, waiting for the storm to lift and the attack they knew was coming.

Its place in the American story

The bombardment the 108th endured was the prelude to Pickett's Charge, the doomed Confederate assault against the Union center that marked the high-water mark of the Confederacy. When that charge was thrown back, the tide of the war in the East turned for good.

But victories like Gettysburg were not won only by the men who fired the decisive volleys. They were won, too, by regiments like this one, whose task was simply to stay — to absorb punishment, protect the guns, and keep the line from cracking before the crisis came. Their steadiness made the dramatic repulse possible.

That is why a modest monument to a single New York regiment matters. It stands for the unglamorous courage that holds a line together: not charging, not firing, just refusing to break under fire that a man could do nothing to answer.

If you visit

The monument sits amid the preserved fields of the Gettysburg battlefield, near the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. This is some of the most carefully protected ground in the country, and the landscape still reads much as it did in 1863 — open ridgelines, low stone walls, and long sightlines across the fields.

Stand where the regiment stood and look out toward the Confederate lines. Picture the afternoon of July 3, when the air itself seemed to tear apart and these men could only press themselves to the earth and wait. The quiet of the place now is part of what makes it powerful.

The monument fits naturally into a driving or walking tour of the Union center, close to the artillery positions the regiment was sent to protect. Take your time reading the inscription; its restraint — a terrific fire, endured without reply — tells you more than any grand phrase could.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg
  • · Pickett's Charge

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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