Into the Whirlpool: First Contact - Rose Woods (Blue Panther) - AAR & Battlefield Images

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The Rose Farm was at the center of some of the fiercest fighting of the war on the second day of the battle. The farm included the Stony Hill and the Rose Woods. It also included a twenty acre field where over 20,000 men engaged in brutal and often hand-to-hand combat. Over six thousand men were killed or wounded there. Ever since it has been known simply as The Wheatfield. Even after Hood's men had taken Devil's Den, the fighting raged along a stone wall between Rose's Woods and the southern edge of the Wheatfield and among the trees on the stony, tree-covered hill along the Wheatfield's western edge. Third Corps units occupied the stone wall; Fifth Corps brigades manned the stony hill. Brig. Gen. George T. Anderson's brigade and the 3rd Arkansas Regiment attacked the troops behind the wall. "Aim low!, boys! make every shot tell!" cautioned officers of the 17th Maine behind the wall, and they repelled the Confederates' first attacks. After reforming, Anderson's men attacked again, and the brigades of Brig. Gens. Joseph B. Kershaw and Paul J. Semmes of McLaws's division advanced on their left against the Wheatfield from the west. The Fifth Corps troops, fearing that they would be flanked on their right, fell back behind the Wheatfield Road. Their retreat exposed the Third Corps line south of the Wheatfield to a flank attack, and its troops fell back. The Confederates advanced to the edge of the field. where Capt. George Winslow's New York battery held them at bay for a critical few minutes. At the opening of the fight Meade ordered that Brig. Gen. John C. Caldwell's division, which had been posted on the left of the Second Corps, be sent to the aid of Sykes. Caldwell's division reached the Wheatfield Road on the north side of the Wheatfield as the Confederates drove the Third and Fifth Corps from their positions on its southern and western sides. Caldwell's brigades formed quickly along the road, some doing so in such haste that their rear ranks were to the front. They charged through the ripe wheat and the surrounding woods, driving the Confederates back. Three brigade commanders, Col. Edward F. Cross and Brig. Gen. Samuel K. Zook of Caldwell's division and Brig. Gen. Paul Semmes of McLaws's division fell with mortal wounds. More than 20,000 men from both sides were engaged in the Wheatfield area with over 6,100 total casualties. For the next two days, the field remained largely open ground between the battle lines. Unboxing - https://youtu.be/sk2u4L_tugE