The Deadened Woods

The Deadened Woods. . This place was the scene of terrible violence on July 2 and 3, 1863. On Culp's Hill hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition were fired by the opposing armies. Trees were splintered by shot and shell. Breastworks scarred the earth and the dead and wounded covered the slopes. Early visitors, like nurse Sophronia Bucklin, drawn by the still visible scars of war, were horrified by what they found in these now peaceful woods., In 1864 the Gettyburg Battlefield Memorial Association purchased land here, some of the first preserved battlefield land in American history. In later years the United States War Department would build avenues and construct the observation tower behind you. Union and Confederate veterans would return to dedicate monuments and honor their slain comrades. Though the scars have faded, echoes of the past still linger on Culp's Hill., "Earlier in life it would have been impossible for me to walk over such a field of horror, but I had grown familiar with death in every shape. Yet, when right above my head, at one place, so close that it touched me, hung a sleeve of faded army blue- a dead hand protruding from the worn and blackened cuff - I could not but feel a momentary shudder." - Sophronia Bucklin, (captions) , Sophronia Bucklin spent many months nursing wounded at nearby Camp Letterman. She visited this hill in the fall of 1863., Downed limbs and dark bullet marks on the trees highlight the intensity of the fighting . Among the early visitors here was the photographic team of Mathew Brady, who recorded this image on July 15, 1863.