With the long-term closures of two of Gettysburg’s famous landmarks this year: the upcoming work on Little Round Top and the already-begun overhaul atop Devil’s Den, many visitors are disappointed.  Don’t despair, though, this immense battlefield has other sites on the roads less traveled.  One of them is Culp’s Hill, which is always worth a visit.  Here are ten reasons why Culp’s Hill is historically relevant to the Battle of Gettysburg:

1. Culp’s Hill served as the Union’s right flank for the battle – the counterpart of Little Round Top, which formed the left. The famous Union fish-hook line, implemented by General Winfield Scott Hancock on the evening of the first day’s battle, was a perfect defensive position.  Not only did the Union hold the high ground, but the line was known as an interior line – making it easier to reinforce troops where they were needed.  The Army of Northern Virginia, then, had to attack this line, scale the high ground and attempt to take it.  They did not succeed.  Culp’s Hill is actually higher in altitude than Little Round Top, but both were essential positions for the Union troops at Gettysburg.

2. Culp’s Hill earned the distinction of the place where the longest sustained fighting of the battle occurred.  From first light (about 4:00 a.m.) on July 3, 1863 until about 11:00 a.m. that day, Union and Confederate troops were engaged in a sustained, seven-hour fight.  Even on July 1, the first day, the troops took a break from the fighting for a time.  On the second day, the troops involved in the fighting around Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard did not begin until late afternoon and ended their battles about sunset.  On Cemetery Hill, the fight on July 2 did not begin until sunset.  Culp’s Hill troops were engaged in the twilight until darkness fell on that day, too.  None of them matched the July 3 fight on Culp’s Hill for duration.

3. The two oldest generals at Gettysburg, North and South, fought on Culp’s Hill.   Brigadier General George S. Greene, age 62, and Brigadier General William S. “Extra Billy” Smith, age 65, were both present on Culp’s Hill during the battle.  Greene, who graduated second in his class at West Point in 1823, had retired from the military, becoming a civil engineer until he joined the Union cause in early 1862.  On Culp’s Hill, Greene’s brigade comprised the only Union troops remaining during the early evening of the second day.  Using his engineering skills, Greene had his men dig trenches, strategically positioned them on the heights, and kept the Confederates at bay until reinforcements arrived.  He is considered the “Savior of Culp’s Hill”.  When he died at age 97 in 1899, he requested that a boulder from Culp’s Hill serve as his tombstone.  At the cemetery in Warwick, Rhode Island, a two-ton rock from the famous hill is indeed there over his grave.¹

William Smith, a statesman from Virginia, joined the Confederacy soon after war erupted in 1861.  He fought in the major battles in which the Army of Northern Virginia was engaged and was wounded several times, surviving every one of them.  He led three regiments of Virginia troops on Culp’s Hill against Union forces in the lower portion of the slopes.  He fearlessly led a charge across the meadow where the 27th Indiana, the 2nd Massachusetts and 3rd Wisconsin were deployed.  His men shouted, “Hurrah for Governor Smith!” as he hurled his way into the battle.  The Union forces repelled the Confederates, the hill remained in Northern hands.  After Gettysburg, the general returned to Virginia to serve a second time as its governor.  His sobriquet, “Extra Billy” came from the years before the war, when he had organized a mail-coach business between Washington, D.C. and Georgia.  He received double payments for this business from the U.S. Post Office.  Like Greene, Smith lived until old age, dying of natural causes at age 89.²

4. The Culp’s Hill Tower is one of two full 19 th century towers remaining on the battlefield.  When the Sickles Bill passed Congress in 1895, Gettysburg became one of the oldest National Parks in the United States.  In order to facilitate viewing of the immense battlefield, five towers were constructed.  With the ravages of time, only two and a half remain.  The Culp’s Hill Tower, located on the summit near General Greene’s portrait statue, is one of them.  Climbing the multitude of steps to the top, those who make the ascent can view the entire Union line to the Round Tops, and see the National Cemetery and the town below.  It is one of the most picturesque sights and worth every step.  The National Park Service regularly refurbishes these towers to ensure their safety, in spite of their age.

5. Spangler’s Spring, located at the edge of the woods where the park roads diverge, is a famous Gettysburg landmark. On the Baltimore Pike near Culp’s Hill is the Abraham Spangler farm, one of the oldest standing edifices in the area.  At Abraham’s death, his son, Henry, inherited the estate.  Spangler’s Spring is named for this family who owned a portion of the hill at one time.  Culp’s Hill was often a favorite picnic spot for Gettysburg residents, and the spring provided water for visitors.  The basin and surrounding stone had been built by locals for facilitating access to the spring before the days of war.  Soldiers from both sides used this spring to fill their canteens, often with dangerous and deadly results.³

6. A native Gettysburg man, with the surname Culp, died on Culp’s Hill, fighting for the Confederacy.  John Wesley Culp, born in 1841 in northern Adams County, grew up in Gettysburg. Wes was an apprentice to a carriage maker, William Hoffman, who decided to move to western Virginia to improve his business before the war.  Although a member of the Culp family, Wesley was not wealthy and was distantly related to the owner of the hill that bore their common surname.  With his parents passed away and his siblings grown, Culp accompanied Mr. Hoffman.  Like most young men of that era, he joined the local militia in Shepherdstown.  When war came, Wesley automatically enrolled with the rest of his friends in the 2nd Virginia Regiment.  His brother, William, fought for the Union, though was not present at Gettysburg.⁴

In a bitter twist of irony, some men of the 2nd Virginia were sent ahead as skirmishers to test the Union presence on Culp’s Hill in the early hours of July 3, 1863.  Perhaps because Wesley was originally from Gettysburg and knew his relatives’ land, he was among those selected.  A Union bullet ended his life at age 22. 

When his sisters learned of Wesley’s fate, they searched Culp’s Hill for his body.  They claimed that, after a long search, they did not find it.  The townspeople considered Culp a traitor, so it is probable that his sisters did find him and buried him secretly.  No one knows where Private Culp’s grave is located.⁵

7. Remnants of the original breastworks from the battle are visible on the upper slopes of Culp’s Hill.  When, on another part of the battlefield a call was urgently given for more troops, the majority of the Union Twelfth Corps left Culp’s Hill – where as yet no Confederates had ventured – to shore up the Union line on Cemetery Ridge.  General George Greene’s Brigade was preparing to follow when Confederate forces were seen approaching.  Greene, the second-eldest general at Gettysburg, had already commanded his regiments to dig trenches.  Now these trenches were desperately needed as Greene and his troops, about 1,400 New Yorkers, were vastly outnumbered against nearly 7,000 men from General Johnson’s Division of General Richard Ewell’s Corps.  Using the coming twilight and urging his men to make as much noise as possible, Greene placed his men at strategic intervals along the summit.  As Confederates made their way up the hill in the approaching darkness, they saw the embankments created by “Pop” Greene’s brigade and decided to back off until daylight.  The little brigade held the hill and saved an immensely essential position.  If either flank had been taken, the Confederate troops would have swept the Union troops and cut off their avenues of escape.⁶

On the slopes between the traverse of the hill and its summit, just yards from the edge of woods, the remnants of these original breastworks remain.  The monument of the 78th and 102nd New York Regiments – part of Greene’s brigade – shows a soldier behind the wall of logs and rocks.

8. The statue of John Geary, one of the Union’s tallest generals at Gettysburg, is located on Culp’s Hill.  John Geary, at six feet five inches, towers over the traverse of Culp’s Hill.  He is perhaps only suprassed in height by Solomon Meredith, who, at 6 feet six inches, led the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg.  A Pennsylvania native, Geary was a veteran of the Mexican War, the first mayor of San Francisco, and served as the territorial governor of “Bleeding” Kansas in 1856-1857.  Overwhelmed and distressed by the fight of slave owners pouring into the territory and by the equally bloody resistance by abolitionist fighters, Geary resigned his position before Kansas achieved statehood in 1861.  He commanded a division in the Union Twelfth Corps, and had been among those dispatched to plug the unraveling Cemetery Ridge on the early evening of the second day.  It appears that Geary and some of his men did not make it to Cemetery Ridge.  Because Greene (a brigade in Geary’s Division) saved the hill from capture and due to Geary’s good judgment of troop placement on the 3rd day, he was spared humiliation and worse.  After the war, he served as governor of Pennsylvania.⁷

9. The first Union and Confederate regimental monuments are found on Culp’s Hill. The 2nd Massachusetts Infantry and the 2nd Maryland Infantry CSA are the first regimental monuments to be placed outside of the National Cemetery and instead dedicated on the field of battle where the soldiers fought.

The men of the 2nd Massachusetts were among those ordered to vacate their position on Culp’s Hill to aid in the defense of Cemetery Ridge on the evening of July 2.  When they returned in the darkness, they discovered that Confederate troops had taken over their former line.  Although the southern troops had failed to take the heights against General Greene and his men, they managed to deploy in the vacated, reinforced area in the lower part of the hill. 

Ordered by the high command to drive the rebels out, the men from Massachusetts, along with the 27th Indiana, made a valiant charge across the meadow toward the trenches of the men in gray.  They were repulsed with heavy casualties.⁸

After the seven-hour fight, Culp’s Hill remained in Union hands, but the slopes of the hill, its surrounding woods and meadows, were littered with dead and wounded. 

It seemed appropriate to leave memorials where so many fell.  The 2nd Massachusetts monument was dedicated in 1879.

A few years later, in 1886, the first Confederate monument was placed on the battlefield.  It was placed to honor the veterans of the First Maryland Battalion.  Although the state of Maryland remained in the Union during the war, this slave state sent many of her sons to fight for the Confederacy, most of them from the Eastern Shore.  Their colonel, George Steuart, had risen to brigade command by the Battle of Gettysburg.  The monument is situated on the slope of the hill that rises toward the upper part of Culp’s Hill.  It is seen on the right side of Slocum Avenue, at the edge of the woods.  In order to obtain permission to place their memorial, the First Maryland changed their name to the Second Maryland CSA – not to be confused with a regiment of the same moniker which fought for the Union on the same hill.⁹

Because monuments had to be placed where troops could prove they had fought, the 2nd Maryland monument is impressive, showing that they had, for a time, pierced the Union line – a source of pride for the regiment and their commander.  They paid a high price in human life to obtain that position, however temporary it had been.

10. Culp’s Hill was a place where brother fought brother at Gettysburg.  The Civil War is considered a fratricidal conflict, as families were divided by their respective loyalties.  Some relations were never mended.  The already mentioned 2nd Maryland Infantry fought against their own relatives and neighbors, as seen farther up the hill by the Potomac Home Brigade and the First Maryland Eastern Shore memorials.  Captain William Murray led the Confederate Marylanders and Brigadier General Henry Lockwood, a native of Delaware and West Point graduate, led the brigade on Culp’s Hill that contained two Maryland units.  The 150th New York Infantry was also in this brigade.  Without doubt there were bullets that hit Confederate Marylanders by their Union counterparts, and vice versa.  While both sides sustained significant casualties, the Confederates from the Eastern Shore suffered most heavily.

Culp’s Hill was a significant contribution to the Battle of Gettysburg.  The multitude of monuments that dot the otherwise bucolic landscape of a 19th century farmer’s land testifies of the enormity of those many hours of conflict.  It is worth visiting and pondering for those who wish to always remember what they did here.