Pictorial Index - Textual Index

Pictured here is the Gettysburg Battlefield, looking towards the small hills in the distance known as big round top and little round top.  These where key positions as with weapons of the period it was tactically important, where possible, to occupy the high ground.

The Battle of Gettysburg began on the morning of July 1, 1863, when Lieutenant Marcellus Jones fired the first shot that began the Battle of Gettysburg. Jones, a carpenter, was a Mason from Wheaton, Illinois. He used a Sharps 52-caliber breech-loading rifle, invented and manufactured by Christian Sharps, a Mason from Philadelphia. The shot that Jones fired was directed at Confederate troops led by Brigadier General Henry Heth, a Mason from Rocky Mountain Lodge in the Utah Territory.