HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

US Stephen Weed+ & Charles Hazlett+

Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Stephen Weed+ and Charles Hazlett+ killed/mortally wounded

The Story

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.

Why it matters

It marks the human cost of holding Little Round Top, the fight that helped save the Union line on the battle's decisive second day.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had ground on for more than two years, and the fighting reached into the farm country of southern Pennsylvania when two great armies collided at the crossroads town of Gettysburg. The rolling ridges, boulder-strewn hills, and stone-walled fields south of town became, over three days in July, some of the most desperately contested ground in American history.

The rocky slope where this marker stands sits near the southern end of the Union line, close to the hill known as Little Round Top. On the second day of the battle, July 2, 1863, this high ground suddenly became critical: if the Confederates could seize it, they might roll up the entire Union position from the flank.

Into that emergency the Union army rushed whatever men and guns it could find. What happened on these slopes that afternoon was not a set-piece plan but a scramble — officers and soldiers thrown into a gap, fighting to hold a piece of ground whose value everyone suddenly understood at once.

People & events

This marker remembers two Union officers, Brigadier General Stephen H. Weed and Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett, whose fates were bound together in the fight for the army's imperiled left flank. Weed commanded an infantry brigade; Hazlett led a battery of artillery, whose guns were dragged up the rocky heights by sheer effort to command the field below.

According to the tradition preserved here, the two men fell within moments of each other. Weed was struck down, mortally wounded, and Hazlett was killed as he bent over the general — one officer cut down in the act of tending to another. The small crosses on the marker note that both were killed or mortally wounded, a shorthand for the terrible arithmetic of that afternoon.

Their deaths came at the hinge of one of the war's most famous defensive stands. Whether or not every detail of the story can be fixed with certainty, the essential facts are plain: two commanders, an artillery officer and an infantry general, gave their lives in the span of minutes holding this ground.

Its place in the American story

The defense of the Union left at Gettysburg has become one of the enduring symbols of the war — the story of men holding a rocky hill against long odds while the fate of the army seemed to hang on it. This marker puts names and a human face to that larger legend.

Gettysburg itself was a turning point. The Confederate invasion of the North was stopped here, and the army that had seemed unbeatable was turned back. The second day, with its fight for the high ground on the left, was among the most crucial phases of that reversal.

Monuments and markers cover this battlefield more densely than almost any other in America, because a generation of veterans and families were determined that the exact cost of those three days never be forgotten. This stone is part of that vast effort of memory — the insistence that where a man fell, and who he was, still matters.

If you visit

Come to this ground and let the terrain do the explaining. The slopes here are steep and littered with boulders; imagine hauling cannon up them under fire, and you begin to feel why holding this hill cost so much.

Gettysburg is one of the most thoroughly marked landscapes in the country, and part of the pleasure — and the solemnity — of visiting is reading these individual markers one at a time. This one asks you to pause over two officers who died within moments of each other, and to picture the confusion and courage of that afternoon.

If you're touring the battlefield, this spot fits naturally into the second-day story on the Union left, near the famous heights. Take your time, look out over the ground below as the artillery once did, and let the quiet of the place today stand against the violence it remembers.

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

  • · Stephen H. Weed
  • · Charles E. Hazlett

Related events

  • · Battle of Gettysburg
  • · Fight for Little Round Top

Themes & tags

Civil WarMemorial

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