1st Regiment Eastern Shore
Maryland Volunteer Infantry

The First Regiment Eastern Shore Infantry monument is southeast of Gettysburg on Slocum Avenue. See map >

Form the front of the monument:

1st Regt. Eastern Shore
Maryland Volunteer Infantry
Col. Jas. Wallace.
Lockwood's Independent Brig.
12th Corps

Maryland's Tribute to her loyal sons

From the rear:

Five companies held the works in front of
this stone wall on the morning of July 3, 1863,
relieving other troops and remaining until
about noon when they were relieved.

The remainder of the regiment were in
position during the same time about three
hundred yards to the right.

Organized at Cambridge, Md. sept. 1861.
Consolidated with the 11th Md. Infy. Feb. 25th 1865.
Effective strength July 3d, 1863, 583.
Casualties
Killed 5, wounded 16, missing 2, total 25"

No better example of a Maryland caught between two sides occured than at Culp's Hill, where the Union 1st Maryland Eastern Shore faced the Confederate 1st Maryland Battalion. Color Sergeant Robert Ross of the Union regiment was a cousin to Color Sergeant P.M. Moore of the Confederate battalion, who was wounded several times and captured by his neghbors.

Colonel Wallace of the Union 1st Maryland wrote, "The 1st Maryland Confederate Regiment met us and were cut to pieces. We sorrowfully gathered up many of our old friends and acquaintances and had them carefully and tenderly cared for."

The 1st Maryland Eastern Shore had been enlisted as a home guard regiment. When it was ordered to Baltimore to join the Army of the Potomac at the time of the Gettysburg campaign Company K, raised in strongly pro-southern Somerset and Worcester counties, reminded the government of their terms of service and refused to go. On July 2nd, as their comrades were taking positions on Culp's Hill, sixty-seven members were disarmed, dishonorably discharged and given train fare back to Salisbury.

See more about the 1st Regiment Eastern Shore >

< Previous • Maryland Union monuments • Next >