Oak Ridge - Gettysburg, PA
N 39° 50.644 W 077° 14.514
18S E 308188 N 4412855
Oak Ridge is crestline of a hill that was the location of 1863 Battle of Gettysburg combat and at which the Eternal Light Peace Memorial was constructed for the battle's 50th reunion. Numerous other monuments dot the landscape of this battle site.
Waymark Code: WMAJD8
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 01/20/2011
Views: 16
The coordinates for Oak Ridge are the Oak Ridge observation tower built in 1895, since shortened by the National Park Service in 1960. It was here I saw and thus learned about the prominence and strategic importance of this ridge. The ridge is littered with every type and sort of monument, memorial and marker. It is from here that one might view the entire battlefield along the ridge.
From the ridge and from the tower, I could see the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, Culp's Hill, East Cemetery Hill, and other important landmarks. The historical importance of Oak Ridge is its being one of the principal battlefield which serves in totality of that of the Gettysburg Battlefield. The ridge is an interesting geological feature. I alike it to pushing a bedspread inward form two sides and making a small, long mountain range. That is what it looked like to me.
Oak Ridge was the site of the opening day battle of the Civil War. Confederate troops struck the Union positions at the McPherson Farm and along Oak Ridge. General Robert E. Rodes' Division of Ewell's Corps, having marched from Carlisle, struck toward the right of the 1st Corps on Oak Ridge, the northern extension of Seminary Ridge. A Union brigade commanded by Colonel Henry Baxter repulsed several Confederate assaults and annihilated a North Carolina Brigade commanded by Brig. General Alfred Iverson. SOURCE
Rather than copy and paste or try and summarize the specific events which took place here in 1863, visit this LINK and from there one can learn a great deal of the significance of this site to the Civil War.