Location: Wainwright Avenue.
Description: Erected 1912. One of 74 Union brigade monuments erected at Gettysburg by the United States War Department to describe the movements and itinerary of each Union brigade of the Army of the Potomac. The monuments were designed by E.B. Cope. Many of the inscription tablets were made of bronze melted down from Civil War cannons. The pedestal consists of sea-green granite with a square base. Base tapers to a smaller dimension at the tablet. On each pedestal is mounted a bronze inscription tablet describing the movements and actions of the unit.
Inscription:
ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
ELEVENTH CORPS FIRST DIVISION
FIRST BRIGADE
Col. Leopold Von Gilsa
41st (9 Cos.) 54th 68th New York
153D Pennsylvania Infantry
July 1. The Brigade except the 41st New York having been temporarily left at Emmitsburg arrived about noon and took position a mile northerly from town on left of Harrisburg Road and right of Rock Creek Second Brigade on right and Third Division on left. Advanced over a knoll into woods in front and encountered Brig. Gen. Gordon’s Brigade and was attacked by Brig. Gen. Doles’s Brigade Major Gen. Rodes’s Division and subjected to a severe enfilading artillery fire from Lieut. Col. Jones’s Battalion on a knoll east of Rock Creek and forced back to the Almshouse where being outflanked the Brigade fell back with the Corps to Cemetery Hill and took position behind a stone wall on the right of Corps. The 41st New York rejoined the Brigade in the night.
July 2. Remained in position all day engaged as skirmishers. An attack in the evening on Cemetery Hill on the left was repulsed with the aid of First Brigade Third Division Second Corps.
July 3. Under artillery fire for an hour and a half but not engaged.
Casualties Killed 4 Officers 50 Men Wounded 21 Officers 289 Men Captured or Missing 6 Officers 157 Men Total 527
Army of the Potomac > Eleventh Corps > First Division > First Brigade