The monument to the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment is northwest of Gettysburg on Doubleday Avenue. (Tour map: Doubleday & Robinson Avenues)
About the monument to the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry
The monument consists of a bronze statue of a soldier standing atop a granite base, the total standing a little over thirteen feet high. On the front of the monument, which faces away from Doubleday Avenue, is a bronze tablet of the Coat of Arms of the State of Pennsylvania underneath the carved full moon symbol of the First Corps. A bronze statue of Sallie, the regimental dog, is just above the base on the front of the statue. The monument was dedicated on September 3, 1889 by the State of Pennsylvania.
The 11th Pennsylvania at Gettysburg
The 11th Pennsylvania was commanded at the Battle of Gettysburg by Colonel Richard Coulter. He took over command of the brigade on July 1st, and Captain Benjamin F. Haines took command until he was wounded on July 3. Captain John B. Overmyer then took over the regiment.
Sallie, the 11th Pennsylvania’s smallest member
Sallie was given to the regiment as a puppy and took part in all their battles, taking position at the end of the firing line and barking furiously at the enemy. She was separated from the regiment at Gettysburg during the retreat through the town. After the battle the men returned to the scene of the first day’s fighting and found Sallie, weak but alive, maintaining a vigil over the dead and dying.
Sallie was killed at the Battle of Hatcher’s Run in February of 1865, and in spite of heavy Confederate fire several men stopped to bury her. When the monument was designed the regiment’s survivors unanimously decided to include a tribute to their smallest comrade. She is one of two dogs depicted on monuments at Gettysburg (the other is on the Irish Brigade monument) and the only one representing a dog who was in the battle.
See Captain Jacob J. Bierer’s Official Report of the 11th Pennsylvania in the Gettysburg Campaign.
From the front of the monument:
11th Pennsylvania Infantry
From the rear of the monument:
Present at Gettysburg
23 officers and 269 men
Killed and died of wounds 13 men
Wounded 8 officers 54 men
Captured or missing 57 men
Total enrollment 2096
Killed and died of wounds
12 officers 219 men, total 231
Wounded 43 officers 729 men
Died of disease, etc. 4 officers, 167 men, total 171
Captured or missing 5 officers, 253 men, total 258.
Total casualties 1432
From the left side of the monument:
Bull Run 2d
Boydton Road or Gravelly Run
From the right side of the monument:
11th Pennsylvania Infantry
2d Brigade 2d Division 1st Corps.
Mustered in April 26 1861
Mustered out Aug. 1, 1861
Mustered in Sept-Nov. 1861
Re-enlisted Jan. 1, 1864
Mustered out July 1, 1865
Recruited in Lycoming, Clinton,
Carbon and Dauphin
On the rear of the monument:
E. A. Kretshman/Scpt. Cast by Bureau Bros. Phila.
Location of the monument to the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry at Gettysburg
The monument to the Eleventh Pennsylvania is northwest of Gettysburg on the west side of Doubleday Avenue about 280 yards south of Mummasburg Road. (39°50’33.1″N 77°14’32.9″W)