Few batteries ever came into action at a more critical moment in a desperate battle than Cowan’s First NY Independent Battery at Gettysburg in the repulse of Pickett’s charge. This extra-large size Tipton photograph shows veterans of the battery gathered at the monument on July 2, 1893, “New York Day” at Gettysburg, when the state arranged for special transportation of veterans to the battlefield for dedication of the state monument.

The photo shows about fifty veterans, most with one large ribbon and many with two, and a few with G.A.R. hats, arranged in three rough rows on either side of their battery monument and a few seated or crouching in front of it. At either end of the group a veteran holds a medium sized U.S. flag. They are posed in front of the monument panel inspired by Andrew Cowan’s account of one his gun crews in action as the fighting reached its climax. Confederates charge from the right of the panel. Horses on the limber are shot down, one driver remains, with his whip raised. Cannoneers struggle to load the gun: “Young McElroy had thrust the canister into the muzzle and fell dead in front of the wheel, with three rifle balls in his face. Gates rammed the charge home and springing back, fell shot through both legs. Bassenden sprang forward to seize the sponge staff. Sears pricked the cartridge and was ready to fire at the word. Little “Aleck” McKenzie, the corporal was running down the sight, to meet the enemy just crossing the demolished stone wall ten yards away, and as he signaled “Fire!” he fell across the trail of the gun wounded….” Five of Cowan’s guns were discharged in the face of the advancing Confederates led by a young major waving his sword and yelling, “Take the guns!” No further attempt on the guns was made. Cowan saw to it that the Confederate officer was buried by men in the battery and returned his sword to Confederate veterans twenty-four years later.

The photo is in very condition with good clarity, little fading and only two or three small spots of damage, on a tree, etc., not affecting any of the faces. It bears a Tipton photographer identification and their inventory number, “1428,” in the negative, by which copies could be purchased. Tipton had also photographed a group of Cowan’s veterans at the dedication of the monument in 1887, but the photograph number corresponds to the view listed in the Tipton catalog as taken on July 2, 1893, during the thirtieth anniversary of the battle and “New York Day.” Tipton offered the view in “large” and “extra” sizes, the latter ranging from 11x14 to 14x17 inches, the latter being about the size of this example, with another inch or so for the width of the frame, which is original to the photo, with dark wood border and narrow gilt inner edge and original backing boards.

The battery had organized in Auburn, NY, and spent most its service in the Sixth Corps, seeing action first in the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 and its last action at the fall of Petersburg, Sailor’s Creek and Appomattox, losing 2 officers and 18 men killed or mortally wounded, and another 39 officers and men wounded. At Gettysburg they entered the battle with six ordnance rifles manned by 113 men. They lost 4 killed and 8 wounded. For all the crucial service rendered by the battery in the fight, it saw little recognition for over twenty years. As part of the Sixth Corps they had been called up to reinforce the line at a critical moment on July 3 and then returned to their parent unit on July 5. They were not covered by official reports of the action submitted by Second Corps units and wrongly identified by General Webb in his report of the fighting. By 1886 veterans of the battery were unhappy enough about it at a reunion at Gettysburg to resolve on the erection of a monument at their position near the “high water mark” which was dedicated the next year. A reporter summed up the significance of their actions at battle: “The rebels were over our defenses. They had cleaned cannoneers and horses from one of the guns, and were whirling it around to use upon us. The bayonet drove them back. But so hard pressed was this brave infantry that at one time, from the exhaustion of their ammunition, every battery upon the principal crest of attack was silent except Cowan's. His service of grape and canister was awful. It enabled our line, outnumbered two to one, first to beat back Longstreet, and then to charge upon him, and take a great number of his men prisoners.”

This is a great Gettysburg reunion photo of a very gutsy unit.  [sr]

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