So you think you know Maine at Gettysburg, part 2

Monument-adorned Little Round Top is a favorite destination at Gettysburg National Military Park. Out of sight, but not of mind around the southern curve of LRT stands the 20th Maine Infantry monument. (Brian F. Swartz Photos)

Here’s Part 2 of the Maine Monument Minutiae quiz involving Pine Tree State monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park. The answers are printed below.

1. Two Union generals lurk around the 2nd Maine Battery’s main monument on the Chambersburg Road. Who are those generals?

2. A small monument honoring a wounded Union general rises on Cemetery Ridge, just west of the right- and left-flank markers delineating the July 2 position of the 19th Maine Infantry Regiment. Who is the general?

Identify the Maine unit honored by this Gettysburg monument – and the Union general lurking in the background.

3. Arriving at Gettysburg after a long march, the 6th Maine Infantry lads joined their brigade on the far left flank of the Army of the Potomac. Along which GNMP road did the survivors place their regimental monument in 1889?

4. Which Maine regiment sited its main monument nearest the Copse of Trees?

5. The stone-carved horse and soldier gaze on the world with hollow eyes that watch every move you make near this particular monument. Other people say there’s nothing to the spooky sensation, that it’s all malarkey. Name the regiment.

6. Besides the monolith at Devil’s Den, 4th Maine Infantry survivors also erected “a marker … cut from Maine granite, adorned with a red granite diamond” (Maine at Gettysburg, p. 167). Where was this marker placed?

7. Only 4 feet, 9 inches tall, the simple monument to “Company D, Maine Volunteers, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters stands on what farm between the Emmitsburg Road and the Devil’s Den?

The Wheatfield Road runs behind this monument to a Maine infantry regiment that arrived at Gettysburg late on July 2, 1863. What is the unit?

8. Until a few years ago, this monument to a Maine battalion stood between a ranch-style house and Baltimore Street. The Civil War Trust helped acquire and tear down the house. What was the battalion?

9. Partially obscured by trees until a National Park Service restoration circa 2007, the artistically elegant monument to this Maine regiment stands north of Little Round Top near the intersection of Sedgwick Avenue and the Wheatfield Road. Name the unit.

10. Polished granite from Fox Island in Maine forms the plinth for what famous monument standing beside the Copse of Trees?

Answers:

1. John Buford and John Reynolds. Their monuments, especially Reynolds’ larger-than-life-sized statue, slightly overshadow the 2nd Maine Battery’s monument “of white Hallowell granite” (Maine at Gettysburg, p. 14).

2. Winfield Scott Hancock. The monument marking his July 3 wounding stands a short distance from the 19th Maine Infantry’s left-flank marker.

3. The dead-end section of Wright Avenue between the Taneytown Road (Route 134) and the modern Route 15 bypass.

4. The 19th Maine Infantry survivors placed their large monument — “a massive cube, surmounted by a pyramidal top” (Maine at Gettysburg, p. 289) — slightly southwest of the Copse of Trees.

5. The 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment. Its monument stands beside the Hanover Road entrance to the East Cavalry Battlefield.

6. Across Hancock Avenue from the High Water Mark monument. Located near each other, the 3rd and 4th Maine markers are easy to overlook among the visually stunning Tammany Regiment and 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry monuments.

7. The Slyder Farm, accessible from Emmitsburg Road. Gettysburg visitors can easily miss this monument.

8. The 10th Maine Battalion, formed after the 10th Maine Infantry mustered out in spring 1863. The monument stands some distance diagonally across Baltimore Street from the entrance to the GNMP visitors’ center.

9. The 5th Maine Infantry Regiment. The terrain around the white monument turns soggy after a steady rain.

10. The High Water Mark Monument incorporates granite carved from Fox Island. Besides the granite, Maine contributed $500 toward building this monument, dedicated in June 1892.


If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to like Maine at War on Facebook and get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. —————————————————————————————————————–

Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

 

 

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.