Second Day of Caching in Gettysburg and it Actually Stopped Raining 5/8/2009

We drove into downtown Gettysburg and parked the car so we could do a cahe then walk around the streets. The downtown area has a roundabout in the center of town and the 4 main streets feed off that. The first cache was at the Wills Bldg on the circle and we had to take a picture with Honest Abe & friend and find a nano container. This three-story, brick Federal style structure was named after David Wills, a prominent 19th century Gettysburg attorney and county judge.
The Wills House was built about 1816 for Alexander Cobean, a merchant and one of the founding fathers of Adams County and the Bank of Gettysburg, now a branch of PNC. It is believed that the structure was originally intended as a commercial building and not a private dwelling.
At one time, the building housed nine stores of some of the area’s most important merchants. The building has gone through numerous incarnations from a general store to a book and stationary shop. In 1839, it was converted into the American Hotel, a landmark on the “square” of downtown Gettysburg for nearly nine years. The “square” was marked by four houses: the Maxwell-Danner House, The Arnold-Spangler House, the McConaughy-Stoever House and the Wills House each built on opposing corners.
Purchased on April Fool's Day 1859, David Wills used the building as his private home and law office. He built a two-story addition, which for many years, housed the studio of the Tyson Brothers, two of Gettysburg's leading photographers. Their studio was located on the second floor of the "Wills Building."
David Wills will long be remembered as the man who invited President Abraham Lincoln to give “a few appropriate remarks” at the dedication of a cemetery for the Union war dead. Wills hosted President Lincoln in his home on the eve of his Gettysburg Address. It is here, in the Wills House, that Lincoln did the final edits on the 272 word, 2-minute speech that would be heralded as one of his greatest speeches.
On November 18, 1863, President Lincoln arrived by train in Gettysburg. He was the guest of David Wills, Esq. Mr. Wills was the proprietor of the Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg, and he had donated a significant number of graves for the Union Soldiers who died in Gettysburg. It was to be called the Soldiers' Cemetery, and Mr. Wills was having a dedication ceremony. President Lincoln was actually a last-minute invitee, and not the keynote speaker. He was just asked "to say a few words."
Around the corner was the Cannonball Old Tyme Malt Shoppe which was part of the Wills Bldg. Above the malt shop was what might be an actual shell stuck in the structure. The shell is below the window of what at the time of the battle was Tyson’s Photo Gallery. The Wills Building was constructed by David Wills in 1860 as a two story, brick, commercial structure. Wills began renting space in his new building, and one of his tenants were Charles and Isaac Tyson, photographers from Philadelphia. The Tysons arrived in Gettysburg in August, 1859, and first set up their studio in the northeast corner of the Diamond/Lincoln Square/Circle in a former Adams County office building. The space they were renting became available when the Adams County Courthouse, and adjoining offices moved to Baltimore Street that year. The Tyson Brothers moved their gallery to the second story of the Wills Building in January, 1861. Their clients were the civilians in the area and any visiting military personnel. Isacc Tyson, Charles Tyson, and Charles’ wife, Maria Griest Tyson did not live at this location. Their home was on Chambersburg Street. When the battle of Gettysburg began, Charles Tyson and his wife eventually stayed in Littlestown. What happened to Isaac Tyson during the battle was not recorded. When the Tysons returned to their gallery after the battle, Mrs. David Wills told them that Confederates had tried to enter the building, but she had told them not to enter it because with all the chemicals inside it was dangerous. The Confederates did find alcohol in the basement of the building, and took the alcohol, but the gallery was left almost undamaged. The only damage to the gallery was a hole in a window caused by a minie ball, and an artillery shell stuck in the north wall. Its location is marked by the small United States flag underneath the window. Charles Tyson wrote in 1884 that “the shell has never been removed– is still there just as it was, ready to blow somebody up perhaps some time or other.” The artillery shell is a 3″ Hotchkiss shell, probably fired from a rifled artillery battery on Oak Hill, Oak Ridge, or Seminary Ridge. Although Charles Tyson claimed the shell was never removed when he wrote his account of what happened during the battle in 1884, it appears to have a lot of mortar around it as if someone had removed it (hopefully to defuse it) and then put it back in place.
After finding the cache we walked all through downtown up one street and down the other looking at all the old buildings, shops and eateries.
After we were done there we did 5 NRV (no redeeming value caches at various locations in the downtown area. Then it was off to the Gettysburg Battlefield and 3 caches there. The first was at the 142nd PA Infantry Monument which symbolizes the position of the 142nd PA Infantry Regiment during the first day of battle at Gettysburg. Then it was off to the 90th PA Infantry Monument which also symbolizes the position of the 90th PA Infantry Regiment during the first day of battle at Gettysburg.
Then we drove to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Located on the summit of Oak Hill and surrounded by guns that mark Confederate artillery positions, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial overlooks the July 1st battlefield. The memorial was the sentimental brainchild of Union and Confederate veterans who first proposed the monument during the 1913 Anniversary and reunion celebration at Gettysburg. Funds for the project were difficult to find and the Great Depression postponed its construction. Through the personal efforts of governors, veteran groups and several state legislatures, the memorial project was revived and finally came to fruition.
It was a torridly hot afternoon on July 3, 1938, when former Union and Confederate soldiers met to dedicate this memorial to "Peace Eternal in a Nation United" during the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the battle. A Union and a Confederate veteran pulled the ropes to unveil the memorial shaft that towers 47 1/2 feet above Oak Hill. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the featured speaker at the ceremony and pushed the button which lit the gas flame on top of the monument shaft. "Immortal deeds and immortal words have created here at Gettysburg a shrine of American patriotism," the president began. "We are encompassed by 'the last full measure' of many men and by the simple words in which Abraham Lincoln expressed the simple faith for which they died." The president went on to compare the task set before Lincoln and the American people in 1863, with the task set before Americans in 1938. Of the veterans in blue and gray, Roosevelt reminded the audience, "All of them we honor, not asking under which Flag they fought then- thankful that they stand together under one Flag now."
Pennsylvania State Police estimated that 250,000 people attended the dedication while another 100,000 remained stuck on automobile-packed highways.
The memorial cost $60,000 with contributions from many states including New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. The dark colored stone base was constructed of Maine granite and the lighter colored shaft of Alabama Rockwood Limestone. The memorial has undergone two restoration projects since its construction, the last in 1988 when the gas flame was restored and the monument rededicated with an appropriate ceremony that featured Dr. Carl Sagan as the keynote speaker. Except for a period during the energy crisis of the mid-1970's followed by a nine-year span when it was electrified, the gas-fueled flame has burned continuously twenty four hours a day.
The dedication of the memorial by President Roosevelt was the highlight of four days of activities commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the battle and hosted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. More than 1,800 aged Civil War veterans attended the last great reunion, much of which took place on the Gettysburg College campus. Veterans were housed in white canvas tent camps erected in the fields north of the college, each camp having wooden boardwalks, electric lights, and large mess tents for food service. Parades and military demonstrations by the United States Army featured mounted cavalry charges, infantry demonstrations, and a display of army tanks and vehicles. The sad thing was that on January 10,2009 the monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield dedicated to peace, someone, or a group of individuals, expressed ideas of hate. The Eternal Light Peace Memorial and the handicapped parking signs in front of it have been vandalized with spray paint. The words are profane, and the drawings are vulgar. The National Park Service has covered up the worst spots on the monument with pieces of plywood.
Oak Hill was an important position for the Confederates on July 1st. The gentle slope of this hill and open terrain to the south offered an excellent field of fire for artillery that could send shells into the Union positions at the McPherson Farm and Seminary Ridge, with little opportunity for the Union gunners to reply. A part of the John Forney Farm, Oak Hill rises just north of the Mummasburg Road and in 1863 had an expansive apple orchard on its southern slope. Some time after noon, the Confederate infantry division of Major General Robert E. Rodes arrived and deployed behind the hill, using trees to screen their movement from Union observers. Having received word that troops from A.P. Hill's Corps were going to attack at 1 P.M., Rodes moved his infantry southward to attack from this hill and threaten the Union forces in positions on the McPherson Farm and Oak Ridge.
Confederate gunners set up their artillery pieces amongst the fruit-laden trees of Forney's orchard and opened fire on the Union positions approximately one-half mile to the south once the infantry had passed through. Rodes watched his formations go forward. "(The enemy) had apparently been surprised;" Rodes reported, "only a desultory fire of artillery was going on between his troops and General Hill's; but before my dispositions were made, the enemy began to show large bodies of men in front of the town." Seeing Union troops move up the ridge toward Oak Hill, Rodes quickly ordered three of his brigades to attack. But the movement was uncoordinated and two of his brigades faltered when they encountered stiff Union resistance, heavy artillery fire and unforseen obstacles.
Brig. General Alfred Iverson's Brigade of North Carolina troops set off to strike the flank of Union positions located on Oak Ridge, the northern extension of Seminary Ridge and southwest of this hill. The Carolinians moved southeast toward Oak Ridge in perfect alignment with flags swaying, closing on the suspected Union line without actually seeing the Union positions. Suddenly a host of Union soldiers, the regiments of Brig. General Baxter's brigade, rose from behind a stone wall on the ridge and loosed a volley into the Confederate ranks, knocking down scores of men and officers and stopping the brigade in its tracks. For the survivors of the initial volley, the ensuing fifteen minutes were filled with horror. Every musket shot aimed toward the Union line was answered by a storm of musketry. A number of soldiers in one regiment were able to evade the deadly fire by taking cover behind a slight rise of ground, but the others were frozen as if locked in place while Union fire unmercifully rained down on them.
Captain Lewis Hicks of the 20th North Carolina recalled, "We carried three hundred (soldiers) in(to) action. (The) result of two and one-half hours battle forced us to surrender, and only sixty-two men left. A little ravine in the hillside saved this number. In the absence of white flags the wounded men hoisted their boots and hats on their bayonets to show their desperation. The firing continued about ten minutes, our firing ceased and the Federals moved on us to effect our capture. The smoke was so dense you could not perceive an object ten feet from you. The awful gloom of the moment is beyond description... We felt and heard the tread of the enemy, our minds were in tumult, whether to lie still, to yield, or to die fighting. I jumped up and found myself confronted with a bayonet of a Union soldier pointed at my breast. I grasped the blade and reversed the handle of my sword in a twinkle and offered to surrender. The soldier said in the excitement, he thought I had run him through and he dropped his gun. By that time I was almost over-powered by other Federals rushing at me, so to protect myself I grabbed up the half-dazed Yankee... In a few more seconds their passions cooled and they gave me my life. A long hard imprisonment was ahead of me at Johnson's Island."
Hicks and other survivors were herded to the rear as more troops rushed into the field. Despite efforts to get support to his trapped regiments, General Iverson was helpless to stop the destruction of his command. He had made the error of not scouting the ground in front of his brigade nor had he gone in with them to provide orders and extract them from the trap. The general reported afterward that "no greater gallantry and heroism has been displayed during this war."
Only General Junius Daniel's North Carolina Brigade was successful in bypassing the disaster that befell Iverson's men, and engaged in the fighting near the railroad bed and McPherson Farm. Confederate batteries on Oak Hill renewed their fire on the Union positions while General Rodes reorganized his troops for another effort, sending forward his reserve brigade to strike Oak Ridge and support Daniel's men. Outnumbered and out of ammunition, Union troops eventually abandoned Oak Ridge, allowing Rodes' troops to push southward toward the Seminary and Gettysburg.
By 5 PM, Oak Hill had been abandoned for more favorable positions on Oak Ridge.
Then it was 3 more NRV caches and then our last cache of the day and our 2600th cache find at Black's Cemetery on the outskirts of Gettysburg across from an old deserted house that looked haunted. We really couldn't find out anything about this cemetery but as you can see by the pictures the dates on the head stones date from the middle 1700's.
We drove back to the RV and it was the same old same old activities of each and every afternoon until dinner time and then we called it a day. Well until next time we love you all. Mom & Dad