P-1: Letcher-Purcell Artillery Group
The label “P-1” identifies the location from which the 1902 image featured on this page was taken. The three green numbered circles represent the three witness trees captured by William Tipton.
The red box indicates the location of, and trees included in, photograph P-1, in the context of Pegram’s Battalion as a whole.
The Tipton Photograph
What These Trees Witnessed
The Letcher Artillery (commanded by Capt. Thomas A. Brander) and Purcell Artillery (Capt. Joseph McGraw) were the two northernmost batteries of Pegram’s Battalion of five batteries. Arriving to this position at 4 PM on July 2, these artillery units contributed as best they could to the Confederate attacks of the evening of July 2, and participated in the cannonade that went on roughly from 1 PM to 3 PM on July 3, which was followed by the Confederate attack known as Pickett’s Charge on Cemetery Ridge.
The large tree marked with a red “X” in the 1902 William Tipton photograph is no longer extant.
The Trees
An unlabeled version of Figure P-1.
There are three confirmed witness trees which can be found near these two batteries, one within the stone wall by Brander’s Letcher Artillery, and two between the road (West Confederate Avenue) and the cannon of McGraw’s Purcell Artillery to the south. Witness Tree #1 was first photographically identified by Greg Gober; the pair of trees by the Purcell Artillery (Witness Trees #2 and #3) were first identified in the same photograph by the author.
All three are white oaks.