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Monuments to Individuals at Gettysburg

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The monument to Colonel Charles Frederick Taylor is south of Gettysburg on Ayers Avenue. (Ayers Avenue – Loop tour map) Nearby is the monument to Colonel Taylor’s 13th Pennsylvania Reserves, also known as the Bucktails and the First Rifle Regiment.

Colonel Taylor was only 23 years old when he was killed at Gettysburg, the youngest Colonel in the Army of the Potomac. But he had already been wounded at Fredericksburg after becoming colonel of the Bucktails at the age of 21. A native of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, he had attended the University of Michigan at the age of 15 but had returned home to run his ailing father’s farm before the war broke out.

Commander of the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves, 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 5th Corps, Army of the Potomac

Captain Charles Taylor at Gettysburg

In the afternoon of July 2 Taylor led a counterattack down Little Round Top and across Plum Run, driving the Confederates back from a stone wall and through the Rose Woods to the edge of the Wheatfield. He was with a small band of twenty men well in advance of the rest of the regiment when they were struck by a volley of rifle fire. Taylor was shot in the heart and died in two minutes.

Text from the Monument:

Here fell
Charles Frederick Taylor
July 2, 1863
Age 23 years 4 months 26 days.
Colonel of the “Bucktails”
First Rifle Regiment P.R.V.C.
Erected by his comrades and friends
1905

Charles Frederick Taylor
Born February 6 1840
Enrolled May 16 1861
Captain Co. H. 13th Penna. Reserves
First Rifles May 28 1861
Colonel March 1 1863
Killed in action July 2 1863

Location of the monument to Colonel Taylor at Gettysburg

The monument to Colonel Charles Frederick Taylor is south of Gettysburg on the north side of Ayers Avenue
about 80 yards after it turns into the woods from The Wheatfield. Ayers Avenue is one way. (39°47’44.2″N 77°14’28.4″W)