Author: Gordon Laws
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Dr. Charles Horner: Gettysburg’s Quiet Surgeon and the Question of John Burns
Wander around Gettysburg and ask folks about Dr. Charles Horner. Very few, if any, will have heard of him. If you spend enough time in Gettysburg, you start to notice a pattern. The soldiers have monuments. The generals have statues. Even civilians like John Burns get mythologized into something almost larger than life.
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A House Divided: The Strange, Unresolved Story of Henry Wentz of Gettysburg
Wesley Culp is the most widely known Gettysburg-born Confederate soldier who fought at his hometown, but he is not the only one. Charles Hoffman’s three sons, friends of Wesley Culp, also returned in the fight. Frequently overlooked, though, is Henry Wentz. If you stand today along the Emmitsburg Road near the Peach Orchard, you are…
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Revealing Powers Hill: The Strategic Importance During Gettysburg
Powers Hill is a modest rise just southeast of town that acted like a “hinge” in the Union’s rear-area network during the Battle of Gettysburg—a place where roads, communications, artillery, ambulances, and command posts converged. Named for Solomon Powers, the mason who quarried stone from it, the hill in July 1863 was far more open than it…
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The Long Journey Home of John Burns
You won’t get through Gettysburg without hearing the legend of John Burns. And legend it surely is: Burns became nationally famous, wrote a pamphlet about his experience, traveled some to support it, and told fabulous tales of being wounded anywhere between three and seven times. His grave includes an American flag—one of two civilian plots…
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Alexander Schimmelfennig, the Garlachs, and a Backyard Refuge
The story of General Alexander Schimmelfennig is one of the oddities of the Battle of Gettysburg. On the evening of July 1, 1863, after the first day’s fighting rolled up the Union line north of town, the Union general slipped into the tight maze of alleys and back lots along Baltimore Street—now behind Confederate lines—and…
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Lt. Colonel David Winn: A Doctor, A Letter Writer, and the Man with the Gold Teeth
One of the odd post-battle stories involves the return of David Winn’s body from Blocher’s Knoll. The officer’s body made it home . . . without his gold dental work, which had been retained by the Blocher family. The incident made headlines and inflamed feelings in the South. Often lost in the story is this:…
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Blocher’s Knoll and Barlow’s Knoll
If you drive the northern edge of the Gettysburg battlefield today, you might pass Barlow’s Knoll without thinking much about it. It is not Little Round Top. It does not tower over the fields. It is simply a gentle rise in farmland near Rock Creek. Yet on July 1, 1863, this quiet swell of ground…
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Discovering Plum Run: From Farmland to Battlefield
If you walk through the Plum Run valley today, it feels peaceful. Water moves quietly through grass and stone. Visitors pass between Devil’s Den and the Wheatfield, often without giving the stream a second thought. Yet this modest ribbon of water runs through some of the fiercest ground at Gettysburg. Before the battle, it watered…
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The Forgotten: The Dead of the 8th Alabama Infantry at Gettysburg
With this article on the 8th Alabama Infantry and subsequent list of men, I’m starting a periodic feature on men whose combat deaths caused them to disappear and effectively be forgotten. The average age of a soldier killed at Gettysburg was roughly 22 to 23. He was typically not married and had no children. As…
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Exploring the Legacy of Emanuel Craig and Gettysburg’s Black Community
Emanuel Craig was an African American laborer, Civil War veteran, and family man in 19th-century Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His life spanned the tumultuous Civil War era and Reconstruction, and his story illuminates the experiences of Gettysburg’s Black community during that period. Born around 1829 to Benjamin Craig and Mary (Wagner) Craig, Emanuel grew up in Adams…