At the Wall. The 69th Pennsylvania at Gettysburg 12+

📗 They came from the Irish neighborhoods of Philadelphia. At the bottom of the social strata, they were the laborers; the railroad workers; the canal diggers and the dock workers always "last hired - first fired". In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, several Philadelphia Irish neighborhood militia companies joined together to volunteer their services to the Union army and would eventually become the 69th Pennsylvania "Irish Volunteers".From September 1861 to April 1865 these men would fight in every major battle with the Army of the Potomac. Of the 1007 men who left Philadelphia in September 1861 only 56 would remain at Appomattox Courthouse. All the rest were killed, wounded, taken prisoner, deserted or died of disease. In those four years, the regiment would be in thick of the fighting at Savage Station, Glendale, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Courthouse , Cold Harbor and the Petersburg siege. At Gettysburg, on July 3rd, they would hold the wall at the union centre against Pickett's Division. The 69th Pennsylvania marched north with the Second Corps in their pursuit of Lee in June of 1863, at times traveling by foot more than 30 miles per day. They arrived in Pennsylvania on the first of July and occupied the centre of the Union line the next morning. They occupied their wall on July 2nd and helped repel the attack of Wright's Georgia brigade. On July 3 they would be there to defend their wall against Pickett's Assault. In that fight th...