Image Size: 16 1/4" x 24 1/4"
250 Signed and Numbered Giclée Limited Edition Prints
50 Signed and Numbered Giclée Canvas Limited Edition Prints

In the afternoon of July 2nd “Plum Run gorge became the soft underbelly of the Union line and the best possible place for the Confederates to exploit a breakthrough…and its defense thus became a necessity…” (Gettysburg Magazine #1, p. 57) Lt. Colonel William Harris’ 2nd Georgia and Colonel W.C. Hodges’ 17th Georgia emerged form the woods below Big Round Top into a small, open field scattered with rocks and boulders. They were attempting to exploit the gap between Union troops on Little Round Top and Captain James Smith’s battery (4th New York Light) of Parrott rifled cannons on Houck Ridge (Devil’s Den). If the Georgians were able to capture that position they would turn the left flank of Major General Dan Sickles’ Third Corps line. Into the breech at the double-quick Colonel Thomas Washington Egan’s 40th New York (Mozart Regiment) advanced. Egan ordered seven different attacks against the Georgians. Additional fire from Smith’s battery into the Georgians and the left flank of the 48th Alabama caused them to hesitate in their advance. Brigadier General Henry L. Benning later stated of the 2nd Georgia of his brigade, “fought as gallantly as men could fight and did not yield an inch of ground.” (Ibid, p. 65) The casualties were so great on both sides that the position held by the Georgians was known as the Slaughter Pen and the Plum Run gorge as the “Valley of Death.

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