At 5:30 p.m. on July 2, 1863, Confederate General Joseph B. Kershaw's brigade advanced across Emmitsburg Road, through the Rose Farm, and toward Stony Hill, soon to be recognized by Kershaw as the "key" to breaking Sickles' Bulge. The federals also came to realize it. The slight, relative elevation of Stony Hill provides a remarkable sweep of the Wheatfield to the right (from the Confederate perspective) and of the Peach Orchard to the left. Guns and troops on this hill could open up a terrific fire on enemy troops on either flank. Kershaw's brigade advanced on the hill in such a manner as to allow the left to assail and silence Union artillery positions on the edge of the Peach Orchard while the balance assaulted the Stony Hill. Kershaw's Confederates drove on into two Union Fifth Corps brigades (Colonel William S. Tilton and Colonel Jacob B. Sweitzer), but just as it seemed Kershaw had won the hill, Union General John Caldwell's Second Corps division approached to help stabilize the Union position there. Before Caldwell's arrival, the 62nd Pennsylvania of Sweitzer's brigade had already been shreaded by Confederate prisoners who were abandoned under fire and re-armed themselves, giving one some idea of the intesity of the fight here. "Just then I came up to where some prisoners were that had been taken a short time before. The bullets were falling like hail and the guard that had the prisoners ran and left the prisoners go, when they immediatly picked up guns and began to shoot...I took leg bail for security and increased the distance between him and me (a re-armed Confederate demanding his surrender)...I heard the report of a gun just behind me...the ball struck my arm four or five inches from the shoulder passing under the bone and coming out in the chest near the arm pit. I called out for some one to take the colors, one of the men ran out and took them and I then made tracks to get out of further danger." - 92nd PA Color Bearer Sergeant Jacob B. Funk. As the Confederates fell back to avoid being enveloped, the two Union Fifth Corps brigades thought they were being replaced by Caldwell and fell back, weakening the Union line on the hill just as Confederate Brigadier General Paul J. Semmes' brigade came up to assist Kershaw. Kershaw and Semmes struck the hill again, this time driving the Union defenders not only off the hill, but all the way across the Wheatfield that lies to the side and behind it. In desperation, Caldwell threw in reserves and counter-attacked the Kershaw-Semmes' line, driving it back across the Wheatfield, and back over and down Stony Hill. "The enemy...slowly extended around my right. Separated from view of my left, the position of the 15th Regiment being wholly unknown, the 7th having retreated, and nothing being heard of the other troops of the division, I feared the brave men around me would be surrounded by the large force of the enemy constantly increasing in numbers and all the while gradually enveloping us. In order to avoid such a catastrophe, I ordered a retreat to the buildings at Rose's." - J.B. Kershaw, Major-General, C.S.A. Kershaw would not have to fall back far or for long. As he withdrew from the hill, he found Brigadier General William T. Wofford's brigade advancing to the rescue, and in a position to strike the Stony Hill and its growing numbers of Union defenders directly on their right flank...the chance to deliver a death blow to Sickle's Bulge once and for all was finally at hand. The subsequent combined assault of Wofford, Kershaw and Semmes' retook Stony Hill, giving them a commanding view of the Wheatfield...and the entire flank and rear of the Union lines southeast of the Wheatfield...and again, the Confederate troops advanced down into and across the Wheatfield for one last time. The retreating Union troops attempted to execute a fighting withdrawal, but the effort quickly turned into a complete rout. The Battle for Stony Hill is amazingly one of the little studied sections of the field, given the degree of mayhem that transpired there, and the significance it played in the collapse of Sickles' Bulge. Thousands of Union and Confederate dead and dying soldiers of both sides marked the path of Wofford-Kershaw-Semmes' final advance and the subsequent Union rout. "...The Stony Hill and wood occupied by this (Kershaw's) brigade and part of Semmes' was assailed or defended by the fedral brigades of De Trobriand, Sweitzer, Tilton and Zook, of the divisions of Birney, Barnes and Caldwell, and of the Second, Third and Fifth corps. No where have I found any more forcible evidence of the nature and magnitude of this struggle..." - J.B. Kershaw, Major-General, C.S.A. MENU