On June 29th we marched from Woodborough to Taneytown and encamped in a fine grove near the town. Many of the citizens of the town, including a goodly lot of ladies visited our camp in the evening and watched with interest the men putting up their tents, and cooking their coffee. The next day we marched but a few miles, and encamped at Bridgeport, a small hamlet about half way between Taneytown and Emmitsburg, Md.
At 2 o'clock p. m. of July 1st we were hurriedly ordered to "fall in," when we took the Emmitsburg pike and rapidly marched toward Gettysburg, twelve miles distant. The day was very warm and sultry, but after a fatiguing march we arrived near the town about 8 p. m., and bivouacked for the night on the Trostle farm, which is located about two miles south of Gettysburg. There had been severe fighting going on north and west of the town from 10 a. m. until dark. The 1st and 11th corps had been engaged with overpowering numbers of the enemy, and although they fought valorously, and met with heavy losses, they were obliged to fall back through the town and take up a stronger position on Cemetery hill. General Reynolds, who commanded the Union forces engaged, was killed early in the fight. His loss was deeply regretted, as he was one of the best generals in our army. During the night all the other corps of our army came up with the exception of the 6th corps, which having the greatest distance to march did not arrive until 2 p. m. of the 2d. The men of the 57th were up by daylight on the 2d and preparing their breakfast and otherwise getting ready for the conflict which all knew would open sooner or later during the day.
Unlike the battlefields of Virginia where we usually fought in the woods or thickets, we were now on a field where we had an unobstructed view, and could see something of the movements of other troops, besides our own regiment or brigade.
At this time the 3d corps consisted of two divisions commanded by Generals Birney and Humphreys. The right of the latter division joined the left of Hancock's 2d corps on the southern slope of Cemetery hill. Birney to the left was to extend his line on the same prolongation to the base of Little Roundtop. But this line was commanded by the high ground ground along the Emmitsburg road and at the peach orchard. General Sickles, after having repeatedly informed General Meade that the line was a weak one, assumed the responsibility of changing it. He therefore posted Birney's division as follows: Graham's brigade on the right, its right resting a few rods north of the Sherfy house on the Emmitsburg road. At the peach orchard, which is a part of the Sherfy farm, an angle was formed in our brigade line, part of it facing west, and part to the south. On Graham's left was De Trobriand's brigade which in part occupied the wheatfield. Ward's brigade held the left of the division passing through the rocky ground called Devil's Den, with his left resting at the western base of Little Roundtop.
A great part of the day was spent by the maneuvering of both armies. General Meade's opinion was that Lee would attack his right, while that general was moving his troops behind Seminary ridge for the purpose of attacking Meade's left. The key point on this part of the line was Little Roundtop, but strange to tell, it was not occupied by our troops until after the battle began and then just in the nick of time. A few minutes later the enemy would have gained the crest and Gettysburg would have been lost. The occupation of the hill is due to the energy of General Warren, chief of engineers, who succeeded in getting troops there just as the enemy was beginning to ascend the western base of the hill.
In the meantime our regiment was lying in a field a few rods in the rear of the Sherfy house, which stood on the opposite side of the road. The 105th Pennsylvania was on our right, and the 114th on our left. For two hours we lay here under the hottest fire of artillery we had as yet been subjected to. The enemy had some thirty pieces of artillery planted on the ridge to the south and west of us, hurling their missiles toward us as fast as they could work their guns. Fortunately most of them were aimed too high to do us injury, but to stay there so long under that howling, shrieking storm of shot and shell, was more trying to the nerves than to be engaged in close action with the enemy.
Finally this long cannonade ceased and the enemy began to advance his infantry to attack our part of the line. The 57th and the 114th were ordered across the road, where we beheld the enemy, which proved to be Barksdale's Mississippi brigade, advancing through the fields toward us. Our regiment at once took advantage of the cover that the house, outbuildings and trees afforded and opened fire on the enemy, who were within easy range, and did not reply to our fire until they reached a rail fence about a hundred yards in our front. There were then no rebels to the right of those engaged with us, and for a while we had the best of the fight owing to our sheltered position. The men of the 57th who were in the house kept up a steady fire from the west windows of the house. The writer had posted himself by a large cherry tree against which some fenceposts were leaning, on the north side of the house. Before the fight closed this cherry tree was struck with a twelve pound solid shot from one of our guns. When the monument of the regiment was dedicated in July, twenty-five years later, the tree with the cannon ball embedded in it was still standing.
Although the angle of the peach orchard was long and bravely defended by our troops there, they were at last compelled to yield ground, and by so doing the regiments along the Emmittsburg road were enfiladed and obliged to fall back also. When we found the enemy coming up the road in our rear, Captain Nelson, who was in command of the regiment, tried to notify those in the house, and order them to fall back, but amid the noise and confusion it was impossible to make then understand the situation, and they kept on firing from the windows after the rest of the men fell back, and they were summoned to surrender by the rebels who came up the stairs in their rear.
Those of us who got out of this tight place were soon after formed with the rest of our division, on a ridge in the rear of the position we had occupied in the morning. Reenforcements from the 5th, 2d and 12th corps were sent in to reestablish the line which our division had held, but they were unable to do so when darkness put an end to the conflict.
The 57th entered the battle with 18 officers and 187 enlisted men. Our losses were 2 officers and 9 men killed, 9 officers and 37 men wounded, and 4 officers and 55 men captured, a total of 116, over half of the number carried into action. Lieutenant Henry Mitchell, of Company E, and Lieutenant John F. Cox, of Company I, were killed, and Colonel Sides was among the officers wounded. Of the 55 enlisted men captured only 11 returned to the regiment. The remaining 44 died in prison at Belle Isle, or at Andersonville. Major Neeper was captured, as were also Lieutenants Hines, Burns and Crossley.