Wheatfield | |
---|---|
Route information | |
Maintained by National Park Service | |
Length | 1.2 mi [1] (1.9 km) |
Time period | 1858 mapped by Howe [2] 1863 Battle of Gettysburg 1895 Gettysburg National Military Park 1933 National Park Service |
Major junctions | |
West end | US 15 Bus. (Emmitsburg Road) |
East end | PA 134 (Taneytown Road) |
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | Pennsylvania |
Counties | Adams |
Highway system | |
The Wheatfield Road is a Gettysburg Battlefield crossroad from the Peach Orchard east-southeastward along the north side of The Wheatfield (on the Peach Orchard-Devil's Den ridge), [3] north of the Valley of Death, and over the north foot of Little Round Top. In addition to modern tourist use, the road is notable for Battle of Gettysburg use and postbellum trolley use associated with the 1892-1896 US v. Gettysburg Electric Ry. case of the US Supreme Court. [4]
Wheatfield Road begins at an intersection with US 15 Bus. within Gettysburg National Military Park in Cumberland Township, where the road continues west as Millerstown Road. From here, it heads east-southeast as a two-lane undivided road, heading through fields in the park. The road continues into wooded areas with some fields, passing to the north of Little Round Top. Wheatfield Road comes to an end at an intersection with PA 134 in the community of Round Top, where the road continues east as Blacksmith Shop Road to Baltimore Pike. [1] [5]
During the Battle of Gettysburg, the dirt Wheatfield Road was used by various Union and Confederate troops (e.g., Crawford's Third Division of Pennsylvania Reserves), [6] and Union troops deployed artillery westward to the Peach Orchard using the road. [3] [7] In 1884, the Round Top Branch's wye with double spurs [8] and station was built at the east end of Wheatfield Road, and in 1894 the Gettysburg Electric Railway was laid along a west portion of the road (trolleys also crossed the east end near Round Top Station). [9] In 1895, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ceded jurisdiction of Wheatfield Road to the War Department, [10] and in 1900 two cast iron identification tablets were placed[ where? ] to label the road. [11] : '00 The Gettysburg Electric Railway tracks were removed from the Wheatfield Road in 1917 and the road was repaired in 1931. [12] The Wheatfield Road was resurfaced with asphalt west of Sykes Avenue in 1933, [13] and completed "from the Rosensteel pavilion to the Taneytown road" in 1940 by the McMillan Woods Civilian Conservation Corps camp. [14]
The entire route is in Adams County.
Location | mi [1] | km | Destinations | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Peach Orchard angle [3] | 0.0 | 0.0 | US 15 Bus. (Emmitsburg Road) | Continues west to Willoughby Run via Millerstown Road | |
Gettysburg National Military Park | McGilvery Artillery Avenue [15] | Southbound avenue [16] | |||
0.1 | 0.16 | Sickles Avenue | Northbound avenue | ||
0.21 | 0.34 | Wheatfield Road's Sickles Avenue section "constructed" in 1899 [11] : '99 | |||
0.3 | 0.48 | Sickles Avenue | Southboun avenue "across Wheatfield") [11] : '96 | ||
0.6 | 0.97 | Ayres Avenue | Southboune avenue) [17] | ||
Plum Run bridge 39°47′49″N77°14′20″W / 39.7969°N 77.2390°W north of Valley of Death | |||||
0.7 | 1.1 | 1898 Crawford Avenue [11] : '98 | Crossroad | ||
1.0 | 1.6 | 1897 Sedgwick Avenue and Sykes Avenue [11] : '97 [12] | Crossroad | ||
Round Top | 1.2 | 1.9 | PA 134 (Taneytown Road) | Continues east to Baltimore Pike via Blacksmith Shop Road | |
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi |
The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the 4-acre (1.6 ha) site of the first shot at Knoxlyn Ridge on the west of the borough, to East Cavalry Field on the east. A military engagement prior to the battle was conducted at the Gettysburg Railroad trestle over Rock Creek, which was burned on June 27.
Little Round Top is the smaller of two rocky hills south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—the companion to the adjacent, taller hill named Big Round Top. It was the site of an unsuccessful assault by Confederate troops against the Union left flank on July 2, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, during the American Civil War.
The Peach Orchard is a Gettysburg Battlefield site at the southeast corner of the north-south Emmitsburg Road intersection with the Wheatfield Road. The orchard is demarcated on the east and south by Birney Avenue, which provides access to various memorials regarding the "momentous attacks and counterattacks in…the orchard on the afternoon of July 2, 1863."
The Gettysburg National Military Park protects and interprets the landscape of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought over three days between July 1 and July 3, 1863, during the American Civil War. Located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the park is managed by the National Park Service.
Devil's Den is a boulder-strewn hill on the south end of Houck's Ridge at Gettysburg Battlefield, used by artillery and sharpshooters on the second day of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. A tourist attraction since the memorial association era, several boulders are worn from foot traffic and the site includes numerous cannons, memorials, and walkways, including a bridge spanning two boulders.
During the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee attempted to capitalize on his first day's accomplishments. His Army of Northern Virginia launched multiple attacks on the flanks of the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. The assaults were unsuccessful, and resulted in heavy casualties for both sides.
Big Round Top is a boulder-strewn hill notable as the topographic high point of the Gettysburg Battlefield and for 1863 American Civil War engagements for which Medals of Honor were awarded. In addition to battle monuments, a historic reconstruction era structure on the uninhabited hill is the Big Round Top Observation Tower Foundation Ruin.
George Childs Burling was a United States Union Army officer during the American Civil War, serving mostly as colonel and commander of the 6th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry. Burling was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, raised on his father's farm and educated at a private school in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He was a coal merchant and a militia officer before the war. Burling's militia company was mustered into the volunteer service for a three-month term in July 1861, but it became company F of the 6th New Jersey with a three-year enlistment on September 9, 1861. Burling became the regiment's major on March 19, 1862, and lieutenant colonel on May 7 of that year. Burling was wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862.
Maryland Route 140 is a 49-mile (79 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs from U.S. Route 1 and US 40 Truck in Baltimore northwest to the Pennsylvania border, where the road continues into that state as Pennsylvania Route 16. MD 140 passes through the northern part of central Maryland, connecting Baltimore, Pikesville, Reisterstown, Westminster, Taneytown, and Emmitsburg.
Pennsylvania Route 134 (PA 134), also called Taneytown Road, is a north–south, two-lane state highway in Adams County, Pennsylvania. It runs from the Maryland border at the Mason–Dixon line in Mount Joy Township north to U.S. Route 15 Business in Gettysburg. PA 134 runs through farmland between the Maryland border and an interchange with the US 15 freeway. North of here, the route passes through Round Top and serves Gettysburg National Military Park before reaching its northern terminus. Taneytown Road was created in 1800 to connect Gettysburg with Taneytown, Maryland. The road was used during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg for the procession to the cemetery consecration at which the Gettysburg Address was delivered. PA 134 was designated to its current alignment in 1928, with the section north of Round Top paved. The southern portion of the route was paved in the 1930s.
The Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District is a district of contributing properties and over 1000 historic contributing structures and 315 historic buildings, located in Adams County, Pennsylvania. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 19, 1975. Most of the contributing elements of the Gettysburg Battlefield are on the protected federal property within the smaller Gettysburg National Military Park.
Round Top is a populated place in Adams County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, near Little Round Top. It is notable for two Battle of Gettysburg hospitals, the 1884 Round Top Station, and several battlefield commemorative era attractions such as Round Top Park and the Round Top Museum. The unincorporated community lies on an elevated area of the north-south Taneytown Road with three intersections: at Blacksmith Shop Road to the northeast, Wheatfield Road, and Sachs Road.
Plum Run is a Pennsylvania stream flowing southward from the Gettysburg Battlefield between the Gettys-Black Divide on the east and on the west, the drainage divide for Pitzer Run, Biesecker Run, Willoughby Run, and Marsh Creek.
The Gettysburg Electric Railway was a borough trolley that provided summer access to Gettysburg Battlefield visitor attractions such as military engagement areas, monuments, postbellum camps, and recreation areas. Despite the 1896 Supreme Court ruling under the Takings Clause against the railway, battlefield operations continued until 1916. The trolley generating plant was leased by the Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company of Gettysburg to supply streetlights and homes until electricity was imported from Hanover.
Greenmount is a populated place in Adams County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located southwest of the Gettysburg Battlefield, at Marsh Creek along the Emmitsburg Road, in Cumberland Township.
United States v. Gettysburg Electric Ry. Co., 160 U.S. 668 (1896), was a case to prevent trolley operations on the Gettysburg Battlefield. The dispute began in August 1891 when the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association's board approved attorney Samuel Swope's motion to deny trolley right-of-way along GBMA roads. Despite the 1896 US Supreme Court ruling that the railway could be seized for historic preservation, as well as earlier legislative efforts to appropriate federal acquisition funds, create a War Department commission, and form the Gettysburg National Military Park; the trolley continued operations until obsolete in 1916.
Emmor Cope (1834-1927) was an American Civil War officer of the Union Army noted for the "Map of the Battlefield of Gettysburg from the original survey made August to October, 1863", which he researched by horseback as a sergeant after being ordered back to Gettysburg by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. Cope is also noted for commemorative era battlefield administration and designs, including the layout of the 1913 Gettysburg reunion. Cope had enlisted as a Private of Company A,, temporarily detached to Battery C, 5th U.S. Artillery, and mustered out as a V Corps aide-de-camp of Maj Gen Gouverneur K. Warren.
Tipton Station was a Gettysburg Battlefield trolley stop of the Gettysburg Electric Railway for passenger access to Crawford's Glen to the north, Devil's Den (west), and Tipton Park (east). The station was established during the 1894 construction of the end of the trolley line and was near the Devil's Den trolley siding, south of the trolley's Warren Avenue crossing, and northeast of the Plum Run trolley bridge. An uphill trail led southwest to Big Round Top with its 1895 Observation Tower, and the "Slaughter Pen Path and Steps" were built to Devil's Den.
Round Top Station was the southernmost station of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad and was located west of a blacksmith shop along the Taneytown Road that was in operation in 1880.
Rose Woods is a Gettysburg Battlefield forested area that is an American Civil War site of the battle's Hood's Assault, McLaws' Assault, and McCandless' Advance. "Scene of the first line of Union defenses" on the Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day; the 1st Texas Infantry and 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiments attacked Ward's 2nd Brigade line in the woods. The last combat on the Battle of Gettysburg, Third Day, was "in the early evening. Colonel William McCandless's brigade of Pennsylvania Reserves advanced across the Wheatfield into Rose's Woods where they managed to inflict heavy losses on the 15th Georgia" which had failed to retreat to Warfield Ridge after Longstreet's Assault. Two days later Timothy H. O'Sullivan photographed corpses moved for burial to the edge of Rose Woods and which were subsequently reinterred in cemeteries.
A cross-road connecting the Taneytown and Emmitsburg roads runs along the northern base of Devil's Den. From its Plum Run crossing to the Peach Orchard is 1100 yards. For the first 400 yards of this distance, there is a wood on the north and a wheat-field on the south of the road, beyond which the road continues for 700 yards to the Emmitsburg road along Devil's Den ridge, which slopes on the north to Plum Run, on the south to Plum Branch. [Rose Run] ... The angle at the Peach Orchard is thus formed by the intersection of two bold ridges, one from Devil's Den, the other along the Emmitsburg road
in the vicinity of the 'Peach Orchard' ... the [trolley] Company will very gladly agree to the changes desired, approximately as indicated on the blue prints hereto attached
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)crossing the Taneytown road and skirting the Northern slope of [Little] Round Top, becomes a cross road from the Taneytown to the Emmitsburg road.
Wheatfield road from the Emmitsburg road to Sykes avenue, 5,250 feet.
new walk nearly completed by C.C.C. enrollees on the steep slopes of Big Round Top ... C.C.C. enrollees also are at work on the Jones Battalion avenue east of the Harrisburg road about a mile north of Gettysburg
The central figure … near the Peach Orchard was Colonel Freeman McGilvery ... All four batteries of his First Volunteer Brigade ... twenty-two guns in all ... in the general area of the Peach Orchard. McGilvery had placed three of his batteries in line with the Fairfield crossroad facing south, and the fourth on higher ground west of the orchard in an angle formed by the crossroad and the Emmitsburg road.29