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Civil War

US HQ 2-2-2nd Brigade Webb(w)

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Army of the Potomac Second Corps Second Division Second Brigade Brig. Gen. Alexander S. Webb 69th 71st 72d 106th Penna. Infantry

The Story

This tablet marks the headquarters position of the Second Brigade of the Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, led at Gettysburg by Brigadier General Alexander S. Webb. Webb's brigade of Pennsylvania regiments held the low stone wall at 'the Angle' on Cemetery Ridge, the very point where Pickett's Charge struck and broke on July 3, 1863. The fighting here reached the fence line and became the closest thing to a Confederate breakthrough in the whole battle.

Why it matters

This spot is often called the 'high-water mark of the Confederacy' — the farthest reach of the South's great gamble before the tide of the war turned toward the Union for good.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By July 1863, the Civil War had reached a pitch of scale and desperation that neither side had imagined at the start. The Confederate army had carried the war north into Pennsylvania, and at Gettysburg it met the Union Army of the Potomac in a three-day battle that would become the most famous fight of the war.

The ground this tablet marks sits on Cemetery Ridge, the low rise that anchored the Union center. Along its length ran a modest stone wall, the kind farmers build to clear their fields — an unremarkable feature that history was about to make unforgettable.

Here the Army of the Potomac placed its Second Corps, and within it the brigade whose headquarters this marker records. The men posted along this wall could not have known it, but they were standing at the exact spot where the battle would reach its climax.

People & events

The tablet marks the position of the Second Brigade, Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, commanded at Gettysburg by Brigadier General Alexander S. Webb, and it names the Pennsylvania regiments that made up the brigade — the 69th, 71st, 72nd, and 106th.

Webb's Pennsylvanians held the ground at a bend in the stone wall known ever after as 'the Angle.' On July 3, after a thunderous artillery barrage, thousands of Confederate infantry advanced across the open fields in the assault remembered as Pickett's Charge, and the point of their spear drove straight at this spot.

The fighting here became hand-to-hand and desperate as attackers surged over the wall and defenders fought to throw them back. It was the closest the Confederate assault came to a breakthrough — and it broke, right here. The marker names the general and his regiments precisely because it was their ground that held when the whole battle hung in the balance.

Its place in the American story

This stretch of low stone wall is often called the 'high-water mark of the Confederacy' — the farthest reach of the South's great gamble at Gettysburg. When the assault was repulsed here, the tide of the battle, and arguably of the war, began to turn toward the Union.

That is why this unassuming spot draws visitors from all over the world. It concentrates an enormous historical meaning into a few yards of ground: the moment when the most ambitious Confederate attack of the war reached its limit and failed.

A marker naming Webb's brigade and its Pennsylvania regiments roots that vast meaning in specific men. The turning point was not an abstraction; it was soldiers standing at a wall, refusing to give way. The nation's future ran through the ground they held, and the marker makes sure we remember whose ground it was.

If you visit

Stand at the Angle and take in how small and ordinary the stone wall looks. That contrast — humble ground, world-changing consequence — is exactly what makes this one of the most powerful places on any American battlefield.

Read the tablet for the brigade and its regiments, then turn and look west across the broad, open fields. Picture the long lines of attackers crossing that distance in the open on July 3, 1863, and you begin to grasp both the courage of the charge and the resolve it took to stop it.

This is the emotional center of a Gettysburg visit, so give it the time it deserves. Come when the light is soft and the field is quiet, walk the line of the wall, and let the stillness settle. From here, the rest of the battlefield opens up around you — but few spots will stay with you the way this one does.

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

  • · Brigadier General Alexander S. Webb

Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg
  • · Pickett's Charge

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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