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Civil War

Amherst VA Artillery "Kirkpatrick Battery”

Straban Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Army of Northern Virginia Ewell’s Corps Artillery Reserve Nelson’s Battalion Kirkpatrick’s Battery Amherst Virginia Artillery One 3 Inch Rifle Three Napoleons

The Story

On the rolling farmland east of Gettysburg, this tablet marks where the Amherst (Virginia) Artillery — Kirkpatrick's Battery of Nelson's Battalion — was posted during the three-day battle of July 1863. Attached to the artillery reserve of Ewell's Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, the battery went into action with a rifled gun and three smoothbore Napoleons in support of Lee's assaults on the Union line. Hundreds of such cast-iron tablets were placed across the field to record exactly where each unit stood.

Why it matters

Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in North America and a turning point of the Civil War; these unit tablets let visitors trace the fighting almost gun by gun.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

For three days in early July 1863, the rolling farmland around a small Pennsylvania town became the setting for the largest battle ever fought in North America. Two great armies collided here, and by the time the smoke cleared the course of the Civil War had shifted.

Artillery played an outsized role in that fight. Massed guns on ridgelines and along the lines could shatter an advancing column or pound a defensive position for hours. Commanders held some batteries in reserve, ready to be sent wherever the fighting grew hottest, and this tablet marks ground associated with one such reserve battery.

The men here belonged to the Army of Northern Virginia, in the artillery reserve of the corps named on the marker. They had marched north with an army that had, until this campaign, spent most of the war defending its own home region — and now found themselves posted on Northern soil, far from Virginia.

People & events

This tablet marks the Amherst Virginia Artillery — Kirkpatrick's Battery, part of a battalion in the corps artillery reserve. Its guns were a mixed lot: one 3-inch rifle and three Napoleons. That combination tells you something about how these batteries actually fought.

The 3-inch rifle was a long-range weapon, accurate at distance, good for reaching out to strike enemy batteries or formations far across the field. The Napoleon was a smoothbore — shorter-ranged but devastating up close, especially when loaded with canister, which turned a cannon into an enormous shotgun against infantry at short range. A battery with both could reach far and hit hard near.

Batteries were often named for the place their men came from, and this one carried the name of Amherst, in Virginia. The gunners who served these pieces were Virginians a long way from home, sent north as part of the army's bold and ultimately failed campaign into Pennsylvania.

Its place in the American story

The battle fought across these fields is remembered as a turning point of the Civil War. The Confederate army's deepest thrust into the North was checked here, and afterward the war's momentum shifted toward the Union. This is among the most studied pieces of ground in American history.

One reason it can be studied so closely is the extraordinary effort made to mark it. Hundreds of tablets and monuments were placed across the field to record exactly where each unit stood, gun by gun and regiment by regiment. Few battlefields anywhere have been documented in such physical detail.

This modest tablet is part of that vast record. It lets a visitor stand on a specific spot and know that here, on this ground, a particular Virginia battery with a particular mix of guns took its place in the great struggle — turning an abstract event into something you can locate with your own feet.

If you visit

Look for the tablet on the open, rolling farmland east of the town's core battlefield, and take a moment to read exactly what it records — down to the number and type of guns. That specificity is the whole charm of this place: the field is annotated almost like a map laid over the land.

Stand where the battery stood and look outward. Artillery was placed for its fields of fire, so the view itself is a clue to why this spot mattered. Picture the long-range rifle reaching across the distance and the smoothbore Napoleons waiting for anything that came close.

On a battlefield tour, this is one bead on a long string of unit markers — follow them and you can trace the armies' positions in remarkable detail. Give this one its due, and remember the men who served here were Virginians far from the place their guns were named for.

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

  • · Kirkpatrick

Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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