Gettysburg historians should be more Culpable

          Culp’s Hill remains an enigma for your loyal blogger. A location on the Gettysburg battlefield that had the attention of Robert E. Lee for three days, the Hill has almost no one else’s attention in the modern day.

Culp's Hill in the late afternoon sun.

          Think about it: When was the last time you attended a conference about Gettysburg and spent more than a few minutes talking about the fighting on Culp’s Hill? The betting here is that you haven’t.

          Books? You can read endlessly about the fighting on Little Round Top or Pickett’s Charge. Our bookshelves here have several offerings on those topics and Carole Reardon’s brilliant Pickett’s Charge in History & Memory is currently under study here.



Most books about the battle as a whole cover the fighting on Culp’s Hill but when was the last time you read a book devoted just to the savage fighting on that hill? Noah Andre Trudeau’s Gettysburg a Testing of Courage is your loyal blogger’s favorite treatment of the battle as a whole and it covers the Culp’s Hill struggle. But there are very few literary efforts by professional historians that specifically study Culp’s Hill.

Culp's Hill has beautiful, tree-lined roads and it studded by monuments.

One of the soldiers fighting on that Hill was a member of the family that owned some of the land. You would think that one soldier and his story would be a popular subject for Gettysburg historians. You’d be wrong.

          There are reasons for all this apathy, of course. The first is the fictional book Killer Angels which tells the story of J.L. Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine at Little Round Top. The book does a wonderful job of stirring interest in the story of that area of the battlefield and in Gettysburg in general. In the popular mindset, Little Round Top is the most important hill on the Gettysburg battlefield.

          Then there are the personalities involved. Confederate General James Longstreet’s name looms large in the story of the Civil War and the attack on Little Round Top was his. Chamberlain was not shy about championing his status as the hero

The rocky hillside today can not hide the difficulty of the fighting during
the battle of Gettysburg. This was a deadly place to be during the
time frame of July 2-3, 1863.

of Gettysburg. And you’ve all heard of Pickett’s Charge.

          Quick, tell me who led the attacks on Culp’s Hill. Had to think for a moment, didn’t you?

          The odd part of the Culp’s Hill story is that so much of it involves an attack that was never made and a general who was not there.

          On July 1, late in the afternoon, the overall Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee, was in position to see where the Federals had been pushed back to what we know today as Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. Lee could see the hills that dominated the battlefield, Round Top and Little Round Top to the south and Culp’s Hill, much closer and to the north.

          Lee wanted an attack made on Cemetery Hill, which is sort of an extension from Culp’s Hill, that afternoon but the attack did not happen. Instead, the Confederates attacked Culp’s Hill a day later. Failing to take the summit, the Confeds stayed on a lower portion of the Hill over night before they were chased off the Hill on July 3^rd.

          It can be argued that, on July 2 and 3, no Confederate unit penetrated so deeply

into Union defenses at a crucial location as did those who attacked Culp’s Hill on the night of July 2.

          Much has been made of the non-attack on July 1^st. Lee gave General Richard Ewell the orders to attack Cemetery Hill that afternoon, “if practicable.” Ewell decided the attack was not practicable although he apparently considered an attack on Culp’s Hill rather than Cemetery Hill. Historians can squabble today whether either attack was, in fact, practicable.

          History devotees play the What If game with the same enthusiasm sports fans do and one of the great what ifs about Gettysburg is about how Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson might have dealt with the, “if practicable,” order regarding either Cemetery Hill or Culp’s Hill.

          The reader will recall that Jackson was killed earlier in 1863.

          Jackson, the what-iffers say, probably would have found the idea practicable enough to attack. Given Jackson’s historic import, his presence probably would have been enough to attract more attention to the Culp’s Hill area over the last 150 years. But Jackson wasn’t there.



This is the marker for Company I of the 60th New York Regiment. This marker is not as easy to reach as most others
at Gettysburg. The visitor needs to walk down one of the rocky paths that dot the area. Wear solid hiking shoes or boots to get there. But it is worth the effort once you understand the history of what happened near this point.

          Finally, there is a geographic piece to consider in this puzzle. Culp’s Hill is slightly apart from the largest portion of the battlefield. It sits across the Baltimore Pike from the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park Visitors Center and is sort of disconnected from the fields that include the Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard and the Round Tops.

          It isn’t easy to get to Culp’s Hill from the locations listed above and for that reason the Hill attracts less attention from visitors.

          So your loyal blogger suggests that Gettysburg aficionados do the following: Drive up Culp’s Hill. If you are in very sound physical condition, climb the observation tower at the top and survey the surroundings. Then drive back down the hill and when you reach the area where the Baltimore Pike and the Gettysburg cemetery are both visible, stop the car and try to envision what a few batteries of Confederate artillery might have accomplished from that spot or higher up Culp’s Hill on July 2, 1863.

          Then ask yourself why more study is not done of the Culp’s Hill story.

          Thanks for reading.