Gettysburg Greg
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2010
- Location
- Decatur, Illinois
Although Culp's Hill is not nearly as popular a tourist attraction as Little Round Top, it can be argued that the fight here was just as important to the outcome of the battle. Located only a few hundred yards from the Baltimore Pike, a direct route to Washington, the Confederates engaged the right end of the Union line here for two days. The stout breastworks constructed by the 12th Corps is given much of the credit for holding off the repeated attacks by the Stonewall Brigade and others on July 2nd and 3rd. By the 1880's, only small mounds were left to mark the location of the works. Thanks to Mathew Brady's photograph below, we can see the engineering that went into building the breastworks. The shot below is a highly magnified crop from Brady's image showing two of his assistants sitting behind the works. Check out how the soldiers used rocks, sticks, and cut logs to build their defenses and especially the all important head logs running along the top of the works.