The service of the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Battle of Gettysburg is honored with a pair of monuments and a memorial flagpole.
The first of the two monuments honoring the regiment stands in today’s Barlow Knoll, where significant fighting took part on July 1, 1863, the first day of the battle.
The monument, erected in 1884, features a dedication on its north side reading, “Erected by the survivors of the 17th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Corps, in memory of their gallant comrades who fell here on the 1st day and on this battlefield on the 2nd and 3rd days of July, 1863.”
The base of the north side also bears the regiment’s name.
The west side of the monument lists 10 members of the regiment killed at Gettysburg. The south face lists 16 members killed, and also features raised Connecticut and United States shields. The east face lists 9 men killed in the battle.
The 17th, part of the Union Army’s 11th Corps, was ordered into action near the front right flank of the Union line. The regiment’s position on the knoll, later named after Brigadier General Francis Barlow of New York, was overrun by Confederate forces and the regiment was forced to retire to East Cemetery Hill.
Near the monument, a flagpole erected by the regimental survivors in 1885 honors Lt. Col. Douglas Fowler of Guilford. Fowler, leading the unit on horseback, was killed when he was struck by an artillery shell. Fowler’s body was not identified after the battle, and it’s likely that he was buried in the Unknown section of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.
(The monument near the flagpole, featuring the gentleman blowing a bugle, honors the 153rd Pennsylvania regiment.)
After the retreat, the 17th was posted on the eastern side of East Cemetery Hill, and over the next two days, the regiment helped repulse several Confederate attacks.
Its service at that side of the battlefield is honored with a granite obelisk, dedicated in 1889, along today’s Wainwright Avenue.
A dedication on the monument’s south face reads, “This memorial is erected by the State of Connecticut to honor her brave sons.” The west face recounts the regiment’s action during the battle.
The monument repeats the Connecticut and U.S. shields on its east face, and its north face lists the unit’s membership in the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Corps.
Tags: Gettysburg