Light of Dawn on Cemetery Ridge

Gettysburg
The Third Day

Light of Dawn
on Cemetery Ridge

Cannon at the site of Captain William Arnold’s Battery A, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, and the statue of Major General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac

CW2464

 

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Captain John Hazard of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery, commanding the artillery brigade of the Second Army Corps: “The morning of Jul3 3 was quiet until about 8 o’clock, when the enemy suddenly opened fire upon our position. . . . At 1 p.m. the artillery of the enemy opened along the whole line, and for an hour and a quarter we were subjected to a very warm artillery fire.  The batteries did not at first reply, till the fire of the enemy becoming too terrible, they returned it till all their ammunition, excepting cannister, had been expended; they then waited for the anticipated infantry attack of the enemy. . . . The rebel lines advanced slowly but surely; half the valley had been passed over by them before the guns dared expend a round of the precious ammunition remaining on hand. The enemy steadily approached, and, when within deadly range, canister was thrown with terrible effect into their ranks. Battery A, First Rhode Island Light Artillery, had expended every round, and the lines of the enemy still advanced.” -- Hazard’s battle report, in War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series I, volume 27, part 1, pages 478, 480

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Fine Art Photography of Civil War Battlefields by Dan Jenkins