Here's an early photo of the monument
Another, a bit more contemporary
This shows the school not long after it was built.You can distinctly see the hills behind it. (Sorry, couldn't make this bigger)
And here,for the hopelessly addicted, is a map which gives a battlefield location.
This is significant because it's literally the first "skirmish" if you can call it that, of the battle of Gettysburg, on June 26.
About 700 scratch militia - farmboys and students mostly, under Colonel Jennings, were sent from Harrisburg by governor Curtin to screen Gettysburg. They were accompanied by about 30 "cavalry", un-uniformed, badly equipped militia as well under a Captain Bell.
Jennings had just set up a camp and advanced a skirmish line when two regiments of veteran Confederate cavalry, part of Gordon's command, (Early/Ewell) came over the hill about 2 miles away.
Jennings knew he couldn't stand 30 seconds against veteran cavalry let alone the infantry he was certain were behind them and ordered his men to pack up camp and run but his skirmish line stood.
The Virginians (35th under White) promptly charged and the skirmishers either ran or surrendered after a volley which hit nothing. The only casualty,as one rebel horseman wrote, was a "fat militia Captain" who was in such a hurry to surrender that he ran into a horse, fell down and got bruised up.
There was another skirmish a bit later down the road when Jennings stopped his men for a rest and was immediately swamped by White's Cavalry. This time several militiamen were killed, making them the first battle deaths of Gettysburg.
The rebels captured almost 200 of the brave but ridiculously useless boys in blue and gerded them into the courthouse square where, a bit later, a visibly angry Jubal Early rode up and delivered the first of many, many classic statements of the battle, telling them
“You boys ought to be home with your mothers and not out in the fields where it is dangerous and you might get hurt.”
They then locked the boys of the 26th in the courthouse and left, not seeing any point in making prisoners out of them.