Editors Letter: The Gettysburg Town Fight

The following is the Editor’s Letter from The Gettysburg Town Fight, Volume 30, #3

Gettysburg Town Fight

While walking the streets of Gettysburg and seeing a small bronze plaque identifying a house or shop as a Civil War building, have you ever wondered who lived there during the battle, was it a home or a business (or both), were the occupants owners or tenants? Well, Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Gerald Bennett experienced that, and did something about it.

In 1994, be began gathering information from property tax records, deeds, census records, newspapers, town maps and surveys, estate documents, and anything else that might come under his notice that attached a name, or a usage, even the race of an individual when it was associated with occupancy, to a piece of property.

Mr. Bennett allowed me access to his compilations and block diagrams, which I redrew and pieced together into a base map in order to show Civil War Gettysburg in a very personal way. The result is a computerized map 21 inches by 30 inches. It is broken into six pieces and presented in the following pages.

Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Gary Kross, a longtime associate of Blue & Gray, assisted me with the field work for this issue. Gary’s “vignettes” of the battle that we’ve published over the years are still very popular. He always manages to turn up interesting documents and photographs and relics, which add a special touch to any presentation. This time what he turned up for us was Gerald Bennett.

Writing his first feature for Blue & Gray is David G. Martin. He has written numerous books and articles on Gettysburg, including Gettysburg July 1, and the classic reference work, with John W. Busey, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg.

Editor