Fallen soldier in the “Wheat Field” at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 2, 1863. Photo by James F. Gibson. [869×967]

Throughout the afternoon of July 2nd, an extended series of charges and countercharges left this field and the nearby woods dotted with the bodies of over 4,000 dead and wounded soldiers from both sides.

The thousands of troops who fought in this area that day would later compare the action there to a whirlpool of advancing and retreating bands of men that streamed over the landscape and flowed like water across the trampled wheat, an area that changed hands six times in one afternoon