Focus: 23rd Pennsylvania
Posted to the Project on 25 May 07
The monument series continues with the 23rd Pennsylvania on Culp’s Hill.
Located on North Slocum Avenue, this memorial was dedicated on August 6, 1886 (base) and September 12, 1889 (staute). The regiment was nicknamed Birney’s Zouaves. The unit was raised from mainly in and around Philadelphia and the commander at Gettysburg was Lt. Col. John F. Glenn. Members of the 1st brigade, 3rd division, Sixth Corps, the regiment suffered 1 killed and 13 wounded out of 538 engaged.
The location of this monument was hotly debated by the Battlefield Memorial Association. Paid for by the regiment’s surviving members, the larger-than-life staute at the top of the monument depicts Matthew Spence, a veteran of the unit. He is dressed in a partial zouave uniform advancing up a hill with his rifle at “trail arms.”
The staute was a later addition to the monument, the base being built by the regiment’s survivors in 1886. The base’s main features include a blue Greek Sixth Corps cross, etchings of the unit’s battleflags, and a bronze plaque telling the unit history. Originally, polished granite cannon balls stood at the top of the base, but when Pennsylvania appropriated money to each unit for monument construction a few years later, the 23rd decided to replace the cannonballs with the granite soldier staute.
Members of the 6th Corps, 3rd Division, 1st Brigade
Commander: Lt. Col. John F. Glenn (1829-1905)
Engaged: 538; 1 killed, 13 wounded
Monument: Culp’s Hill (Slocum Avenue)