04 – Warren Avenue Minor Parking Tree

How to Find Witness Tree 04

From the base of Little Round Top, where South Confederate Avenue turns into Sykes Avenue, descend Warren Avenue (that is, walk towards Devil’s Den). You will soon enter the minor parking lot on Warren Avenue. This paved parking area flares both to your left and right. Turn and face left. There are a number of large stones bordering the paved area. Right where the paved area first flares, about 30 feet inside the wood line, you will see a very large white oak tree. This is Witness Tree 04. it is distinguished by a very large branch extending to your right as you face it, about 25 feet off the ground. The branch bends upwards like an elbow.

What This Tree Witnessed

Texans and Alabamians repeatedly charged past this tree and up Little Round Top in a bloody but futile attempt to wrest the hill from the 83rd Pennsylvania and 44th New York defending the ledge above. The Confederates would retreat past and regroup near Witness Tree 04 multiple times before finally giving up.

Witness Tree 04 Statistics

Tree Species: white oak
Circumference 2025: 112”
Diameter: 35.5″
Estimated age: 230 years
Estimated diameter in 1863: 10-12”

Then-and-Now Comparison

This amazing 1935 National Park Service photograph provides us with a number of fun features.

First, trying to find the location from which the 1935 image was taken posed a challenge. Was there any hope of finding any remains of the old pump that once stood by the side of the road? It turns out, the platform for the pump can in fact still be found on the north side of the Warren Avenue minor parking area (see label “A”). Metal plates and concrete now mark what is left of this pump.

Witness Tree 04 seems to stand very near the paved area, but it is in fact situated a good 30 feet inside the woods. Branch “B”, an exceptionally well-defined arm, can easily be matched up in the two photographs.

The white oak standing near the camera (label “C”) matches up as well in the old and new images. However, it is not clear if this is a witness tree too.

Label “D” marks the 1934 Chevrolet sedan that appears in so many 1930s images from the battlefield. Note how the lower section of the trunk of Witness Tree 04 is visible through the rear windows of the automobile!

Finally, we note that large stone “E” also matches up nicely in both images.

Other Photographs

The metal plates and concrete foundation are all that are left of the old pump that once stood near the minor parking area of Warren Avenue. The tablet to Confederate General Evander Law’s brigade of Alabamians is the only Confederate marker in the vicinity of Little Round Top.