American Civil War Monuments: 

Gettysburg National Military Park

First Vermont Brigade

Wright Avenue

 photo and text courtesy of LCWRT member Charlie Moore

During late afternoon, July 1^st 1863, Major General John Sedgwick received orders  from Major General George Gordon Meade to move his 6^th Corps to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  By 6:00 his troops were on the road from near Manchester, Maryland.  They marched through the night arriving at the southern end of the battlefield around 3:00 the next afternoon.  Their forced march of 32 miles in 21 hours ranks as one of the most grueling and incredible marches made by any troops during the Civil War. The 1^st Vermont Brigade, made up of the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th Vermont Regiments under the leadership of Colonel Lewis Grant, took a reserve position east of the Round Tops in the vicinity of Taneytown Road.  Their position  guarded the extreme left of the Union line. They would remain here in a reserve role through July 4^th, when they became part of the pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia.  Of the 2096 men of the 1^st Vermont Brigade who were at Gettysburg only 1 became a casualty, a soldier in the 4^th Vermont Regiment.  During their entire service in the War, however, they had a total of 4704 casualties of whom 2439 were fatalities.