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Abraham Brian House 3D Tour - Audio Described Video Player is loading. Transcript1. Front Door During the Battle of Gettysburg this small house was the home of Abraham and Elizabeth Brian, and their children. The Brian family were members of Gettysburg’s free African American community. They owned this home and twelve acres of farmland and rented out a small building at the edge of their property. 2. Kitchen Table During the Gettysburg Campaign of June and July 1863 the Brian family fled, hoping to escape the path of the Confederate army, and the dangers that follow soldiers on campaign. They left their home and property behind to the mercy of the two armies and returned only after the Union victory at Gettysburg. 3. Window (Looking south) Twelve miles distant is the community of Emmitsburg, Maryland. In 1860, 47 enslaved human beings resided in and around that town. The slaves ranged in age from 70 to 1 and represented a small portion of the 87,000 slaves that were held in Maryland on the eve of the American Civil War. The dividing line between slave and free was just beyond the Brian family farm. 4. Bedroom 1 The Brian Farm was situated in the center of the Union battle line and was riddled by shot and shell. Brian’s crops were destroyed, his animals taken, his orchard badly damaged. Over 106 hastily dug graves pock-marked his property. Abraham Brian calculated his loss at $1028. He received $15 dollars from the United States Government to compensate him for his losses. 5. Bedroom 2 Abraham Brian sold this property in 1868. He spent the remaining years of his life working as hostler at a nearby hotel. He died on the 30th of May 1879 and is buried in Gettysburg’s Lincoln Cemetery.
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The home of Abraham Brian sits along the northern end of Cemetery Ridge and the area around the farm would become the scene of heavy fighting on July 3, 1863. Abraham Brian and his family were part of the African American community of Gettysburg and he owned 12 acres of farmland around his house. This virtual tour allows you to visit this small two room house on the Gettysburg battlefield. On Freedom's Tenuous Edge: Gettysburg's African American Community Before, During, and Immediately After the Battle of GettysburgOn this tour, you will discover stories from the Gettysburg Campaign and Battle that have been relatively under told; stories of Black men, women, and children whose lives were forever changed by the events of the summer of 1863. Along the way, you will discover the many ways in which African Americans impacted and were impacted by the Battle of Gettysburg. This tour consists of six stops and covers approximately one mile of ground, some of which is uneven and some of which is uphill. The tour will begin in the parking lot of the Gettysburg National Cemetery and will conclude inside the cemetery itself. 
Tour MapThis tour contains six stops. Use the corresponding map to guide your journey.
NPS Photo Stop 1 - State of Maryland MonumentYou are next to the parking lot of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. At the time of the battle, you would have seen broad open fields crisscrossed by fence lines and dotted by several homes and large barns, with the southern outskirts of the town of Gettysburg just barely visible off to the north, you are right at the foot of Cemetery Hill. First settled in the 1760s, about 100 years before the battle, Gettysburg was formally founded in 1786 and incorporated as a borough 20 years later, in 1806.The Black History of Gettysburg begins with these earliest dates. When Gettysburg was first settled and founded, slavery was still legal in the colony of Pennsylvania, and some of the earliest Black residents of Gettysburg were those who were enslaved by some of the town's founders. However, in 1780, four years after the Declaration of Independence, the Pennsylvania State legislature passed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, slowly, but ultimately bringing an end to slavery in the state. the Black population of Gettysburg steadily grew. At the turn of the 19th Century, There were approximately 100 individuals identified as Black residing in the town. By 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, there were twice as many, with approximately 200 men, women, and children identified as Black, which was a little less than 10% of the town's total population of 2400 individuals. Many of the town's Black residents were born and raised here in Gettysburg, but some had been born in Maryland and Virginia. Some had been born enslaved and had made their way north to freedom, to the free state of Pennsylvania by either self-emancipation or through manumission, being legally freed by their enslavers. In the years before the Civil War, most of the Black men in Gettysburg were employed as day laborers and most Black women as domestic servants. Half of Gettysburg’s Black children attended a segregated school. Only about 10% of Gettysburg’s Black residents own their homes or the ground on which they lived. However, as you will discover along the route, there were several African American farm families like the Warfields, the Devans, and the Brians, who owned and farmed land on which some of the battle was later fought. By the eve of the American Civil War, Gettysburg had a strong and vibrant Black community. However, although Gettysburg was a free state, for the Black community in Gettysburg freedom was oftentimes tenuous. Gettysburg lies only a handful of miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. This was not only the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, but also at that time, the border between free state and slave. Living so close to the Mason-Dixon line thus meant that Gettysburg Black residents, and particularly those who had emancipated themselves from slavery, lived in almost constant dread of slave catchers and fugitive slave patrols, which often rode north into town and out to the surrounding countryside. Of course, being so close to the Mason-Dixon line also meant that Gettysburg was a heavily traveled area along the Underground Railroad. Several stories from which you will discover at the next stop. Directions to next stop: To get to the next stop—the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial on Cemetery Ridge—please follow the sidewalk to your left for approximately 500 feet before it takes a sharp turn left, up the eastern slope of Cemetery Ridge. Continue along this path for another 1,000 feet before arriving at the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, which features a bronze statue of U.S. Civil War veteran Albert Woolson. 
NPS Photo Stop 2 - Memorial to the Grand Army of the RepublicYou are now standing at the Grand Army of the Republic monument atop Cemetery Ridge. The monument features a bronze statue of Albert Woolson, America's last surviving Civil War veteran. Look out to the West, the same direction that Woolson gazes. In the distance, you will see South Mountain. In June 1863, 75,000 men of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania on the other side of that mountain.In the decades preceding the Civil War, many enslaved African Americans who sought their freedom used the same mountain range to escape from slavery. Others used the waterways and roadways to the south and east in their attempts at securing freedom. They relied upon that informal network of way stations and individual conductors, known collectively as the Underground Railroad, which ran heavily through Gettysburg and Adams County, Pennsylvania. There were active agents on the Underground Railroad in and around Gettysburg, including the McAllisters, a family of white abolitionists who owned a home and operated a gristmill along Rock Creek near the Baltimore Pike. A historian of the local Underground Railroad estimated that several hundred enslaved persons found temporary safe haven at McAllister's mill. A Pennsylvania historical marker stands today along the Baltimore Pike to commemorate this station along the Underground Railroad. There were a number of anti-slavery societies, including one composed entirely of local African Americans, the Slaves Refuge Society. One of their founding resolutions read, “We feel it our indispensable duty to assist such of our brethren as shall come among us for the purpose of liberating themselves, and to raise all the means in our power to affect our object, which is to give liberty to our brethren who are groaning under the tyrannical yoke of oppression.” Reportedly, one of Gettysburg’s most prominent Black agents on the Underground Railroad was Basil Biggs. In 1858, Biggs and his wife, Mary, moved from Baltimore to Pennsylvania so that their children could receive education. The Biggs family first lived as tenant farmers, where they worked on land rented from its owner. Basil was also a noted veterinarian who traveled across Adams County tending to horses. Upon his death in 1906, an obituary of Biggs noted that he was, “An active agent in the Underground Railroad helping fugitives to freedom. Many came to his home from the South, being directed there by others.”. Gettysburg was not free from the impacts of Fugitive Slave laws, where self-emancipated enslaved peoples and free Blacks from northern states were kidnapped and taken south to be sold into slavery. At least one Black resident of Gettysburg very nearly lost her freedom this way. Her name was Margaret Palm, better known as Mag Palm, and she lived in 1860 just off to your left front, in a tenant house with her husband and her young son, Joseph. The Palms rented this home from the Bryan family. Mag Palm was born free and worked as a domestic servant and a washer woman for many white families in town. She was noted for her physical strength, so much so that some believed she would command a high price on the slave market. In 1858, Mag Palm returned home from work and was surrounded by two white men who attempted to seize her. They bound her hands with rope, but Palm fought back. She allegedly nearly bit the thumb off of one of her would be kidnappers before successfully making her escape. Having narrowly evaded the loss of her freedom, Palm later stated that she would not hesitate to arm herself if her would be kidnappers ever reappeared, admitting, “That if she would have found him, she would have shot him.”. ag Palm’s determination is apparent in a photograph she commissioned of herself posing with her hands tied, an image that forced viewers to remember she was attacked and nearly lost her freedom. Black men, women, and children from Gettysburg and from across south central Pennsylvania experienced great risks to their freedom when the Confederate army invaded the state in the summer of 1863. As you will discover at the next stop, the Gettysburg Campaign demanded an immediate response from Gettysburg’s Black community. They could not sacrifice their families, their children, or their freedom by simply refusing to act. Directions to the next stop: Please proceed to the white buildings approximately 250 feet to the left, or south of where you now stand at the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial. 
NPS photo Stop 3 - Abraham Brian FarmYou are now standing at the wartime home and farm of Abraham and Elizabeth Brian. Abraham Brian purchased this house and property in 1857. When the Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, the Brians, along with most of Gettysburg Black community, fled.They feared for their personal safety, just like their White neighbors. But unlike their White neighbors, many of whom remained in their homes during the battle or until ordered to leave, Gettysburg’s Black residents faced the very real possibility of losing their freedom. As the Confederate army made its way into Pennsylvania, soldiers kidnapped Black men, women, and children and sent them south to be sold into slavery. Some of those who had escaped from slavery, and who had settled into a new life in the Free State of Pennsylvania, were taken. Others had always been free. Jacob Hoke, who lived in Chambersburg, remembered the day the Confederate Army made its way into his town. Another Chambersburg resident, Rachel Cormany, recorded in her diary, Reverend Philip Schaff of Mercersburg recorded in his diary that during the Confederate invasion,
Schaff described the Confederate invasion as, quote,
Confederate soldiers also wrote about this, including Major Charles Blacknall of the 23rd North Carolina, who wrote home on June 18th that he hoped to
Priscilla Marshall, a free woman of color from Franklin County, Pennsylvania, lost three of her six children to invading Confederates that summer: Rosa, Sallie, and Jack. She spent the remaining years of the war desperate to locate her missing children and after the war contacted members of the Freedmen's Bureau for help. She was eventually reunited with Sara and Jack but could only hope that they would once again find Rosa.
Not all of Gettysburg’s Black residents fled. Some due to age or physical infirmi, others determined to remain at home, hiding in their basements or under their porches. Sadly, when a portion of the Confederate Army first passed through town one week before the fighting, several of Gettysburg’s Black residents were reportedly captured and taken south.
Another soldier, August Ziegler of the 109th Pennsylvania, recalled seeing the same man during the battle on Culp's Hill.
Nothing else is known about this brave African American man and of his daring deeds on Culp's Hill during the battle. His name went unrecorded, his fate lost to history. 
NPS Photo Stop 4 - General George Meade Equestrian StatueWhen Black families like the Brians returned to Gettysburg they discovered more than stolen hay and damaged homesteads. The fields on which they toiled had become “A strange and blighted land full of corpses.”In 1864, Simon Elliott documented the burials of Union and Confederate soldiers on a special map, referred to as the Elliott Map. According to Elliott, a grizzly cluster of 522 southern burials stretched along the Emmitsburg Road by the Brian Farm, while at least 106 were buried in his backyard. The harvest of death at Gettysburg reaped 7,000 to 8,000 dead: something had to be done. Both propriety and practical necessity spurred a large-scale effort to bury the U.S. dead in a new national cemetery. Confederate dead remained buried here until the early 1870s, when their skeletal remains were removed and taken south for burial. While historians often emphasize the efforts of local attorney David Wills, who oversaw the National Cemetery's creation, and Samuel Weaver, a local photographer who identified and kept detailed records of the dead, the grim, gruesome and heart-wrenching task of actually handling the bodies and removing the U.S. dead fell largely upon Gettysburg s Black population. Taking a leading role in this effort was Basil Biggs. Look for the red barn along the Taneytown Road to the rear of Meade's equestrian statue. At the time of the battle, this home and property belonged to Peter Fry, but in 1865, Basil Biggs purchased this home. Like most of Gettysburg’s Black community, Biggs and his family fled to evade capture when the Confederate Army first invaded. Upon their return, they found the farm in ruins. Biggs submitted a damage claim and would eventually receive relatively substantial compensation. During the creation of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, now called Gettysburg National Cemetery, Basil Biggs supervised a crew of Black men and was able to transport nine coffins at a time on his wagon. Gettysburg resident James Sheads described the nature of Biggs’s work, Identifying and burying the dead could not have happened without Gettysburg’s Black population. Sheads observed that the actual reburial at the cemetery was, quote, “In the charge of white men.”, while, “The uncovering of the dead on the field was done by Negroes.” With some of the money he earned from this undertaking, Biggs purchased the Peter Fry farm. His property extended up and across the ground to your immediate front and included the famous Copse of Trees across the tour road to your right. After the war, this small stand of trees assumed exaggerated prominence when John Bachelder, Gettysburg’s first historian, identified them as the focal point of Pickett's Charge. To Biggs, though, these trees represented wood and timber to be used for fuel, fencing, or construction, and certainly not the so-called High Water Mark of the Confederacy. Bachelder was appalled when, in 1868, he saw Biggs cutting down some of the trees. The ambitious historian and preservationist urged Biggs to spare the trees. Although Biggs was not invested in southern nostalgia, Bachelder argued that allowing the trees to stand would eventually get him ten times more money than cutting them down. Biggs accepted the explanation and put down his axe. In 1881, he sold seven acres of land, including the Copse of Trees, for $1,350. The sale also allowed for the construction of the tour road, Hancock Avenue, to your front. In addition to the leading role he played in the establishment of the National Cemetery, Basil Biggs was also a founding member of the African American Sons of Goodwill Cemetery, known as the Lincoln Cemetery. Within Lincoln Cemetery today lie the remains of many of Gettysburg’s wartime Black community, including Basil Biggs, who was laid to rest upon his death at age 87, in 1906. Also in Lincoln Cemetery are the remains of dozens of local African American men who served in the Civil War in United States Colored Troops, or U.S.C.T. regiments. There were no Black regiments or Black units that fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. But thousands of Black men’s stories and very presence have for too long gone largely untold and largely unrecognized. Directions to next stop- return to the sidewalk immediately north of the Meade statue. Walk east approximately 800 feet along the sidewalk and down the eastern slope of Cemetery Ridge, with the Copse of Trees behind you. The Leister house and barn are the two small white buildings to your right-front. 
NPS photo Stop 5 - Lydia Leister Farm, Meade's HeadquartersYou are now standing at the wartime home of Lydia Leister, a 52-year-old widow who lived here with several of her children. She owned and managed the farmland surrounding this modest home. During the Battle of Gettysburg, her home was used by General George Gordon Meade for use as his headquarters, becoming the center of the United States Army of the Potomac, and a hub of activity during the second and third days of the battle. The house and farm sustained heavy damage, especially during the July 3rd cannonade that preceded Pickett's Charge. Thousands of African American men were attached to both armies and performed essential roles. There were no organized regiments of Black soldiers in the U.S. Army that fought here, but in the Army of the Potomac, thousands of Black men who served as cooks, blacksmiths, and general laborers. Some accompanied officers as camp servants. Many were previously enslaved and fled to U.S. lines while the army campaigned across Virginia and Maryland in 1861 and 1862, becoming commonly known as “contrabands”. African American men in the U.S. Army frequently served as teamsters, driving Army supply wagons laden with food, ammunition, and medical supplies and other necessities. If captured by Confederate soldiers, an African American teamster might face impressment into Confederate service, or even sold into or returned to slave, regardless of previous enslavement. A newspaper artist and correspondent who traveled with the army noted that there were, In the Confederate Army, Black men were cooks, blacksmiths, general laborers, camp servants, and teamsters, but unlike their counterparts in the U.S. Army, they were not compenstted for their labor. Black men in the Confederate Army wre enslaved and brought along by the army and their enslavers in the ranks. Most of the reserve wagon trains for the quartermaster, commissary, ambulance, and ordnance departments and the Confederate Army were driven by African Americans who were either impressed, or forced into service, or in some cases, leased to the Army by their white enslavers. It is estimated that there were several thousand enslaved Black men present with the Confederate Army on the fields of Gettysburg. These men were slaves who, according to historian Kent Masterson Brown, “Performed the manual labor necessary to set up, take down, and maintain camps or cook meals.” J. Arthur Freemantle, a British observer traveling with the Army of Northern Virginia, noted that there were anywhere between 20 to 30 enslaved men with every regiment in the Confederate Army, an observation supported by Private John Taylor Smith of the 13th Alabama, who wrote that in his regiment there were 25 to 30 slaves. Confederate artillerist Thomas Caffey stated that in his artillery battery alone there was, “A cooking and washing corps of Negroes at least 150 strong.” Many enslaved African Americans traveling with the Confederate Army took advantage of being on free soil and fled to freedom while in Pennsylvania. One Confederate in Hood's division noted this stating, “A great many Negroes have gone to the Yankees.” In July 1900, an obituary appeared in a local newspaper reporting the death of a man named Richard Jordan. Mr. Jordan was born a slave near Mason, Georgia, 61 years ago, the paper reported, and quote, “During the Battle of Gettysburg, he got away and found his way to Mount Holly, a town 15 miles north of Gettysburg”. Soon after this, Jordan enlisted into the Union Army. Jordan's Gettysburg Campaign then saw himself emancipate himself from slavery to freedom, and then take up arms to bring an end to the inhuman institution into which he was born, and which had caused the conflict. Directions to next stop: Make your way north along the paved sidewalk that runs parallel to the Taneytown Road, and toward the Parking Lot of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. As you walk along this sidewalk, the Leister house will be directly behind you. After passing the Delaware and Maryland State Monuments continue on the sidewalk to the crest of the hill and directly opposite the entrance of the Cemetery. Carefully cross the Taneytown Road and once inside the Cemetery, take the paved sidewalk on your left. After walking approximately 800 feet, or a little over a tenth of a mile, you will encounter a brick staircase on your left. Carefully take the stairs down. To your left front, in the second row of graves, you will find the grave of Charles Parker. 
NPS photo Stop 6 - Grave of Charles Parker, Gettysburg National Cemetery, Section 1You are now at the grave of Charles Parker in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Created and dedicated just months after the Battle of Gettysburg, the Gettysburg National Cemetery is the final resting place of more than 6,000 United States service members. An active cemetery for more than 100 years before it was closed in 1972, there are dead here from all of America's armed conflicts, from the Civil War, through the war in Vietnam. Half of those interred here, about 3500, are Union dead from the Battle of Gettysburg.This cemetery would not have been possible without the work of Black men, who in the fall of 1863 and the spring of 1864, performed the gruesome, necessary, work of removing the corpses from their hastily dug battlefield graves for reinterment here. At the base of the hill and near the intersection of the Emmitsburg and Taneytown roads, stood a four-acre homestead. In the summer of 1863, Sophia Devan lived with her children. Sophia Devan was born enslaved in Frederick County, Maryland. In 1839, her husband, Nelson, purchased Sophia's freedom and the freedom of their two oldest children, Phoebe and Elizabeth. Three years later, Nelson Devan purchased the four-acre homestead at the foot of this hill. Nelson and Sophia Devan had several more children, including sons Solomon and Fleming. Tragically, Nelson Devan was killed in a work-related accident in 1856, leaving Sophia a widow. Her sole source of support was now from her sons, especially Fleming Devan, who worked as a waiter in town for $2 a month, and in a local brickyard. Fleming Devan, said one man was, “An industrious, reliable boy.” Sophia Devan and her children fled their home when the Confederate army invaded southern Pennsylvania. During the battle, U.S. soldiers of the 11th Corps took up position in her house and backyard. Caught between the lines, Sophia Devan's home was all but destroyed. She noted in her damage claim that the property was , “Entirely unfit to be occupied.” For the greater part of a year, Sophia and her children were forced to live elsewhere while her home was repaired. On November 20th, 1863, Sophia Devan's 18-year-old son, Fleming, enlisted as a private in the 8th United States Colored Troops. Soon thereafter, Sophia's other son, Solomon, enlisted in the army, entering the ranks of the 22nd U.S.C.T. Solomon Devan was badly wounded on June 15th, 1864, at the Battle of Petersburg, when a bullet tore into his upper thigh. He would walk with a limp for the rest of his life, unable to work after the war. Earlier that same year, on February 20th, Sophia's other son, Fleming Devan, was killed in the Battle of Olustee, Florida. Lieutenant Oliver Wilcox Norton, who had served at the Battle of Gettysburg as a staff officer, wrote to Sophia Devan “It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your son at the Battle of Olustee, Florida, February 20th, 1864. Fleming was a private of mine, and though from his extreme youth and small stature, he seemed poorly fitted for a soldier's life, yet he met the enemy like a man, and fell bravely fighting. Fleming Devan's body was left behind on the battlefield along with his personal property. His remains were later buried as unknown. Sophia Devan moved back into a repaired home. She had lost her son Fleming in the war, who was largely her source of support and her other son, Solomon, returned badly wounded, and her other children all under 10 years old. Sophia Devan, who had been born a slave and whose home and family had been torn apart by the Civil War, passed away in 1876. Solomon and Fleming Devan were just two of the nearly 40 Black men from Gettysburg and surrounding townships to serve in the Civil War. An estimated 200,000 Black men served in the United States Army and Navy, approximately 10% of the United States' total fighting force. You are now at the grave of one such soldier. Born in 1847, Charles Parker grew up just a few miles north of Gettysburg. On December 7th, 1864, at age 17, Parker enlisted as a private in the 3rd United States Colored Troops. While in the Army, Parker was shot in the right knee and caught pneumonia. He was mustered out of the army in October 1865 and returned to Adams County, where he married and raised a family of four children. Sadly, though, Charles Parker never completely recovered from the pneumonia he developed while in the army, and in July 1876 he died at the young age of 29. His remains were first buried in a cemetery near Biglerville, Pennsylvania, but in 1936 they were removed and reinterred here. Charles Parker is one of only two Black Civil War veterans to be interred in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. The other is Henry Gooden, whose remains lie at rest in the Civil War section of the cemetery near the Soldier’s National Monument. There are, however, several African American service members from later conflicts, from the Spanish-American War to the war in Vietnam. Within the Ohio state plot you will find the final resting place of Clifford Henderson, Nicholas Farrell, and Emmet Martin, three Black men who served in the 9th Ohio Battalion during the Spanish-American War, each of whom died of disease while training for combat. Interred in Section Two of the National Cemetery lies Alva Benjamin Johnson, an English teacher who taught at the HBCU Storer College in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. In the summer of 1942, 32-year-old Johnson enlisted into the United States Navy and became a Seabee in the 34th Construction Battalion. He was killed in February 1943 while serving in the Solomon Islands. Finally, there are several African Americans who gave their lives during the Vietnam War, including Private First-Class Samuel Lee McDonald of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. McDonald, who lies at rest in Section Three near the Taneytown Road entrance, was among the very first American combat fatalities in Vietnam. He was killed in action in November 1965 at Landing Zone X-Ray during the battle of Ia Drang. He was only 21 years old. If time allows, make it a point to visit these graves. Park staff or volunteers in the cemetery will be happy to assist you in locating their final resting places. This concludes your tour. |
Last updated: September 16, 2024