Union Monuments - Massachusetts

2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

The monument to the Second Massachusetts Infantry Regiment is southeast of Gettysburg on Carman Avenue near Spangler's Spring. (see map)

This is the first permanent regimental monument on the battlefield, erected in 1879.

The regiment was commanded at Gettysburg by Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Mudge, who was killed leading the regiment in a charge whose order he questioned, but obeyed: "it is murder, but it's an order." Major Charles F. Morse took command afrter Mudge fell.

Form the tablet on the front of the monument:

From the hill behind this monument on
the morning of July Third 1863 the
Second Massachusetts Infantry
made an assault upon the Confederate
troops in the works at the base of Culp's
Hill opposite. The regiment carried to
the charge 22 officers and 294 enlisted
men. It lost 4 officers and 41 enlisted
men killed and mortally wounded and 6
officers and 84 enlisted men wounded.
To perpetuate the honored memories of
that hour the survivors of the Regiment
have raised this stone. 1879.

From the rear:

Lieut. Col. Charles R. Mudge   Captain Thomas B. Fox Captain Thomas R. Robeson   Lieut. Henry V.D. Stone
----
Color bearers - Leavitt C. Durgin, Rupert J. Sadler, Stephen Cody
First Sergeant Alonzo J. Babcock, Sergeant William H. Blunt.
--Corporals--
Charles Burdett, Theodore S. Butters, Jeremiah S. Hall, Patrick Heoy, Ruel Whittier, Gordon S. Wilson.
--Privates--
Samuel T. Alton, George M. Baily, Henry C. Ball, Wallace Bascom, John Briggs, Jr., David B. Brown, William T. Bullard, James A. Chase, Peter Conlan, John Derr, James T. Edmunds, William H. Ela, John E. Farrington, Silas P. Foster, Willard Foster, Joseph Furber, Fritz Goetz, Daniel A. Hatch, John J. Jewett, John Joy, Charles Kiernan, William Marshall, Frederick Maynard, Andrew Nelson, Rufus A. Parker, Philo H. Peck, Sidney S. Prouty, Richard Seavers, Charles Trayner, David L. Wade

The regiment was part of 12th Corps - 1st Division - 3rd Brigade.

See more on the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War