Were Two First Shots Fired at Gettysburg?

Almost exactly 160 years ago, the first shot was fired at Gettysburg, one of the most horrific battles of the Civil War. Both Illinois and New York claim their cavalry unit made the move. Stay with me, and I’ll tell you some fascinating stuff about Gettysburg and about why it really doesn’t matter who was on first when these stories have lives of their own.

Fact: Gettysburg, the epitome of American cultural icons, has always been a huge focus for easy money. Get-rich side hustles are not new; hucksters have profited from Gettysburg for over 160 years, and the trend may never subside. Think about it — tours, books, souvenirs, reenactments, films, games, collectibles, and websites. You can even buy trinkets made from “wood from trees from the Gettysburg Battlefield.” Seriously.

And the historic events at Gettysburg have spawned a veritable encyclopedia of folklore and stories that are true, kind of true, a little bit true, and totally untrue. To what extent does absolute accuracy matter when our nation remembers the past?

Several years ago, I spent some time with James Powell Weeks, author of the book Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine. Jim adamantly cautioned being selective about how much popular history should be accepted as fact when the facts inform outcomes. But in the end, a little drama and personal glory might be okay since that’s what gives rise to monuments, commemorations, and local celebrations.

Let’s consider the story of Lt. Marcellus E. Jones, 8th Illinois Cavalry. Jones, it is said, snatched a carbine from Sgt. Levi Shafer fired the first shot in the battle at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. Jones insisted that Kane County (IL), home to the 8th Illinois, had earned a place in history. He made sure people knew about his claim.

J. David Petruzzi’s Website gives a colorful and engaging account of Jones’ life and service. The story says in 1886, Jones installed a Naperville granite marker outside the town to commemorate his shot. Later, he put one in the battlefield in Pennsylvania. In 1913, marking the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg, 8th Illinois veterans gathered at the marker. According to newspaper reports at the time, the veterans were Pvt. LaBrec, Pvt. Henry Wetlanfer, Pvt. Warren E. Pricket, Pvt. James A. Bayard, Pvt. George Huntoon, Pvt. Silas F. Dean, Cpl. Frank M. Ackley, Pvt. Horace O. Dodge, Pvt. Charles Howell, Pvt. John Stoner, Pvt. William H. Chadwick, Pvt. William H. Churchill, Sgt. Levi S. Shafer (and Shafer’s wife).

Jim Weeks, who served as a research fellow at the Lincoln Papers Project in Springfield, IL, said, “Today’s picture of Gettysburg is colored by the marketplace. For more than a century, it was tailored to become one of our most sacred places for successive generations of consumers. But iconic sites have been a mix of cheap tourism and true reality throughout civilization. Think about jugglers outside the temples in the Middle Ages.”

The question is, did Lt. Jones of Kane County’s 8th Illinois fire that shot? The thing to think about is maybe that it doesn’t matter to history. Oral history is culturally important, and such stories earn lives of their own. What’s important is most people believe it, so it may as well be true.

Wendy Miller, Collections and Education Director at the Wheaton History Center said, “Our stance is just that his papers make the claim. He was a resident of Wheaton, and his home still stands here as a law office. An article from Blue and Grey Magazine compared his story to four others with similar claims and determined that Jones would be the most likely.” For Miller, a final determination isn’t the goal.

The Gettysburg battle history

According to information from the National Park Service Visitor’s Center, the battle was unplanned, unstrategized, and a tragedy for General Lee’s army. Weeks agreed, saying the Confederate armies felt good having secured victories over the Union during 1861 and 1862. General Lee decided that invading the North to conquer Union troops on their soil would force a disenchanted administration to rethink this war.

And so, in the summer of 1863, war came to rural Gettysburg in south-central Pennsylvania, where no one expected to see combat. General Lee’s force of 75,000 headed north to make a stand. At the end of June, he learned that 100,000 Union troops under Maj. General George Meade, including the 8th Illinois, were on their trail. Lee ordered brigades into the fields to determine what was going on and others to raid the countryside for supplies.

Those divisions accidentally encountered Union troops northwest of Gettysburg. They engaged, and the fighting rapidly escalated. The 8th, according to Weeks, was part of that first skirmish and certainly helped precipitate the battle.

Displays at Gettysburg National Park say both sides sent for reinforcements. Lee’s army came from the west and north — Meade and his men swooped in from the south. A three-day battle slaughtered thousands of men, devastating Lee’s Army, sending them broken and disheartened back to Virginia. At the same time as this terrible carnage, General Grant ravaged the Confederates at Vicksburg.

Was the 8th Illinois there?

The Illinois State Archives and The Grants Papers Collection gather facts about Civil War military divisions from Rootsweb.com, one of the largest genealogy databases in the country. Rootsweb indicates that the 8th Illinois formed at Camp Kane, St. Charles, was 1,164 strong in September 1861 and part of Meades’ Army of the Potomac during the battle of Gettysburg.

In October, they had moved to Washington City, saw action at Fredricksburg, captured the colors of the 12th Virginia Cavalry at Monocacy Church, captured 20 prisoners at Barnesville, engaged at Sugarloaf Mountain, and captured two guns at Boonesboro, killing and wounding 67, taking 200 prisoners.

Records show them at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Manassas. Regimental losses during the war: 250 killed, 116 wounded, and 37 missing. Only one member of the 8th fell at Gettysburg — Pvt. David Diffenbaugh, buried in Row A, Grave 4, Illinois section of Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Now, back to Lt. Jones and his journal. Compiled in the late 1800s, it reports that the 8th’s commander was Maj. John Beveridge, an Evanston, IL lawyer before the war. After the war, Beveridge was Sheriff of Cook County, elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and then Governor of Illinois. John F. Farnsworth was Colonel of the 8th.

As Confederates approached Gettysburg, the 8th Illinois may certainly have been the first to make contact. Miller says Jones’ journal account has him headed to see the sergeant and noticing a cloud of dust on the mountainside. It was rebel soldiers. Jones says he snatched a carbine from his friend, took aim at an officer on a white horse, and fired. Some reports say he missed, and some say the 9th New York Cavalry fired the first shot the previous day. There’s no definitive proof either way; markers in the National Park represent both regimens, and people in both states take pride in their history.

This largest, bloodiest engagement of the war was over in 72 hours, with two-thirds of the Confederates dead and nearly every house, barn, and public building filled with wounded. Those are the facts that have real meaning to our history.

Noted historian and scholar Professor John Y. Simon told me in a phone conversation that after the war, each regiment submitted its own detailed mini-history along with officers’ rosters. According to these histories, fifty-one thousand were killed, wounded, or captured at Gettysburg.

Fields and homes were ransacked, but miraculously, there was only one civilian casualty. Jennie Wade, visiting her sister’s home adjacent to the battlefield, had spent two days baking bread for Union soldiers. On the third day, a bullet pierced the walls as Jennie took bread from the oven. She was killed instantly and later laid to rest by the soldiers.

Peace is eternal in a nation united

In every battle’s history, there are iconic pivot points, and Gettysburg is no different. Nearly every American has heard these names: Seminary Ridge, Cemetery Ridge, Pickett’s Charge, Little Round Top. In 1895, the entire Gettysburg battlefield was established as a National Military Park. In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt dedicated its monuments as symbols of “Peace eternal in a nation united.” Battle sites, trenches, and earthworks are continuously restored and preserved for future Americans.

But Weeks explained, “We sanitize restorations — you can’t include limbs torn from bodies, mounds of dead soldiers. We don’t want to include animal carcasses, mud, and cow excrement. So, we portray what we need to see — the quiet pastoral countryside haunted by numerous accounts of tragedy. It doesn’t all convey absolute truth.”

Weeks is right, to my mind. If you have never visited the park, consider a trip there. The atmosphere and energy surrounding the area are discernibly different, with an almost mystical aura of something beyond our everyday concerns. Over time, remains have been found — some preserved or reinterred, while others were left to return to the soil.

Gettysburg National Park comprises about 6,000 acres featuring more than 1400 monuments, markers, and memorials, a museum project, and a scale-size battle model.

What you’ll see at the park

The 139,000 sq. ft. visitor center occupies 47 acres and includes gallery space, two 180-seat theaters, and a cyclorama (America’s largest painting). It uses considerable energy, much of which is from renewable sources. The geothermal heating and cooling system includes 207 wells drilled to an average depth of 550 feet. The museum supplements onsite geothermal heating and cooling with green energy credits.

Among the artifacts, you may find most of the equipment that was part of a Union uniform of the day. The Illinois 8th would have been required to wear, when available:

• A dressed forage cap (the one often seen pictured, flattened front with a brim)
• Four button sack coat, sky blue trousers with suspenders
• Civilian or military issue shirt, white cotton socks, dark blue military vest, underdrawers
• Cavalry boots
• Sword belt with military buckle
• Black cap pouch
• Pistol cartridge box
• Cavalry carbine cartridge box, Cavalry carbine sling w/snap swivel
• Bullseye or Smoothside stainless, brown jean-wool-covered canteen
• Cavalry saber knot (leather w/tassel)
• US regulation pistol holder
• Bible or New Testament

Soldiers were also issued an 1859 Sharps Carbine (54 cal), an 1860 Cavalry saber and scabbard, an 1860 Colt revolver (44 cal), a pistol cleaning kit, an A-tent, gauntlets, US Cavalry wool blanket w/US stitched in the middle, and a poncho. There were optional extra shirts, drawers, a toothbrush, soap, playing cards, a lantern, a greatcoat, and jackets, but often, the soldiers abandoned these items along the way as they marched long distances and defended themselves against the enemy.

It’s true; not every story about war or history is absolutely factual. It makes sense to vet information that matters or impacts the overall story of how we got where we are. But there’s room for oral history, folk heroes, and tradition, too. As an Illinoisian, I choose to err on the side of Lt. Jones and the 8th Illinois in my version of Gettysburg.

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Sources:

Shelby Foote, The Civil War

Personal interviews with the experts named in this story.

Southern Illinois University History Department

National Park Service Visitor’s Center, Gettysburg

It was my distinct pleasure to interview James Powell Weeks, author of the book Gettysburg: Memory, Market and an American Shrine, and receive his guidance on an original newspaper article I wrote on this topic.