Gary Schreckengost

Defense of the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg Gary Schreckengost

The battle of Gettysburg was considered to be the turning point of the War of the Southern Rebellion not necessarily because the Federal Army of the Potomac won, but because it did not lose. One of the most important phases of the battle was fought on July 2, 1863, at a place they called "the Peach Orchard." Here elements of Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickes's III U. S. Corps fought to deprive the rebels of high ground which would have allowed the rebels to shoot enfilading artillery fire into the left flank of Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock's II U. S. Corps on Cemetery Ridge, unhinging the entire line. Brig. Gen. Charles Graham's brigade of Sickles's corps was placed in the center of this salient and the 114th Pennsylvania, (Collis's Philadelphia Zouaves), was in the center of Graham's brigade. This is the historically accurate yet fictitious story about John Tricker and his brother, Alfred, who were actual members of Company B, 114th Pennsylvania. Read about how and why they joined Collis's Zouaves and what the fighting was like for them on that fateful day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863.