Category: Battlefield Highlights
The High-Water Mark: Revisiting a Pivotal Moment of the Battle of Gettysburg
July 19, 2022What is the High-Water Mark?
The High-Water Mark of the Confederacy or “high tide of the Confederacy” refers to an area on Cemetery Ridge near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, marking the farthest point reached by Confederate forces during the action known as Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863. Like a high-water mark denoting a level of water, the term is a reference to arguably the Confederate Army’s best chance of achieving victory in the war. The designation “High-Water Mark” was formally evoked by historians in the years following the Civil War, based on the idea that the battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the war.
What are Iverson’s Pits?
April 29, 2022On the Gettysburg battlefield, in the shadow of the Oak Ridge Observation Tower just off Doubleday Avenue and not far from the junction between Confederate Avenue and the Mummasberg road, there is an open field of nondescript farmland bordered on one side by a low stone wall. This property, part of the John Forney farm on the eve of the famous battle, would sadly be the site of one of the most brutal and ignominious episodes of the Civil War.
This otherwise nondescript patch of grass on Oak Ridge is where the unsuspecting men of a hapless North Carolina Brigade would meet a horrific fate, and the events of that tragic day would earn that lonely patch of ground a share of infamy that echoes through the years to the present day.
Modern-day visitors to the Gettysburg Battlefield can experience the site firsthand and walk the hallowed field widely famed as a supernatural hot spot.