Union monuments at Gettysburg > New York > Artillery & Engineers
“Empire Battery”
The monument to Battery B, 1st New York Light Artillery is south of Gettysburg on Hancock Avenue. (Hancock Avenue Part 3 tour map) It was dedicated in 1888 by the State of New York.
Monument to Battery B, 1st New York Light Artillery, flanked by two 10-pounder Parrott rifles. The Codori farm is in the distance and the monument to the 15th Massachusetts Infantry is at the center.
The Battery at Gettysburg
Battery B brought 114 men to the field serving four 10-pounder Parrott Rifles. It included a section of the 14th New York Battery that had been “temporarily” transferred in in 1862 and would be made permanent after the battle. The battery was commanded on July 2 by Lieutenant Albert S. Sheldon, who had just assumed command on May 30 when the previous commander resigned due to disability.
The battery was positioned on South Cemetery Ridge near Caldwell’s Infantry Division until a staff officer ordered them a few hundred yards south to help slow Longstreet’s Assault. It fought near the Wheatfield and on McGilvery’s line of artillery along Plum Run on July 2. Sheldon engaged Barksdale’s Mississippi and Wofford’s Georgia Brigades and helped to drive them back.
By late afternoon the fighting shifted to the north and Hancock was desperately looking for men to shore up the center of the Union line on Cemetary Ridge. Captain James McKay Rorty was a Second Corps Ordnance Officer who begged Hancock for a combat command for the battle. He had commanded the 14th New York Battery before its sections had been broken up, one of which was with Battery B. Hancock assigned him to command of Battery B and ordered him to bring it up to a position just south of the Copse of Trees.
That evening the battery helped turn back the attack of Anderson’s Confederate Division on the Union center. It lost nine men killed and wounded that evening.
Pickett’s Charge
On July 3 Battery B was stationed on Cemetery Ridge, directly in the path of Pickett’s Charge. The morning was deceptively calm. But in the afternoon an intense, hour-long bombardment preceded the attack and disabled three of the battery’s four cannon, blowing one from its carriage . So many men were out of action that Rorty grabbed a swab to help work the remaining piece. He borrowed a score of men from the nearby 19th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Lieutenant Moses Shackley risked his life to fill a sponge bucket from a nearby spring to keep the gun firing. As Pickett’s men closed in on the Union line a direct hit on one of the battery’s caisson’s killed Rorty with a shell fragment. Lieutenant Albert S. Sheldon briefly resumed command.
Lieutenant Albert S. Sheldon was then wounded in the left hip as Kemper’s Virginians briefly overran the battery in a flurry of hand to hand fighting. Sergeant Lewis Darveau shot a Confederate captain who had placed his colors on one of the guns, brained him with a handspike, and was in turn shot down. But the Virginians were killed or surrendered, and the charge was over. Lieutenant Robert E. Rogers was left in command of the battery.
Rorty and nine other men were killed on July 3.
 |
Attached to the Artillery Brigade, 2d Corps
|
Text from the front of the monument
Battery B
1st New York Light Artillery,
Artillery Brigade 2d Corps
Text from the right side
Position held afternoon of July 3rd, 1863.
Casualties; killed 10, wounded 16.
Text from the rear
Organized at Baldwinsville, Onondaga Co. New York.
Text from the left side
Mustered into service Aug. 31, 1861.
Participated in 78 days of battle.
Mustered out of service June 18, 1865.
Location of the monument
The monument to Battery B is south of Gettysburg on the west side of Hancock Avenue about about 65 yards directly south of the United States Regulars monument. (39°48’38.3″N 77°14’08.8″W)
See more on the history of Battery B, 1st New York Light Artillery in the Civil War