This badge features a bronze pin-back top bar reading “148^th P.V. ASSOCIATION” from which a nice condition red, white and blue ribbon suspends a round planchet. The reverse reads, “At Gettysburg the 143^rd P.V. stood like a band of iron amid the surging masses of the enemy / July 1, 1863 / Doubleday.” The obverse bears the figure of Sergeant Ben Crippen, a regimental color-bearer who was observed in the midst of the fighting, as the regiment was grudgingly obliged to fall back on July 1, to occasionally turn toward the enemy and shake his fist. Out of 515 in the regiment on the field, and a fighting strength certainly under that, the regiment lost 253 in killed wounded, captured, and missing. Crippen was killed in the fighting and buried in an unmarked grave, but the regiment memorialized him by using this figure on their Gettysburg monument.

The condition is excellent- just one spot of verdigris over the figures head, which might clean, and one very small bit of wear to the lower blue edge of the ribbon. There is no date on the medal, but it might have to do with their 1889 or 1895 monument dedications, or to another Gettysburg reunion.  [sr] [ph:L]

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