HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

14th CT Ellis

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

The 14. Regt. Connecticut Vols. A.M. July 3, 1863 captured here from Confederate Sharp- shooters the large barn of Wm. Bliss and his dwelling house near and upon retiring burned both buildings by order of the Div. Commander. Center of barn site.

The Story

During the second and third days at Gettysburg, the William Bliss farm sat in the deadly open ground between the two armies, its sturdy barn a nest for Confederate sharpshooters who harassed the Union line. On the morning of July 3, 1863, men of the 14th Connecticut Volunteers seized the buildings and, on orders from their division commander, burned both barn and house so they could no longer shelter enemy marksmen. The field was cleared only hours before Pickett's Charge swept toward the Union center nearby.

Why it matters

The struggle for the Bliss farm shows how ordinary farmsteads became tactical prizes at Gettysburg, and how Union commanders destroyed civilian property to deny the enemy cover on the war's most decisive field.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In the summer of 1863, the war between North and South reached its bloody high-water mark in the fields and low ridges around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. For three days in early July, two great armies grappled across the farmland, turning quiet crops and pastures into some of the most fought-over ground in American history.

This marker stands on one such piece of farmland: the William Bliss farm, which had the terrible misfortune of sitting in the open bottomland between the two armies. To the east lay the Union line along Cemetery Ridge; to the west, the Confederate positions. In between lay the Bliss buildings — and any structure in that no-man's-land became instantly, dangerously valuable.

A sturdy barn was not just a barn in such a place. Its thick walls and high windows made a natural fortress, a shelter from which sharpshooters could pick off men at long range. Control of the Bliss farm meant control of a strongpoint thrust out toward the enemy, and both sides understood exactly what that was worth.

People & events

By the morning of July 3, 1863, the large Bliss barn had become a nest for Confederate sharpshooters, whose fire harassed the Union line across the open ground. Something had to be done about it. The task fell to the men of the 14th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers.

They seized the buildings — barn and dwelling house — and then, on orders from their division commander, did the hard, unsentimental thing that the tactical situation demanded: they set both structures alight. A farmer's barn and home, the work of years, went up in flame so that they could never again shelter enemy marksmen. The marker records the plain facts, down to the detail that it stands at the very center of where that barn once stood.

William Bliss, whose name the marker preserves, was the farmer who owned this ground. He was not a soldier, but his property sat in the path of history, and it paid the price. His buildings were destroyed not by accident or malice but by cold military necessity — a decision made under fire, hours before the day's climactic assault.

Its place in the American story

The fight for the Bliss farm is a small episode inside an enormous battle, and that is precisely why it matters. Gettysburg is remembered for its grand moments, but battles are actually won and lost in exactly these gritty, local struggles — for a barn, a wall, a stand of trees that happens to command the ground.

This site also captures a hard truth about war that monuments to glory often skip: its cost to civilians. The Bliss family's farm was not a battlefield they chose. It was their livelihood, and it was deliberately burned by the very army fighting to preserve the Union, because leaving it standing would have cost soldiers' lives. Across the war, ordinary farms, homes, and towns were swept up and sacrificed in just this way.

And the timing is everything. This ground was cleared only hours before Pickett's Charge — the massed Confederate assault on the Union center that has come to symbolize the battle's turning point and, many say, the Confederacy's. The quiet, brutal work at the Bliss farm was part of setting that stage, one small clearing of the board before the decisive move.

If you visit

Come out to this open, rolling ground and let the emptiness speak. There is no great barn here now — only the marker noting that you stand at the center of where it stood. That absence is the point. What you are looking at is a space defined by what was deliberately destroyed on it.

Turn and take in the lay of the land. Notice how exposed this bottomland feels, caught between the ridgelines the two armies held. Standing in the open, with no walls around you, you can feel why a solid barn out here was worth killing and dying for, and why the order finally came to burn it down.

This is a rewarding stop for anyone exploring the wider Gettysburg battlefield, especially travelers who want more than the famous highlights. Read the inscription carefully — it is admirably precise about who did what, and when — and give a thought to William Bliss, a farmer whose barn and home became, for one morning, a prize of war.

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 people

  • · William Bliss

Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg
  • · Pickett's Charge

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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