This sign of history tells of a bloody violent attack of cavalry of the Union & Confederates, bloody and decisive. The SOH, erected by the Gettysburg National Military Park, is a wayside marker on Gregg Avenue, south or right side if you are traveling east along the road. The sign is oblong, horizontal and held in a wide, metal, black frame, kind of low to the ground and planted in the grass. There is the Custer Avenue marker, a CSA marker and a huge monument to the The Michigan Cavalry Brigade which is in the background or south of the interpretive.
The text of the SOH reads:
"So sudden and violent was the collision that many of the horses were turned end over end, and crushed their riders beneath them."
Capt. William E. Miller, U.S.A.
4th Pennsylvania Cavalry
On the afternoon of July 3, Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart mounted several cavalry attacks against Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg's Union cavalry positioned along the Hanover Road 1/2 mile in front of you. A colonel of the 1st Virginia Cavalry reported the fighting was "hand to hand, blow for blow, cut for cut, and oath for oath...."
At 4:00 p.m., Stuart assembled 12 regiments of troopers for the last great charge of the day. A Union officer wrote of the massed Confederates: "In close column of squadrons, advancing as if in review, with sabers drawn and glistening like silver in the bright sunlight-the spectacle called forth a murmur of admiration."
The closest Union regiment available to halt the Southern horsemen was the 1st Michigan Cavalry. Brig. Gen. George A. Custer rode to the head of the regiment, stood up in the stirrups with his saber aloft and with a determined yell, led a countercharge. While Custer viciously attacked the head of the Confederate column, other Union cavalry under Col. John B. McIntosh closed in on the flanks. Assaulted on three sides, the Confederates retreated. The attack on the Union rear had failed.
The following comes from the Historical Marker Database (see link below)
The center of the marker is a painting depicting Custer's charge, Shouting, "Come on you Wolverines!," Brig. Gen. George A. Custer leads a daring countercharge against the Confederate cavalry brigades of Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee and Wade Hampton here on the afternoon of July 3. The Confederate charge came from your rear, the Union countercharge from your front. Painting by Don Troiani.
On the upper right is a portrait of Col. John B. McIntosh who helped Custer defeat the last Confederate charge here. His brother James, a Confederate general, had been killed at Pea Ridge in March 1862.
On the lower right is a portrait of Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton, a wealthy South Carolina landowner, commanded a Confederate cavalry brigade here. He received three saber blows to the head and a wound in the side, but later recovered. Confederate casualties in this action totaled 181; Union, 254.