GETTYSBURG witnessed some of the hardest fighting that the world has ever seen. This photograph was taken a short time after the battle in 1863. This little borough became a field of carnage. In the surrounding hills occurred the terrific conflict of Big Round Top and Little Round Top, Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge, and Culp's Hill, the Bloody Wheatfield and Peach Orchard. A view is given of the little house in which General Meade made his headquarters. On the first day of battle this house was in direct range of the artillery fire rained by the Confederates on the Union lines just before Pickett's great charge. The horses of General Meade's aides were hitched to the fence and trees near the house. Sixteen of these horses were killed during the artillery fire, and their dead bodies are seen in the road.
LEE'S HEADQUARTERS ON SEMINARY RIDGE
DEAD ARTILLERY HORSES AFTER FIGHT AT TROSTLE'S HOUSE AND BARN IN GETTYSBURG
CONFEDERATE DEAD ON GETTYSBURG "WHEATFIELD"
SOME knowledge of the slaughter of Gettysburg may be gained by this picture of Trostle's house and barn at which was stationed a Union battery of light artillery. This view shows where the guns stood. Sixty-five of the eighty-eight artillery horses were left dead on the field. About this time, on the last day of the greatest battle of the war, Pickett made his fierce charge, which is one of the mightiest in history. It was witnessed by the two great armies in the middle of the afternoon of a summer day—a most spectacular tragedy of magnificent courage. It has been said that Gettysburg was the common soldier's battle and that its great results were due, not so much to military strategy as to the intelligent courage and the magnificent heroism of the brave soldiers.