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Civil War

US HQ Cavalry Corps 3-1st Brigade Farnsworth+ / Richmond

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

July 3. Moved to the left to attack the Confederate right and rear arriving about 1 P. M. and engaged with Confederate skirmishers being supported at 3 P. M. by the Reserve Cavalry Brigade on the left. At 5.30 P. M. the 18th Pa. 1st Vt. and 1st WV.......

The Story

This War Department tablet traces the First Brigade of the Union Third Cavalry Division on July 3, 1863, as it moved to strike the Confederate right and rear at the southern end of the Gettysburg field. Arriving around 1 P.M. and later supported by the Reserve Cavalry Brigade, its regiments — among them the 18th Pennsylvania, 1st Vermont, and 1st West Virginia — pressed the fighting into the late afternoon. The marker preserves the precise choreography of the day's cavalry combat.

Why it matters

The brigade's advance was part of the Union cavalry effort against the Confederate flank on the decisive third day at Gettysburg.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By July 1863, the Civil War had reached its northernmost crisis in the fields around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Across three days, the armies fought the largest battle of the war, and the struggle ranged from the town itself south along a chain of ridges and hills into open farm country.

This ground in Cumberland Township, Adams County, lies at the southern end of that battlefield, where the fighting on the final day extended well beyond the famous center. Here the Union cavalry maneuvered against the far end of the Confederate position, in country that mixed open fields with rocky, awkward terrain.

The tablet standing here is an official War Department marker, one of the many placed long after the guns fell silent to record, in exact and formal language, how a single unit moved and fought. It reflects a national effort to preserve the choreography of the battle down to the hour, so that visitors could one day trace each advance on the very ground where it happened.

People & events

This tablet follows the First Brigade of the Union Third Cavalry Division on July 3, 1863. As the inscription records, the brigade moved to the left to attack the Confederate right and rear, arriving around one o'clock in the afternoon and engaging the enemy's skirmishers. Two names are tied to this command on the marker: Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth and Nathaniel Richmond.

The inscription lays out the day's timing with an almost clocklike precision. At three in the afternoon the brigade was supported on its left by the Reserve Cavalry Brigade; later, in the fading afternoon, its regiments were drawn into sharper fighting. Among those regiments the tablet names the 18th Pennsylvania, the 1st Vermont, and the 1st West Virginia — units drawn from across the North, brought together in one hard-pressed brigade.

What the marker captures is the careful sequence of a cavalry fight: a move to the flank, a contact with the enemy, the arrival of support, and then the escalation as the hours passed. Each noted time marks a decision made and an order obeyed, the machinery of a brigade going into action on the decisive day of the battle.

Its place in the American story

Gettysburg is remembered as the turning point of the Civil War, and its third day is the most storied of the three. While the great assault at the center dominates the memory of that afternoon, the battle was also being fought at its southern edge, where Union cavalry pressed against the Confederate flank and rear.

The movements recorded on this tablet show how that pressure was applied — methodically, brigade by brigade, with supporting units arriving on schedule to extend and strengthen the attack. Regiments from Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia fighting side by side capture the national character of the Union army, men from different states and landscapes bound into a single effort.

The marker's precise account is itself part of the American story of remembrance. By fixing each maneuver to a place and an hour, the War Department turned this quiet ground into a lasting record, ensuring that the work of one cavalry brigade on July 3 would remain legible to anyone willing to stop and read.

If you visit

Read this tablet the way you might read a timetable of the fight — one o'clock, three o'clock, half past five — and let those hours pull you into the rhythm of the day. The formal language rewards attention; each clause marks a real movement across the fields in front of you.

Then look out at the ground. The marker describes a shift to the left and an attack on the enemy's flank and rear, so orient yourself and imagine the brigade's regiments moving into position, with support arriving as the afternoon wore on. The names of the regiments invite a moment's thought about how far some of these men had come to fight here.

This stop fits naturally into a tour of the battlefield's southern and cavalry sites, where a cluster of tablets records the day's mounted actions. Move among them unhurried. Standing here, with the official words on the marker and the open country beyond, you can feel how a calm patch of Pennsylvania farmland once ran on the exact schedule of battle.

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

  • · Elon J. Farnsworth
  • · Nathaniel Richmond

Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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