Free previewStop 4 of Gettysburg Battlefield Driving Tour
The Hill Nobody Was Holding
You're on Sykes Avenue, on the rocky hill everyone now calls Little Round Top. If you've pulled over and parked, look at the boulders scattered down the steep western slope, and at the bigger, thickly wooded hill just to the south. That's Big Round Top. On the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the hill under your wheels was the far left end of the entire Union army. And for a while that afternoon, almost nobody was on it.
General George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, had ordered General Daniel Sickles to defend the southern end of Cemetery Ridge, which would have just included this hill. Sickles, defying orders, moved his corps forward to the Emmitsburg Road and the Peach Orchard. That left this hilltop undefended, with only a small Signal Corps station on it.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 4 of Gettysburg Battlefield Driving Tour (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
