Hunterstown Monument Dedication, Walking Tour Are July 2

July 2 will be a big day in Hunterstown where the first monument to the battle there will be dedicated. The site, also known as North Cavalry Field, is five miles northeast of Gettysburg.

The 11 a.m. dedication ceremony marks the 145th anniversary of the late afternoon July 2, 1863, hand-to-hand fight between Michigan cavalry troopers under Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer and men of Cobb’s Georgia Legion, the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry and 1st North Carolina Cavalry under Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton.

The action at Hunterstown was significant because it prevented Hampton’s force from supporting a Confederate assault on Culp’s Hill.

Commemorative activities will include the fourth annual Hunterstown battlefield walking tour led by Licensed Battlefield Guide Mike Vallone, a picnic lunch, tour of the Great Conewago Presbyterian Church and Cemetery and presentation by living historians Larry and Connie Clowers.

The new monument depicts Norvell Churchill saving Custer’s life. It will be placed at the southeast corner of Shriver’s Corner Road (Route 394) and the Hunterstown Road, on the Historic Tate Farm where the 1st Michigan Cavalry was in reserve.

According to Norvell Churchill’s great-granddaughter, Pat Hedgecoth Stephens, Churchill served in Co. L, 1st Michigan Cavalry, and had been an orderly to Gens. Nathaniel Banks and Joseph Mansfield before joining Custer shortly before the Battle of Gettysburg.

Had it not been for Churchill Custer might not have survived the day. He planned an ambush, with his dismounted men and an artillery company hidden around the Felty barn and across the road.

To lure the Confederates Custer led about 60 mounted men in a charge, then retreated back to where his men were waiting.

Custer’s horse was shot and a Confederate officer bore down on him, swinging his saber, according to Stephens. Churchill caught the blow with his saber, which his family still has, shot the officer and pulled Custer up on his horse.

After the war Custer visited Churchill and spent three days on his Romeo, Mich., farm before he left for the Indian campaigns. Churchill declined an invitation to join Custer. He died at age 65 on June 25, 1905.

Roger and Laurie Harding own the Tate Farm, which is just north of the battle site. She is president of the Hunterstown Historical Society, a group that has made its mission to preserve the village’s history and gain recognition for the battle.

She has seen the monument’s plaques and said, “General Custer and Norvell Churchill would be so proud.“

Also proud are more than 40 Churchill family members from several generations, including a granddaughter, who are expected for the dedication.

Members of the Grand Rapids and Holland-Zeeland, Michigan, Civil War Round Tables undertook the fundraising for the monument.

Monument committee member David A. Broene noted that the village is under development pressure. “It is our hope that by letting people know about Hunterstown, history preservation efforts in the village will also receive attention,” he said.

National Park Service historian and ranger Troy Harman calls the battlefield “a national shrine waiting to be fully appreciated and brought into the fold of sacred places visited regularly by patrons of Gettysburg National Military Park.”

That effort got a boost when the Civil War Preservation Trust’s 2008 “History Under Siege: America's Most Endangered Battlefields” report listed Hunterstown among the “10 most endangered” battlefields, threatened by rapid growth in Adams County.

The Hunterstown Historical Society has taken many approaches to get the word out, from setting up at last year’s reenactment and Remembrance Day, to providing speakers, and hosting a program at the G.A.R. Hall in Gettysburg.

Historians Ed Bearss, J. David Petruzzi and Eric Wittenberg are among those who have led tours of the battlefield.
On July 2 the first Hunterstown battle picture, a work by Jared Frederick, depicting Custer and Churchill on the Hunterstown Road, will be unveiled.

The Hardings also commissioned Virginia artist Edwin L. Green to paint a series of limited edition watercolor prints depicting the houses that were standing at the time of the engagement. They include the Felty Farm where the barn that hid Custer’s troops was demolished two years ago.

The society also sells reprints of old Hunterstown postcards and a brass ornament of the Jacob Grass Hotel, which was Union headquarters.

For more information e-mail hunterstown1863@aol.com or go to www.hunterstown1863.com