First Shot Marker

Description

Sculpted by Gary Casteel
Size: 2 ¼” x 2 ¼” x 5”
Weight: .45lbs
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
Around 7:30 a.m. on the morning of July 1, 1863, Lieutenant (later Captain) Marcellus Jones’ Company E of the 8
th
Illinois Cavalry Regiment was picketing the Chambersburg Pike, on the morning of July 1 when he saw a strong force of Confederate infantry begin to cross Marsh Creek about a half mile to the west.  Jones borrowed a Sharps carbine rifle from Sergeant Levi S. Shafer and fired a single shot at a mounted officer, who might have been Colonel Birkett Fry of the 13
th
Alabama Infantry Regiment.  Jones apparently missed.  It was the first shot of the Battle of Gettysburg (although members of the 9
th
New York Cavalry disputed the 8
th
Illinois claim).  There are several claims as to which Union soldier fired the first shot at the Battle of Gettysburg.  Three men from the 8
th
Illinois Cavalry felt their claim was strong enough to erect their own monument.
In 1886, Jones, Shafer, and Riddler had the five-foot limestone shaft hewn in a Naperville quarry and brought it the 600 miles to Gettysburg, erecting it on land purchased from the owner of the house which still stands behind it.
The monument is located on Chambersburg Pike at Knoxlyn Road, in Gettysburg, PA, and was dedicated in 1886.
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