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- Jan 16, 2015
In 2014, I took a photograph of the cellar attached to the Joseph Sherfy house, not realizing at the time that it played a conspicuous role during the battle, as recorded in the following two accounts. It's not hard to imagine a group of soldiers from the 57th Pennsylvania (on July 2) loading their guns in complete safety within the cellar, and stepping up to the open door to discharge their pieces. Captain and Acting Adjutant Alonson H. Nelson of the 57th managed to alert many of his men in the house and outbuildings before they were overrun by Brig. Gen. William Barksdale's Mississippi brigade, but evidently he overlooked those who were using the cellar as cover. The next day, the same cellar served to shelter a group of wounded (probably Federals but perhaps including some Confederates).
1. The 57th Pennsylvania, in Brig. Gen. C. K. Graham's brigade, moved forward to occupy the Sherfy house and outbuildings when Barksdale's brigade emerged from the woods in their front, late in the day on July 2. Barksdale's left regiment, the 18th Mississippi, made directly for the Sherfy buildings. The History of Pennsylvania Volunteers describes the scene: "The right of the Fifty-Seventh rested on Sherfy's house, in an admirable position, where the men could fire deliberately and with excellent effect. But the regiments farther to the left, failing to get into position in time, the enemy broke through, and flanking the position, caused Graham to fall back. A considerable number of the men had taken cover in an old cellar, and amidst the noise and confusion, did not receive the order to retire, nor notice the withdrawal of the rest of the regiment, but still kept up a rapid and most destructive fire. When too late, they discovered their isolated position, and were nearly all taken prisoners."
2. First Sergeant William K. Haines of Company I, 5th New Jersey made it to the Emmitsburg Road after being wounded in the leg and captured on July 2 in the field just west of that road. Early the next morning, as Confederate artillery moved into position all around him, Haines decided it was time to move, and he used two discarded guns as crutches to hobble about 200 yards in a southerly direction to Sherfy's brick house. Haines was leaning against a cherry tree in the adjacent orchard watching the cannonade when a solid shot struck the tree above him. He then sought shelter in the cellar along with other wounded men who were still mobile. After the charge was over, Haines emerged and went up into the kitchen, where a captain from a Mississippi regiment [perhaps a Commissary Captain in one of Barksdale's regiments] had brought a slaughtered hog. The officer supplied Haines with a frying pan and he went to work cooking up pork for 40 wounded men, including Ben Birch from Haines' own company, who was so bloody that Haines did not initially recognize him. On the morning of July 5, Haines struck out alone for friendly lines, and despite being a solitary figure on crutches, was fired upon by a few skittish soldiers of the 139th Pennsylvania (five companies of the 139th then occupied a stone wall running north from the Wheatfield Road just east of the Peach Orchard – a marker denotes their position).
Main Sources:
-Diary of Sergeant William K. Haines, by Mary O. E. Switkay, 1966, Library of Congress.
-History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, by Samuel P. Bates (Harrisburg, PA: B. Singerly, State Printer) vol. II, p. 251.
1. The 57th Pennsylvania, in Brig. Gen. C. K. Graham's brigade, moved forward to occupy the Sherfy house and outbuildings when Barksdale's brigade emerged from the woods in their front, late in the day on July 2. Barksdale's left regiment, the 18th Mississippi, made directly for the Sherfy buildings. The History of Pennsylvania Volunteers describes the scene: "The right of the Fifty-Seventh rested on Sherfy's house, in an admirable position, where the men could fire deliberately and with excellent effect. But the regiments farther to the left, failing to get into position in time, the enemy broke through, and flanking the position, caused Graham to fall back. A considerable number of the men had taken cover in an old cellar, and amidst the noise and confusion, did not receive the order to retire, nor notice the withdrawal of the rest of the regiment, but still kept up a rapid and most destructive fire. When too late, they discovered their isolated position, and were nearly all taken prisoners."
2. First Sergeant William K. Haines of Company I, 5th New Jersey made it to the Emmitsburg Road after being wounded in the leg and captured on July 2 in the field just west of that road. Early the next morning, as Confederate artillery moved into position all around him, Haines decided it was time to move, and he used two discarded guns as crutches to hobble about 200 yards in a southerly direction to Sherfy's brick house. Haines was leaning against a cherry tree in the adjacent orchard watching the cannonade when a solid shot struck the tree above him. He then sought shelter in the cellar along with other wounded men who were still mobile. After the charge was over, Haines emerged and went up into the kitchen, where a captain from a Mississippi regiment [perhaps a Commissary Captain in one of Barksdale's regiments] had brought a slaughtered hog. The officer supplied Haines with a frying pan and he went to work cooking up pork for 40 wounded men, including Ben Birch from Haines' own company, who was so bloody that Haines did not initially recognize him. On the morning of July 5, Haines struck out alone for friendly lines, and despite being a solitary figure on crutches, was fired upon by a few skittish soldiers of the 139th Pennsylvania (five companies of the 139th then occupied a stone wall running north from the Wheatfield Road just east of the Peach Orchard – a marker denotes their position).
Main Sources:
-Diary of Sergeant William K. Haines, by Mary O. E. Switkay, 1966, Library of Congress.
-History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, by Samuel P. Bates (Harrisburg, PA: B. Singerly, State Printer) vol. II, p. 251.
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