(CIVIL WAR PENNSYLVANIA) Winans Jacob S Letter describing t

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"ALL WERE ANXIOUS TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE WALL" (CIVIL WAR--PENNSYLVANIA.) Winans, Jacob S. Letter describing the building of the Little Round Top wall at Gettysburg. Autograph Letter Signed to father Isaac Winans. 4 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on one folding sheets, plus a postscript on a small scrap of paper. Near Emmitsburg, MD, 6 July 1863

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Jacob S. Winans (see above) had been promoted to captain of Company H, 9th Regiment, Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry, a few months before this letter. He describes arriving in Gettysburg on the morning of 2 July, the second day of the fighting, and then taking a position for the night "at the foot of a high rocky hill," where they "built about 2 miles of stone wall four feet high, worked almost all night. . . . I never saw the men so eager for a fight. All were anxious to try the strength of the wall, and were determined to club muskets with the enemy before they would give up." They were heavily shelled during the final day of the battle, and harassed by sharpshooters in nearby Devil's Den: "The rebel sharpshooters watched us close. One man shot at me three times as I was passing a cleared place near our battery." Parts of the wall still stand between Little Round Top and Big Round Top, where Winans' regiment played an important role in the Union defense.