HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

83rd PA Woodward

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

The Brigade was hurried to Little Round Top about 5 p.m. of July 2d. This Regiment taking position in front of this monument and repulsing several desperate charges of the enemy after which this Regiment assisted in driving the enemy beyond, and in taking… transcription continues on the marker

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The Story

On the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the second day at Gettysburg, the fight for Little Round Top became one of the most desperate contests of the battle as Union regiments raced to hold the Army of the Potomac's exposed left flank. This monument marks where the 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry took position and beat back repeated Confederate assaults before helping press the enemy back. The regiment fought as part of the brigade that famously anchored that rocky hill under heavy pressure.

Why it matters

Little Round Top became legend because losing it could have unraveled the entire Union line, and the regiments that held it helped decide the war's turning-point battle.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had ground through two years of shattering casualties, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had crossed north into Pennsylvania, carrying the fighting onto Union soil for the first time in a major campaign. The armies collided at the crossroads town of Gettysburg on July 1, and over three days the surrounding farmland and low ridges became one of the most consequential battlefields in American history.

The ground here, in Cumberland Township just south of the town, is the southern anchor of the Union position. On the afternoon of July 2, the second day of the battle, the fighting swung toward a rocky, wooded hill at the far left end of the Union line. Whoever held the high ground could rake the enemy below; whoever lost it might see the whole line rolled up from the flank.

This was farm country turned to slaughter almost overnight — stone walls, scrub timber, and boulder-strewn slopes that would decide the fate of thousands of men in a few desperate hours.

People & events

Late on that second afternoon, with the Confederate assault gathering on the Union left, a Pennsylvania regiment was rushed up onto the hillside and thrown into position at roughly five o'clock. The monument here marks where those men planted themselves and held.

What followed was close, punishing combat. The soldiers of this regiment stood their ground as repeated charges came at them, beating back one assault after another. When the pressure finally broke, they joined in pressing the enemy back off the contested ground rather than simply clinging to their line.

The inscription speaks in the plain, hard-earned language of men who were there — a position taken, charges repulsed, and then the push forward. Behind those few words lies the reality of firing until barrels fouled, of gaps torn in the ranks, and of officers holding a line by force of will as the light began to fade.

Its place in the American story

The struggle for this rocky hill has become one of the enduring legends of the Civil War, and for good reason. The far left of the Union army was its most vulnerable point, and had it given way, the Confederates might have turned the entire position and unhinged the defense of the whole field.

That it held is a large part of why Gettysburg is remembered as the turning point of the war in the East. The regiments that fought across these slopes — including the Pennsylvanians honored here — bought the time and the ground that kept the Union line intact into the decisive third day.

Within a generation, veterans returned to mark exactly where they had stood, dotting the hillside with granite and bronze. Those monuments turned a place of terror into a place of memory, and they let later Americans trace the fight almost man by man.

If you visit

Come to this part of the battlefield expecting rugged, uneven ground rather than a manicured park. The slopes are steep and rocky, shaded by trees, and even on a quiet day you can feel how much the terrain itself shaped the fight.

Stand near the monument and look out over the ground in front of it — that is roughly the direction from which the charges came, uphill and into a waiting line. Reading the inscription with that view in mind does more than any narration to make the afternoon of July 2 feel real.

This spot pairs naturally with a slow loop of the wider battlefield. Give yourself time to walk rather than just drive; the short climb to the high ground, and the hush among the boulders, is where the history stops being abstract.

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
  • · Fight for Little Round Top

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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This marker records the headquarters position of the Third Brigade of the First Division, Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Led first by Colonel Strong Vincent and then by Colonel James C. Rice, the brigade included the 20th Maine, 16th Michigan, 44th New York, and 83rd Pennsylvania — regiments thrown onto Little Round Top to secure the Union left. It is one of the many positional tablets that map the battle's order of battle across the field.

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On July 2, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the 20th Maine held the far left flank of the entire Union line on the rocky slope of Little Round Top. Running low on ammunition against repeated assaults from Longstreet's Confederates, the regiment's commander ordered a downhill bayonet charge that swept the attackers back and took hundreds of prisoners. This monument marks the ground where that stand unfolded, at the very hinge of the Federal position.

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On the rocky slopes near Little Round Top, this marker remembers two Union officers cut down within moments of each other on July 2, 1863, during the second day at Gettysburg — Brigadier General Stephen H. Weed and Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett, whose artillery and infantry helped hold the army's imperiled left flank. Weed fell mortally wounded, and Hazlett was killed as he bent over him. Their deaths came at the hinge of one of the war's most desperate defensive stands.

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This memorial tablet honors the U.S. Signal Corps for its service at Little Round Top on July 2–4, 1863, and across the battlefields of the Civil War. From the heights, signal officers used flags to relay observations of enemy movements, giving Union commanders a crucial view of the field. The Signal Corps was then a young branch, and Gettysburg showcased the value of rapid battlefield communication.

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