Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth

By Carl Sell Jr. · Originally published July 2016 · p. 48

GETTYSBURG, PA.—Brigadier General Elon John Farnsworth is the only high ranking Union officer killed in the Civil War at Gettysburg who is not remembered on the battlefield by either a statue or individual monument.

Brig. Gen. Elon John Farnsworth. That’s probably because at first it was rumored that he took his own life rather than face capture. As it turns out, Farnsworth apparently opened fire when called upon to surrender. He then was killed by a barrage of shots from surrounding Confederate forces. Confederates at the scene claimed that Farnsworth “blew his brains out” rather than surrender at the base of Round Top in the late afternoon of July 3. An examination by Federal surgeons who recovered his body showed that he was shot four times in the abdomen and once high up in the thigh. The information was contained in a letter written in 1888 by P. O’Mania Edson, assistant surgeon for the First Vermont Cavalry. Edson said he and Surgeon Lucius Woods of the Fifth New York Cavalry found Farnsworth’s body the next morning and carried it to the hospital of the Third Cavalry Division. “General Farnsworth certainly did not blow his own brains out, nor did anyone do it for him,” Edson wrote. Confederate fire killed two horses under Farnsworth, and he died while surrounded on the battlefield. He refused to surrender and was said to have killed one of his would-be attackers before being killed himself. Another report said he swore he would not surrender and turned his pistol on himself and shot himself in the head. The surgeon’s report debunked that explanation of his death. Farnsworth had been promoted to brigadier general along with George Armstrong Custer and Wesley Merritt on June 29, just four days before his death. He was given command of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Cavalry Corps under Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick. His command included the Fifth New York, Eighteenth Pennsylvania, First Vermont and First West Virginia. Custer commanded the Second Brigade and Merritt a Reserve Brigade that participated in the ill-fated charge at Round Top. Custer was with Brigadier General David Gregg and fought Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart to a standstill behind Cemetery Ridge earlier that day. Farnsworth’s attack happened at the base of Round Top after General Kilpatrick learned that the Confederates had failed to take Cemetery Ridge with Pickett’s Charge at the center of the Union line. Kilpatrick ordered his cavalry to attack a stout line of Confederate infantry that was battling the Union defense at the top of the hill. At first, Farnsworth questioned his leader’s order to attack the dug-in Confederates, fearing slaughter of his command. An angry Kilpatrick questioned Farnsworth’s bravery and offered to lead the attack himself. With that, Farnsworth wheeled his horse, ordered a charge by the First Vermont and led the way. The Union horsemen galloped through two Confederate units and turned right toward those attacking the heights. They were flanked on both sides and Farnsworth’s horse was killed in “no man’s land” between the enemy units. He commandeered another mount, but he and the horse were killed as they neared the Confederate line at the base of Round Top. They were only yards away from the guns of the Fourth and Fifteenth Alabama. A sergeant with the Fifteenth Alabama reported that Farnsworth had killed himself rather than surrender as ordered. Ironically, one of the Confederates serving with the Fourth Alabama that day was Major William McKendree Robbins, who would be appointed as the southern member on the first Gettysburg Commission by President Grover Cleveland in 1894. Robbins, a lawyer, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1873 to 1879. During that time, he chaired the House committee on Expenditures in the Department of War. He died in 1905 and was replaced on the Commission by Lunsford Lindsay Lomax, who was a colonel who led the Eleventh Virginia Cavalry at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. A monument to Major William Wells, who led a battalion of the First Vermont in the charge, is located on Confederate Avenue. Wells, who was wounded, escaped captivity and would become a Medal of Honor recipient almost 30 years later, just months after his death, for his heroism that day. He would rise to the rank of Brevet Major General. A second monument to the First Vermont is nearby. It includes the fact that Farnsworth led the charge and fell near the spot on the monument. The First Vermont suffered 67 casualties in the charge. In 1888, the National Review published a story that suggested a Farnsworth/First Cavalry Brigade Monument at Gettysburg, but it never came to fruition. The monument was to consist of a mound of boulders collected from the area on which a statue of Farnsworth would be erected. Farnsworth began his career in the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, which had been organized by his uncle. He then was an aide to Brigadier General Alfred Pleasanton, the Union Cavalry Commander at Gettysburg. Farnsworth first was buried at Gettysburg shortly after the battle. Within a month, his uncle, Congressman John F. Farnsworth of Illinois, retrieved his body and took him home to be buried in Rockford Illinois Cemetery next to his mother and father, James Patten Farnsworth and Achsah Hudson Farnsworth. He was 25 years old at the time of his death. John F. Farnsworth had organized a Union cavalry brigade which fought against Confederate commander J.E.B. Stuart during the Maryland campaign in 1862. He became a brigadier general in December 1862, but resigned to return to Congress in March 1863. Major General John F. Reynolds is the highest ranking Union officer to be killed at Gettysburg.

There are three monuments to General Reynolds on the battlefield and his statue is included on the Pennsylvania Monument. There also is an equestrian statue on Chambersburg Pike. Major General Reynolds was killed by a sharpshooter’s bullet while astride his horse on July 1. He is credited with delaying a Confederate advance that day that allowed Commander George Meade time to arrive with the main Union army. A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he is buried in his hometown. A monument to Brigadier General Samuel Zook stands on Wheatfield Road, south of Gettysburg. He was mortally wounded on July 2 while leading the Third Brigade of the First Division of the Second Corps in an attack on the Wheatfield. He died the next day and is buried in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Brigadier General Stephen Weed of the Ninety-First Pennsylvania was killed by a sharpshooter July 2 near Little Round Top. His monument nearby also honors Captain Charles Hazlett, who was struck and killed by a bullet while leaning over Weed’s body. A monument to Strong Vincent stands on the south slope of Little Round Top where he was mortally wounded on July 2 while leading the Third Brigade of the First Division, Fifth Corps. He died five days later. A colonel at the time he was wounded, General Meade later backdated his promotion to Brigadier General to July 3. His brigade included the Twentieth Maine.