"We have to go in places no body would ever think of going into were it not for the necessities of war." 
Joshua Chamberlain, the "Lion of Round Top"

05799- Joshua Lawrence ChamberlainHis commanding officer, Colonel Strong Vincent of the 3rd Brigade was dead. Vincent had ordered that the Union's ground was to be held at all costs and not to retreat. Confederate John Bell Hood's brigades were advancing up Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. Lt. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain had to make a decision - fast. Learning that his men's ammunition was essentially gone, Chamberlain yelled, "Bayonet", and lead the charge down the hill. The Union's position was saved while capturing 101 of the Confederate soldiers.


Years later, Chamberlain, the "Lion of Round Top" was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor "for extraordinary heroism on 2 July 1863, while serving with 20th Maine Infantry, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top."


In all, college professor and future Governor of Maine, Joshua Chamberlain, served in 20 battles and numerous skirmishes, was cited for bravery four times, had six horses shot from under him, and was wounded six times.


On April 9, 1865, Chamberlain was approached by Confederate General Gordon to arrange for General Lee to hear from General Grant as to the proposed surrender. The next day, Chamberlain was selected to preside over the parade of the Confederate infantry as part of their formal surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 12.


Thus Chamberlain was responsible for one of the most poignant scenes of the American Civil War. As the Confederate soldiers marched down the road to surrender their arms and colors, Chamberlain, on his own initiative, ordered his men to come to attention and "carry arms" as a show of respect. Chamberlain described in his memoirs, The Passing of the Armies, what happened next:


Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.


Many years later, Gordon, in his own memoirs, called Chamberlain "one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army." Gordon never mentioned the anecdote until after he read Chamberlain's account, more than 40 years later.

This is the home General Robert E. Lee used during the Battle of Gettysburg as his headquarters. However, Lee slept in his tent pitched outside.

01652 - Headquarters of Robert E. Lee; Gettysburg, PA July 1863 (LC-DIG-cwpb-01652)“[It was] running the gauntlet in the strict sense of the word. The bullets were flying from each side in a perfect shower. The air seemed so filled that it seemed almost impossible to breathe without inhaling them. Some one fell beside me almost every step,” - Lt. Wilbur Judd, 97th NY

In 1863, the building known today as “General Lee's Headquarters” at Gettysburg, Pa. shot to fame after Matthew Brady’s photograph of it appeared in Harper’s Weekly. The stone home of 69-year-old (Widow) Mary Thompson was located between four key landmarks of the first day of fighting; Seminary Ridge, Oak Ridge, the Chambersburg Pike and the unfinished railroad the locals used as an alternate roadway to avoid paying the toll. If the walls could tell tales, the bloody fighting in the vicinity could be the photo caption, not the gathering place of Confederate generals.

On July 1st, at 7:30 a.m., the Battle of Gettysburg began. By 3:30 p.m., the entire Union position began to crumble. To support the infantry, artillery was placed on the ridge. “Just a few yards west of the Widow Thompson's house were the six Napoleons of Battery B, 4th United States Artillery under the direction of Lt. James Stewart. Three of the guns, under the command of Lt. James Davison, were positioned between the Chambersburg Pike and the railroad cut. The other three were positioned north of the cut in front of the Railroad Woods, and were commanded by Lt. Stewart himself. Just south of these and across the pike from the stone house were the two three-inch rifles of Lt. Benjamin W. Wilber's section of Battery L, 1st NY Light Artillery. South of these guns were the six Napoleons of Cpt. Greenlief T. Stevens' 5th ME Battery, and three three-inch rifles of Cpt. James Cooper' s Battery B, 1st PA Light Artillery.”

As the U.S. Army retreated towards the protection of the artillery, the Confederates followed, “yelling like demons, in a mad charge for our guns. … Almost at the same moment, as if every lanyard was pulled by the same hand, this line of artillery opened, and Seminary Ridge blazed with a solid sheet of flame, and the missiles of death that swept its western slopes no human beings could endure…. After we had ceased firing and the smoke of battle had lifted, we looked again, but the charging Confederates were not there. Only the dead and dying remained on the bloody slopes of Seminary Ridge,” wrote Corporal Robert Beecham of the 2nd WI.
Still, the rebel line continued to move forward. Ordered to retreat, Lt. Col. Rufus Dawes of the 6th WI realized that, “If we had desired to attack [C.S. Gen. Richard] Ewell's twenty thousand men with our two hundred, we could not have moved more directly toward them. We knew nothing about a Cemetery Hill. We could see only that the on-coming lines of the enemy were encircling us in a horseshoe.”

The men fought to move the artillery. Stewart relates how the pintle hook broke on a third piece. “As this happened, a party of rebels came running out of the timber adjoining, shouting: ‘Halt that piece!’ We were all completely surprised, but one of the men was fully equal to the occasion, and shouted back: ‘Don't you see that the piece is halted?’ … During all this time the enemy were firing upon us at not more than one hundred yards; and just as we got the gun out of the [railroad] cut, the enemy made a dash, this time getting within fifty or sixty yards, killing one driver and seriously wounding the wheel driver and two horses, which again caused delay. Seeing his predicament, the 88th PA "made a determined stand to save Stewart's Battery.”

Stewart rode back to check on Davison’s guns. The enemy, spotting him “shouted, ‘Surrender!’ but as I had not gone there for that purpose, I wheeled my horse and started him off as fast as he could go. … I started across the field, when the first thing I observed in front of me was a high fence, and as I could not go either to the right or left without being made a prisoner, I headed my horse for it, and he took the leap in splendid style. As he was making the jump I was struck on the thigh with a piece of shell. The shock was terrible, and I thought at first my leg was broken, but after feeling it I found the bone all right.”

Others were not as fortunate. Noticing that the fleeing Union Army was using the railroad cut as an escape route, C.S. Gen. Stephen Ramseur ordered a battery to throw shells into the cut. The fleeing men had to choose between surrender or “running the gauntlet”.

As his men chased the Federals through the town, C.S. Gen. Robert E. Lee arrived at the Thompson house on his “well-bred iron gray, Traveler”. Selected as Lee’s Headquarters, four guards were placed around the house and “half dozen tents” were set up near the house. The stone building, now within his lines, offered an elevated position with a view of the enemy that could be seen with a field glass. Lee may not have realized it, but at the end of the First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg, his Army may have captured as many as 5,000 men.

Inside the house during the battle, the Widow Thompson with her daughter-in law Mary, huddled in the basement as the roar of combat engulfed her home. Previously, on June 30th, Mary gave birth to her second child, Jane Meade Thompson. Furthermore, the wounded who could, made their way to any building seeking help. Her neighbor, Catherine Foster recounts:

“[Thompson’s] house and lot were filled with wounded and dying during the first day; she remained to care for them, and had a daughter [Hannah] living at the foot of the hill, who baked up a barrel of flour into bread, which she carried up the hill to the wounded, and refused to cease doing so during the three days...until her clothes were perforated with bullets and yet she would not be dissuaded, said, ‘In God is my trust.’ All her clothes and bedding except those on her person were used in dressing the wounded and her carpets in wrapping the dead for burial. An empty stone house and fenceless yard were all that was left the widow of seventy years.”

Throughout the next few days, the house was a beehive of activity as incoming messages came for Lee and his generals and artillery was moved into position nearby. Worse, the firing of the guns before Pickett’s Charge sounded, "it seemed as if the heavens and earth were crashing together."

After the Battle, Lee’s Army crossed back over the Potomac River and the Union Army followed. Negative rumors of Lee’s personal conduct began to swirl. To get to the truth, Dr. Junkin of the Sunday School Times went to interview Thompson. The interview appeared in the Lutheran and Missionary, a Philadelphia newspaper on September 24, 1863. Thompson stated that, “she never heard any profane or improper language from him [Lee]. General [J.E.B.] Stuart was with him part of the time. The impression which she had of him was not favorable, Stuart wanted to enter Gettysburg, and burn and make an indiscriminate plunder of all property, but to this Gen. Lee would not consent. She thought Stuart was a bad man: but Lee expressed himself and acted like a humane man showing much feeling on account of the sufferings and the horrors of War.”

July 1, 1863 - During the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the fighting moved to Seminary Ridge. The Lutheran Theological Seminary building played a role in the Battle and its aftermath. General Buford climbed a 20' ladder to observe the field from the Seminary's cupola. Afterwards, Buford spoke with General Reynolds 30 minutes before Reynolds death in Battle. 01649 - Lutheran Theological Seminary; Gettysburg, PA; July 1863 [LC-DIG-cwpb-01649]Lutheran Theological Seminary, was built in 1832, as the home of the oldest continuous Lutheran Seminary in North America. A leading anti-slavery advocate, Reverand Schmucker founded the seminary in 1826 and became its first professor.


Today, it is remembered as the namesake for Seminary Ridge, where some of the most intense fighting occurred on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As the battle erupted in the West, Union General John Buford climbed a 20' ladder to reach the building’s cupola to observe the field. He was able to see the arrival of Major General John Reynolds from the south. Their last meeting was recorded by Buford's signal officer, Lt. Aaron B. Jerome.


Reynolds called out, "What goes, John?" Buford characteristically replied, "The Devil's to pay!" and pointed out the advancing Confederate infantry. Reynolds then asked whether Buford could hold, to which the cavalryman responded, "I reckon so." In less than 30 minutes, Reynolds will be killed during the Battle.


For several weeks, the Lutheran Theological Seminary, as well as the nearby homes of the professors, became field hospitals. Over 600 wounded soldiers from both sides were cared for in the building.


About two weeks after the Battle, this image was taken by Mathew Brady's personnel. The man on the fence is thought to be one of Brady’s assistants.


In 1914, the “Peace Portico” was added to the building’s west side as a memorial to the many wounded soldiers cared for in the Seminary. The building was saved from demolition during the 1950's. On July 1, 2013, The Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum opened in the building, 150 years after the Battle.