Sculpted by Gary Casteel
 
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
 
Lt. Colonel Henry Merwin led the 27th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry through Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.  During the Battle of Gettysburg, as Gen. James Longstreet opened his July 2nd, 1863 assault on the Union left, things went from bad to worse along the Third Corps line in the Wheatfield.  Initially reinforced by elements of the Fifth Corps, a see-saw battle was taking shape in George Rose’s 20-acre wheat field and the woods surrounding it.
 
When Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s old First Division of Second Corps, led by division commander Gen. John Caldwell, entered the Wheatfield Sector, the Confederates had just taken control of the woods to the south and west side and Devil’s Den was falling into Rebel hands too.  The seventy-five men of the 27th Connecticut pressed forward with their comrades in the brigade of Col. John R. Brooke.  Although their numbers were small, and their enlistments were running out, the 27th Connecticut Infantry did their full duty.
 
“As the regiment enters the wheat-field…A few steps….bring[s] the men under the full sweep of the enemy’s fire. Lieutenant-Colonel [Henry] Merwin falls while leading the command with his accustomed bravery…the line still presses forward at [the] double-quick, through the wheat-field and woods beyond, driving the rebels a quarter of a mile, across a ravine…”  After crossing a branch of Rose Run at the base of the ravine, “The men with much difficulty clambered up the rocky steep, but as they appeared upon the crest of the hill, the enemy [was] drawn up in readiness…”  Merwin’s last words were, "My poor regiment is suffering fearfully."
 
Once back on Cemetery Ridge the men of the 27th Connecticut met for roll call.  Of the seventy-five men that went into action, thirty-eight fell in the fight for the Wheatfield, “eleven killed-among them Lieutenant-Colonel Merwin, and Captain Jedediah Chapman-twenty-three wounded, and four missing.”
 
The monument was erected in 1880 at the location in the Wheatfield where Lieutenant Colonel Merwin was mortally wounded.  In 1885, the regimental monument was placed at that location by the regimental association and Merwin's memorial was relocated to nearby Wheatfield Road, with the additional inscription at the bottom of the monument added.
 
This monument was dedicated on July 1, 1880 and is located on the south side of the Wheatfield Road about one hundred yards west of the intersection with Crawford Avenue.