Focus: the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry

Today’s monument study is the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry. The monument is located along Pleasanton Avenue, near the Pennsylvania monument on Cemetery Ridge.

Commanded during the Gettysburg Campaign by Captain William A. Corrie, the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry was recruited from around the Philadelphia area for the most part. The 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry is sometimes also known as the 89th Regiment.

The 8th Pennsylvania participated in the Gettysburg Campaign, but it did not fight here. Members of Pennock Huey’s brigade, they were part of a force left to guard the Union supply depot at Winchester, Virginia. The brigade would take an active role in the campaign — they just weren’t actually engaged on the Gettysburg battlefield.

So you are probably wondering why they have a monument on the battlefield.

When Gettysburg became the place to put a regimental monument, some units like the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry wanted to place monuments there too. This presented a problem. Units like the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry had fought in the campaign or had provided valuable services during the campaign. But they hadn’t rendered them at Gettysburg itself.

Adding to the problem, the rules established by the Gettysburg park required that monuments be placed on ground where a regiment or unit actually fought or was placed during the battle. For units like those in Huey’s brigade, such a place didn’t exist.

Eventually, it was decided that there would be a special place set aside — along Pleasanton Avenue near the Pennsylvania Monument — for units that had participated in the Gettysburg campaign but who didn’t actually hold a position on the battlefield. That is why the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalary memorial is where it is.

Ironically, monuments to regiments that actually fought at Gettysburg may be entirely missed by casual visitors to the park, while the memorials to the regiments who did not actually fight here are seen by nearly everyone given their proximity to the Pennsylvania Monument.

The monument features a granite cavalryman and is one of the more impressive cavalry monuments on the battlefield. For that reason (along with its prominent location), it seems to attract a lot of photographer attention. It also unfortunately attracts attentions from vandals as well; the figure’s sword has been stolen in the past.

—-

Side notes … It was the 84th Pennsylvania Infantry that first sought to have a monument placed on the field although it never fought at the battle. The 84th Pennsylvania also was guarding the supply line at Winchester.

Interestingly, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association required that each regiment also place flank markers marking the right and left of each regiment. The rule was so strict that the 84th Pennsylvania had to place flank markers that denote the location of the imaginary left and right of the regiment!

Members of the Cavalry Corps, 2nd Division, 2nd Brigade

Not present at Gettysburg; in Maryland guarding the army trains

Monument: Pleasanton Avenue

Tags: Cavalry Corps, Gettysburg, Monument Project, Pennsylvania