The Alabama Walls

One of the elusive points about Farnsworth’s Charge at Gettysburg, for me anyway, is the stone wall that the Alabama troops were posted behind at the base of Big Round Top. For me the walls represent an understanding of what the AL troops were in the position to see what they claim they saw. In other words, did they have clear visibility into the D-Shaped Field?

Last year I became interested in finding the location of the walls because I figured they were the type of wall that likely was not altered all that much since the battle. But where are they?? Last December I posed this question to some friends of mine that have an interest in the Charge as I do. Well, we had walked the area last summer with Dean Shultz to try and find the elusive wall, to no avail.

Once the foliage cleared from the fall, some friends of mine were able to get out to the site with GPS and digital cameras to take some pictures. Turns out, from a great many points along the wall the D shaped field is visible but sometimes not so clear. My friend Will Dupuis is very talented when it comes to digital photography, gps’s, maps and especially the combination of all three! Thanks to Will we can bring you, the reader, the ability to see what the soldiers were able to see from various positions along the wall.

What does this tell us about Farnsworth’s Charge? Well, not much I suppose other than the fact that some of the AL accounts where they describe what happened in the D shaped field – they were able to see.

Check it out and see what you think….