The Angle at Gettysburg Through Time

[Gettysburg Greg]

The great Gettysburg Cyclorama shows us the last desperate moments of Pickett's Charge on July 3rd, 1863. The perspective is from an elevated position about 75 yards north of the Copse of Trees looking to the west. The focus of the painting is on the action going on inside the Angle as the brief Confederate break through takes place. The artist used Tipton's panoramic photos as a guide for his setting. The three-image collage below shows us the same critical area inside the Angle from three different eras. On top is Tipton's 1882 photograph that shows the landscape from the Angle to the Codori farm. Note that the lighting makes the area between the Emmitsburg Road and the wall appear as water-it is not. Below that is the identical scene as represented in the Cyclorama and on the bottom is my similar modern view of the scene. The detail filled scene from the painting is rather hard to see in the collage so I will include a stand-alone image of the Cyclorama image.