Slaughter Pen Farm
Killing Range
Before the battle, Confederate artillerists used a lone tree on this ridge as a mark to establish a "killing range," to punish any Federals who attacked. As Gen. George G. Meade's men surged past the unassuming tree, the Confederates trapped Union troops in a deadly crossfire.
Gen. John Gibbon's division remained in the field behind you as Meade attacked. The 60-degree day thawed the ground and men wallowed in a sea of mud. Gibbon sent forward skirmishers, who exchanged fire with their Confederate counterparts. One of Gibbon's men found the wherewithal to write in his diary at this moment: "The different noises of shot & shell & bullet are very peculiar. Boys talking, & even joking together while the shells flew thickest. The crash & war of explosions in the woods is tremendous. Skirmishing becoming sharper, bullets flying thicker, - hot work ahead. Must put away my book - in danger of being hit."
"Shells burst and flung down splatters of pain; here a man clapped a hand to his bleeding face and cursed, and there another squirmed deeper into the mud and cried, unnerved."
-Lt. Abner R. Small, 16th Maine Infantry, USA
"Cannonading and skirmishing was still kept up, getting nearer and more vigourous and occasionally they would salute us with a bomb and sometimes with dangerous consequences."
- Pvt. M. Hill Fitzpatrick, 45th Georgia Infantry, CSA
Marker can be reached from Tidewater Trail (U.S. 17), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
