Shotwells Antiques Information Articles

From The North

Jacob R. Shotwell

Served in Company B of the 12th Pennsylvania Reserves (41st Pennsylvania Volunteers), and fought at Gettysburg.

He was from Berwick, Pennsylvania.

Above, Jacob Shotwell's post -war wedding photograph. Below, the Pennsylvania monument and the 12th PA Reserves monument on Round Top at Gettysburg.

Francis Jacob Krieger

Served in Company D of the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

Francis Jacob Krieger some years after the war (left) and at home with his wife Mary (right) on Canal Street in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania.

Hebron V. Bogart

Enlisted on 12/4/1862 in Company E of the 143rd Pennsylvania Infantry.

He fought at Gettysburg and was "mustered out" on June 12, 1865 at Hart Island, New York. He is buried in Noxen, Pennsylvania. His headstone is shown in the photo below.

The three Civil War soldiers above were the great-great-grandfathers of Olin Shotwell, co-owner of this site.

From The South

Randolph Abbott Shotwell

8th Virginia Infantry

Randolph Shotwell traveled home from Pennsylvania at the outbreak of the war, enlisted in the 8th Virginia and eventually fought at Gettysburg. He was a participant in "Pickett's Charge" and lived to tell about it! Captured in 1864 he was sent to Fort Delaware where he remained until the end of hostilities. After the war he lived in North Carlolina and founded the Asheville Citizen newspaper in 1869.

"The flags flutter and snap, the sunlight flashes from the officer's swords, low words of command are heard, and thus in perfect order, this gallant array of gallant men marches straight down into the valley of Death!" Randolph Abbott Shotwell describing Pickett's Charge.

Randolph Abbot Shotwell served in Garnett's Brigade of Pickett's Division and is represented by C37 on the map above. The famous Gettysburg "copse of trees" (one of the endpoints of the Confederate advance) is in the center.

REFERENCES:

Rollins, Richard, Editor, Pickett's Charge: Eyewitness Accounts, Rank and File Publications, 1994.

Hamilton, J. G. de Roulhac and Rebecca Cameron, Editors, The Papers of Randolph Abbott Shotwell, North Carolina Historical Commission, 1931. Volume 2, Page 11.

~ ~ ~ ~

After "Picketts Charge"

A Gettysburg Encounter With General Robert E. Lee

Lee clearly felt his most important duty at that moment was to encourage his disheartened and tattered veterans. He lowered his field glasses and rode out among the men again. Lee asked Lieutenant Randolph Abbott Shotwell, of the Eighth Virginia, whom he saw sink down on a pile of fence rails after returning to Seminary Ridge, "Are you wounded?"

"No, General," was the reply, "not hurt I believe, but completely exhausted."

Lee then responded, "Ah, yes, it was too much for you. We were not strong enough. It was my fault, and I am very sorry, but we will try to repair it."

Shotwell recalled: "There was the saddest imaginable expression in [Lee's] voice and upon his features, yet with all a calm intrepidity marvelous to see, in view of the fact that the enemy had advanced his skirmishes already as far as the Emmitsburg Road, and should according to every lesson of military science have retaliated by launching a counter assault against our crippled center."

"Well, my poor boy," Lee said to Shotwell, "try and get on to the rear; those people seem to be moving. Your division is ordered to rendezvous at the wagon camp on Marsh Creek. Try to get back there, and take a good night's rest."

REFERENCES:

Brown, Kent Masterson, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign, University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Hamilton, J. G. de Roulhac and Rebecca Cameron, Editors, The Papers of Randolph Abbott Shotwell, North Carolina Historical Commission, 1931. Volume 2, Page 25.

Alexander H. Shotwell

34th North Carolina

Lt. Alexander Shotwell was mortally wounded at Frayser's Farm in 1862.

Alexander was the brother of Randolph A. Shotwell.

A Brief Note:

Randolph and Alexander Shotwell were cousins of Jacob R. Shotwell.

Randolph Abbott Shotwell and Jacob R. Shotwell were on opposite sides of the field during the third day of fighting at Gettysburg.