The High Water Mark

The High Water Mark
Gettysburg NMP

This small grove or "copse" of trees had little or no significance prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, but on July 3, 1863, it was the focal point around which swept vicious hand-to-hand combat during the climax of "Pickett's Charge". The trees grow within a confined area known as "The Angle", named for the stone fence that bends to the west and then southward to border the small pasture where the original trees stood. It was behind this stonewall that Union troops were positioned during the battle. The title of "High Water Mark of the Rebellion" was bestowed upon the copse by John B. Bachelder, the first government historian of the Gettysburg battlefield, who realized its significance during a visit to the site with a veteran of General Pickett's Division. It was through Bachelder's influence that the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion Monument" was placed here and dedicated in 1892. The monument lists the commands of both armies that participated in Pickett's Charge. This grouping of trees marked a Confederate crest of the battle and the war. After Gettysburg, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia would never reach such a high point again.

View toward the High Water Mark and the Angle, marked by the single tree at left center, from the southwest. General Kemper's brigade was in this area and approached the Union line from this direction.
Gettysburg NMP

Approximately 7,000 Union soldiers of the Second Corps were positioned in the area of the Angle and adjacent to it, commanded on July 3rd by Brigadier General John Gibbon. Some expressed relief to be over the ordeal of the artillery bombardment as they gazed at the parade of southern infantry headed toward them. "Beautiful, gloriously beautiful did this vast array appear in the lovely little valley," observed one soldier. The southerners reached the Emmitsburg Road and began to leap over the stout fences. "The column pressed on," General Gibbon observed, "coming within musketry range without receiving immediately our fire, our men envincing a striking disposition to withhold it until it could be delivered with deadly effect."

The Union line suddenly came to life, pouring a dreadful fire of lead into the southern ranks. Within the acre of ground surrounding the clump of trees was the famed "Philadelphia Brigade", regiments raised in and around the city of Philadelphia, under the command of Brig. General Alexander Webb. Webb's men sent volley after volley into the mass of Confederates who pushed onward and, despite the intense fire, reached the stone wall. Congregating along the wall, Pickett's men intermingled with some from Pettigrew's command and all traded rifle shots across the bare space of 50 yards between them and some of Webb's men standing on the crest of the ridge. The last of Pickett's brigadiers, General Lewis Armistead, pushed his way through the crowd and led a charge over the wall. The fighting was brutal and at one point was hand to hand in the copse of trees. The last remaining Union batteries used double-shots of canister to blast away groups of southerners who ventured their way around the Yankees still holding the wall south of the trees. Without reinforcements or support, the Confederates could not hold the Angle and clump of trees. Those who could retreated to Seminary Ridge leaving behind their dead and wounded.

The High Water area is one of the most visited sites on the battlefield and has been the scene of countless reunions and ceremonies. Veterans of the Philadelphia Brigade and Pickett's Division returned to this site several times, grasping hands over the same stone wall that so many had died over during the battle (Last Great Gettysburg Reunion of 1938). The reminders of the men who fought here and those that died live on in the granite and bronze monuments that stands within the Angle.

While Pickett's men fought for possession of the Angle, the left wing of the Confederate attacking force was facing a storm of their own from Union troops behind a stone wall stretching from the Angle to Ziegler's Grove.

The Death of Lt. Cushing

Marker to Lt. Alonzo Cushing in the Angle
Gettysburg NMP

Lt. Cushing
WI Hist. Society

Positioned just north of the copse of trees, Battery A, 4th US Artillery was commanded by 22 year-old Lt. Alonzo Cushing. Born in Wisconsin in 1841, his family had moved to New York where the young Cushing grew up and attended West Point, graduating in the class of 1861. He had served in staff positions and in command of Battery A in battles prior to Gettysburg, but it is doubtful he had ever been involved in such intense fighting as he experienced here. Cushing's battery appeared to be the focus of the Confederate artillery during the cannonade and was nearly destroyed in the furious bombardment. When the Confederate cannon fire died away, Cushing found himself with only a handful of gunners and two working cannon. Though painfully wounded by shell fragments, the young lieutenant was unwilling to personally leave the field or retire his shattered battery. He gained permission from General Webb to move his two guns down to the wall in the Angle where he ordered that extra canister rounds be piled by each gun. Cushing and his few artillerymen served these guns until the last, the lieutenant himself aiming and firing one of the double-shotted pieces into the mass of Pickett's Virginians as they closed in on the stone wall. "I will give them one more shot!", Cushing cried above the din. Seconds later a bullet struck him through the mouth, killing him instantly, his lifeless body tumbling over the gun trail. The young lieutenant died a hero's death and was later buried with full honors at his old alma mater, West Point.

This stone marker to Lt. Cushing was placed in the Angle by his family, former officers and friends in 1887.

Pickett's Brigadiers

Gen. Armistead
Generals in Gray

On the other side of Cushing's marker is a scroll-top granite monument to General Lewis Armistead, which marks the general location where he was mortally wounded among Cushing's guns on July 3. Erected and dedicated by friends of the Armistead family in December 1887, it is the first monument dedicated to a Confederate officer placed at Gettysburg and caused some minor controversy at the time of its placement in the Angle. Prior to the war, Armistead had been close friends with General Hancock, but the division of the nation caused one to choose the southern cause while the other remained loyal to the Union. At Gettysburg, the two almost met again. The wounded Armistead told his Union captors to give his regards to Hancock, also desperately wounded while repulsing the charge. Though his wounds appeared to be non-fatal, the general died in a Union field hospital on July 5. His body was recovered by friends, who had his remains transported to Baltimore for burial in the yard of St. Paul's Church.

Gen. Kemper
Generals in Gray

Of Pickett's three brigadiers, only James Kemper survived the charge. Ignoring orders not to go into the charge on horseback, Kemper rode into the charge and led his brigade across the Emmitsburg Road south of the Codori Farm buildings. Kemper made his way to a point near the Union defenses where he was shot by a Union soldier, "so close... that I could clearly recognize his features...". The desperately wounded general lay on the field until spied by several Union soldiers who ran to him, placed him on a blanket, and began to carry him into the Union lines. A small group of Confederates raced to Kemper's aid, retrieved him from his Union captors and carried him to Seminary Ridge where he encountered General Lee. Though his wound appeared to be a mortal one, General Kemper was taken back to Virginia and eventually recovered. After the war he served as governor of the state of Virginia.