Gettysburg is, and always should be, famous throughout the world for the battle that was fought in her fields, hills, and ridges in the summer of 1863. Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, and Pickett’s Charge immediately spring to memory as the High Tide of the Confederacy is reverently recalled. Yet, there is a place at Gettysburg that is far less visited than these high profile areas; a hill where heavy casualties were incurred, and an equally important part of the fight was waged in the late evening of July 2 and the following morning of July 3, 1863. Culp’s Hill, which served as the Union right flank during the Battle of Gettysburg, is a nearly forgotten part of the epic battle that shaped the future of the nation.
Culp’s Hill is actually higher than Little Round Top, the rocky spur that served as the Union’s left flank during the battle. Both hills served as excellent barriers, protecting the soldiers who occupied them by their height and outcroppings of giant boulders. It made the July 2 fight difficult for the Army of Northern Virginia, as General Lee’s plan was to attack the Union flanks at Gettysburg that day.
After ceding the fields west of Gettysburg to the Confederates the first day of battle, the Union troops formed a defensive line in the shape of a fishhook south of town. Culp’s Hill is known as the Barb of the Union Fishhook, located south and east of the town. It can be easily accessed by either the Baltimore Pike or by East Middle Street before it turns into the Hanover Road. Owned in 1863 by Henry Culp, where his farm is still extant, Culp’s Hill was attacked by a sizeable Confederate force on two of the three days of the battle – on the evening of July 2 and throughout the morning on July 3.
On Culp’s Hill, several thousand Confederates were killed, wounded or taken prisoner, with comparatively fewer Union casualties in the interim. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that the hill is less often remembered: it was not like the Valley of Death on the second day or the epic charge of Pickett’s, Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s Divisions on the third, where a breach of the Federal lines almost became a reality. It, too, was overshadowed by Little Round Top and Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield and the Peach Orchard on the Union left, where the detritus of battle was far more easily evident. Yet, Culp’s Hill rivaled these places in deadliness. In the words of one historian, “Culp’s Hill was a disaster for the Army of Northern Virginia.”1
Because of the high sacrifice given on its slopes, and because of its strategic position, Culp’s Hill is a place to visit – and to contemplate.
Due to the confusion on the Union’s center line on July 2, most of the Union troops who occupied Culp’s Hill were ordered to leave it, temporarily, to bolster the unraveling Union position from Cemetery Ridge to the Emmitsburg Road. By the afternoon on July 2, no Confederate troops had attacked the Union right flank, and General Meade needed the men there to come to the aid of Sickles’ 3rd Corps, who were being annihilated by Longstreet’s troops. Only one brigade, led by General George Greene, remained on Culp’s Hill.
George Greene was the oldest Union general at the Battle of Gettysburg. An engineer and West Point graduate, “Pop” Greene made good use of his position on the crest of Culp’s Hill. Understanding the importance of the ground where he and his men were deployed, he ordered his troops to dig in and fortify. The young soldiers grudgingly obeyed – not realizing that their actions would save the hill – and their lives.
Greene’s boys had been ordered with the rest of the Union 12th Corps men on the hill to vacate it; but as they prepared to move out, Greene saw, to his consternation, that thousands of men in gray were appearing on the slopes. He immediately sent word to his superior, General John Geary, but Geary insisted that Greene follow orders and move out. Luckily for the Union, an adjutant of General Slocum, the 12th Corps commander, countermanded the order and Greene’s Brigade remained on the hill. The rest rushed to bolster the flailing Union line, fulfilled their duty, and after dark returned to their trenches – only to find them occupied by Confederate troops. General Greene and his brigade had fought just as hotly that evening, against great odds, but managed to hold the heights of Culp’s Hill. Greene placed his little brigade, spacing them apart behind the breastworks. He also had them make a lot of noise, fooling their enemy into thinking a much larger force held the heights.
The plan worked. Unsure of the numbers of Federals in the growing darkness, the men of Johnson’s Division stayed below the crest and remained tightly entrenched in the middle of Culp’s Hill. “The rebels, ignorant of the ground and apparently fearing a trap, hesitated to press their advantage,” remembered a captain of Greene’s brigade.2
One of the Confederate officers explained their predicament. “These late-in-the-evening fights are the most disagreeable things imaginable. In the first place you are as liable to shoot and be shot by friend as by foe. Moreover, the inextricable confusion inevitable is unpleasant, for you are more likely to get into the enemy’s lines than keep in your own; and I saw many instances of it that night.”3 
When the Union 12th Corps high command learned of the Confederate infiltration on Culp's Hill, they were troubled. One of the Union flanks was still in danger of being taken. This particular flank not only safeguarded the Union line at Gettysburg as much as the Round Tops on the other end, but it also protected the Baltimore Pike – one of the few paths of escape for the Union army. In addition, General Meade had left the majority of his supply wagons near Westminster, twenty miles south on the pike in order to allow his army a speedy march to Gettysburg. Were the Confederates to succeed in taking Culp’s Hill, the Union army would be cut off from escape and without needed supplies – making total surrender a frightening probability. Grimly realizing the dangers, the Federals agreed to wait until dawn to force out the Confederate soldiers.
At first light on July 3, the battle began in earnest, and lasted for over seven hours – the longest sustained fighting at Gettysburg. The dense tree cover, the plentiful stone walls and the trenches dug by Greene’s brigade made the battle on Culp’s Hill one of confusion and destruction. The fight near Spangler’s Spring, one of Culp’s Hills best known landmarks, was one of the deadliest in the area to both sides. As Union forces attempted to dislodge the Confederates, men in blue sustained heavy casualties as men in gray shot them down. Today, the monuments of the 2nd Massachusetts and the 27th Indiana mark the spot where the majority of the two regiments fell in an attempt to take the heights. “From behind every tree and rock the enemy’s fire was poured in,” recalled one survivor. “It seemed certain destruction but it was orders.”4
While the Federals failed at the moment from dislodging the Confederates from their position, the Southern troops had just as difficult a situation. Sandwiched between the Union forces, the men from Johnson’s Division could not remain where they were for long. They had to take Culp’s Hill completely in order to successfully flank the Union army. They found themselves in a dilemma equal to the men from the Union 12th Corps who were trying to drive them out. Detachments from the Union 1st and 6th Corps, and some troops from Hancock’s 2nd Corps had reinforced Greene during the night. They were well entrenched and sufficiently armed, and they were ready for the attack that they knew the men in gray had to make.5
Between the lower part of the hill and the higher was a cleared field on the opposite side from where the waters of swollen Rock Creek ran. Named Pardee Field after one of the officers who fought there, the clearing formed a no-man’s land between the Union and Confederate troops. Men from Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana and North Carolina charged the field in an attempt to take the Union position beyond it. Like the hapless Union troops near Spangler’s Spring, the men in gray now fell by the hundreds in the meadow approaching the fortified trenches of Candy’s and Kane’s brigades who were hidden behind a stone wall in the woods near Spangler’s Lane. Moreover, additional troops from Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, including the Stonewall Brigade, were grappling with Greene and his myriad reinforcements on the heights. They too fell by the hundreds, making the Confederate casualties climb into the thousands as the morning wore on.
Thomas Kane commanded one of the Union brigades on Culp’s Hill. He was the man who originated the famous Pennsylvania Bucktails, and was a devout Pennsylvania soldier. He had suffered from lung ailments from his youth and was ill again with pneumonia. Leaving his hospital bed in Baltimore to be with his troops at Gettysburg, Kane was unable to fight because of his weakened condition. He relinquished command to Colonel Cobham, the highest ranking regimental leader in Kane’s brigade – and remained at the front, observing the slaughter. Having a telescope that belonged to his late brother, an explorer, Kane and his troops were easily able to see concealed men in gray; and the Federals handily shot them down in “a merciless storm of bullets” as the Confederates determinedly persisted in the fight. The destruction was so horrific that one Union general became ill with the sight. General George Steuart, commander of the Confederate Maryland Brigade, was reduced to tears, crying out, “My boys! My poor boys!” Another Confederate officer lamented, “Flesh and blood could not live in such a fire.”6
For seven hours the fighting pressed on, leaving enough wounded and dying to rival any famous battle of any war. By about 11 a.m. the murderous firing and loud, incessant shelling ceased, and the surviving Confederates retreated from Culp’s Hill.
It was then that General Lee realized that a central assault was necessary, and Pickett’s Charge followed early that afternoon on the fields bisected by the Emmitsburg Road south of Gettysburg.
Why is Culp’s Hill, an important part of the Battle of Gettysburg, almost forgotten in the annals of history? No one exactly knows. Perhaps it is because later that day Pickett’s Charge occurred, forever eclipsing any other moment of that day at Gettysburg. Perhaps it is because the Union casualties were comparatively light due to their entrenchments on Culp’s Hill; whereas soldiers on other fields and hills, so many of them not entrenched, paid a much higher price. Perhaps the cause is that the numbers of Confederate dead from Culp’s Hill – and that number is enormous – was easier to cover up than other places at Gettysburg. In order to perpetuate the war, the leaders of the Confederacy needed to keep the true number of their casualties from the people of the South. They never knew the actual number of Confederate dead and wounded at Gettysburg. Nearly a century and a half later, we still do not know those numbers.
Perhaps Culp’s Hill is overshadowed because those who fought there and survived it – North and South – never achieved the political greatness afterward like some at Little Round Top, the Peach Orchard, or Longstreet’s Assault. Perhaps the contest at Culp’s Hill is forgotten because General Meade had not personally been there. The same may be true for General Lee – for he, too, never visited that part of the field.
Whatever the reason, Culp’s Hill is a place where American heroes, North and South, bravely fought and nobly died at Gettysburg. Its pastoral serenity belies the horror of those early July days and nights on her slopes in 1863. For these reasons, it is worth a visit, and our continual remembrance.
Sources: Collins, George. “Memories of the 149th New York Regiment.” Syracuse, NY: 1891. Copy, GNMP. Goldsboro, William. The Maryland Line. (Baltimore, 1869) Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1972 (reprint). Greene, George Sears. “The Breastworks at Culp’s Hill.” From Johnson, Robert U. and Clarence C. Buels, eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Vol. 3. Letter, Capt. Horton to John Bachelder, Jan. 23, 1867, Bachelder Papers, GNMP. Pfanz, Harry W. Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Greene’s Brigade File, Gettysburg National Military Park. Steuart’s Brigade File, GNMP. Kane’s Brigade File, GNMP.
End Notes:
1. Pfanz, p. 352.
2. Greene, "Breastworks", from Buels, vol. 3, p. 317. Collins, “Memories of the 149th New York.”
3. Letter, Horton to Bachelder, Jan. 23, 1867. Goldsboro, p. 142.
4. Letter, Thomas Webb to his brother, July 18, 1863.
Steuart’s Brigade File, GNMP.
5. Pfanz, pp. 204, 234.
6. Goldsboro, p. 157. Kane Brigade File, GNMP. Steuart’s Brigade File, GNMP.
*Editor’s Note: General Greene survived the war, and lived until the turn of the century, dying of a short illness at age 98. Just before he passed away, he requested that a boulder from Culp’s Hill be his tombstone. His wish was granted. At the family cemetery, on a hilltop in Warwick, Rhode Island, a two-ton boulder from Culp’s Hill marks the grave of “Pop” Greene, and the man who never left Culp’s Hill on that pivotal day in Gettysburg still has a portion of the field with him. Also, though General Greene was the oldest Union General at Gettysburg, on the Confederate side, there was one general even older. General William “Extra Billy” Smith, who also fought on Culp’s Hill, was 64 years of age in 1863. He was a Virginia politician before and after the war – hence the nickname.
