Union Monuments - Massachusetts

19th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

The Nineteenth Massachusetts Infantry monument is south of Gettysburg on the east side of Hancock Avenue south of the Copse of Trees.

Location: 39.811503 N, 77.235416 W; see map

The 19th Massachusetts was commanded at the Battle of Gettysburg by Colonel Arthur F. Devereaux. It brought 231 men to the field, losing 9 killed, 61 wounded and 7 missing. The monument was dedicated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1885.

Form the monument:

The 19th Reg't Mass. Vol. Infty
of the
3rd Brigade - 2nd Division - 2nd Army Corps
stood here
on the afternoon of July 3rd 1863

From one of a series of iron signs on the south side of the Copse of Trees (below right):

Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
The position of this regiment in line of battle was 119 yards S.S.E. and is represented by its monument.
The 19th Massachusetts and 42d New York Regiments were te first troops to attack Pickett's Division in flank.
"Passing at this time Colonel Devereux, commanding the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers, anxious to be in the right place, appled to me for permission to move his regiment to the right and to the front where the line had been broken." - Hancock's official report.

Colonel Devereaux noted that the opening shot of the artillery barrage preceding Pickett's Charge struck Lieutenant S.S. Robinson of the 19th, "cutting his body nearly in two, killing him instantly." While there is no doubt of Robinson's death, there are four other contradictory accounts of the first shot, including one by the 19th's own Lieutenant J.B.G. Adams, who claimed to have had the shot pass over him while lying in a field hospital just behind the lines.*

*From George R. Stewart, Pickett's Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, p126

See more about the 19th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War