Welcome to
Valley Arts Publishing

The 9th Massachusetts Battery (Bigelow’s Battery), commanded by Captain John Bigelow, made a desperate delaying stand at the Trostle Farm (Abraham Trostle’s farmyard and barn area) on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.  This was the battery’s first combat action.  As part of the Artillery Reserve (Lt. Col. Freeman McGilvery’s 1st Volunteer Brigade), it had been sent forward to support Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles’ overextended Third Corps near the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield Road.  When Confederate forces (including elements of Kershaw’s and especially Barksdale’s brigades) broke the Union line and forced a withdrawal, the 9th was among the last batteries ordered to retire.

 

They retired about 400 yards across an open field toward the Trostle Farm “by prolonge” (firing while withdrawing, with ropes or by gun recoil used to keep alignment), loading and firing as they went under heavy pressure.  Near the Trostle house and barn (at the angle of stone walls/fences and a narrow gate/lane), McGilvery ordered them to halt and hold the position “at all hazards” or “to the last” without infantry support.  This bought critical time (roughly 20–30 minutes) for other Union batteries and troops to form a new defensive line farther east (toward Cemetery Ridge/Plum Run).

 

At the farmyard, the battery’s six 12-pounder Napoleons loaded double canister (and later short-fused shell) and fired point-blank into the advancing Confederates, particularly the 21st Mississippi Infantry of Barksdale’s Brigade.  The Confederates closed in on the flanks, overran the position in fierce fighting (including hand-to-hand combat with rammers, sponge staffs, and pistols), and shot many of the battery’s horses to immobilize the guns.  Four of the six guns were temporarily abandoned (later recovered under covering fire); two were withdrawn.  Bigelow was wounded, and the battery suffered heavy losses (roughly 27–28 men killed, wounded, captured or missing out of about 110 engaged, and about 65-80 of its 88 horses killed or disabled).  Photographs taken days later show the farmyard littered with dead horses.

 

The sacrifice of the 9th Massachusetts delayed the Confederate advance long enough for McGilvery to establish a new artillery line and helped prevent a more serious breakthrough in that sector of the Union left/center.