PART ONE: THE EARLY YEARS
by Frederick W. Hawthorne
Many long-time Adams County residents, when asked about the individuals known as "Battlefield Guides" will conjure up memories of a rather roguish sort of character. Others, not familiar with Gettysburg, probably never imagined such a person exists. Even within the National Park Service, our parent organization few, outside of employees who served a tour of duty here, have any notion of what a Battlefield Guide is or what we do. This is the story of the unique profession, termed by Colonel Sheads in 1960's as "The Peculiar Institution."
Officially, "Guides" are best described as a "...group of specialists, some of whom work full-time at the occupation and some of whom have other employment, who over the years have provided hundreds of thousands of visitors with the factual story of the Battle of Gettysburg, here on the spot where the events occurred." It is a story that has been told virtually since the day the smoke of battle first cleared the field.
Gettysburg was the climactic battle of the American Civil War and the largest battle ever fought in North America. When Robert E. Lee began pulling his battered and beaten army away from his position along Seminary Ridge on July 5, 1863, he was moving along a road that would inexorably lead to the little courthouse town of Appomattox, Virginia twenty-one months and several bloody battles later. Even at the time, however, people began to realize that what had taken place on the hills and ridges surrounding the little town of Gettysburg, had marked a turning point. Within a few weeks of the battle, steps were being taken by a few Gettysburg residents to preserve the actual battle site as a permanent memorial. Gettysburg would become the first Civil War battlefield to become a memorial park, receiving a corporate charter from the state of Pennsylvania as the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association on April 30, 1864.
An additional drawing point for this particular battlefield was its location. As the only major battle fought in a northern state, and the closest, physically, to the population center of the country, it would become, in time, a major attraction from the viewpoint of the interested and the curious from throughout the nation.
At the battle's close, Gettysburg was left with the physical remnants of the struggle all around. Thousands of wounded men filled the town and surrounding areas for miles. The destruction of fence lines and crops, the killing or dispersal of remaining livestock, the burial of dead horses, and the disposition of rapidly buried soldiers, kept the community occupied for several months. The town's first visitors came in the form of the many relatives descending upon Gettysburg in search of information on loved ones, to comfort and nurse wounded husbands, fathers, and sons, or to bring home their deceased kinsman for burial. Local residents were often forced by circumstances into the role of impromptu guide, leading these visitors from hospital to hospital in their search. In some cases this search entailed the gruesome task of aiding in opening temporary battlefield graves in search of a particular soldier.
By the time of Abraham Lincoln's visit to Gettysburg in November of 1863, life had begun to settle back into a more routine, slower pace for the townspeople. With the influx of perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand curious visitors for the dedication ceremonies, the opportunity and market for a guide service was thrust upon the local inhabitants. Many of these visitors were anxious to see the sites associated with the now famous battle--the Peach Orchard, the Devil's Den, Reynold's Grove, Little Round Top. It is almost a certainty that many locals were sought out to give guidance as to the location of these spots and perhaps to relate their personal experience of this great event. Having lived through the fight and experienced the sounds, smells, and terror of it, and having been in close proximity to the field and its cleanup for nearly four months, all residents, to a greater or lessor degree, had considerable knowledge of interest to the newcomer. One can also surmise that given the basic laws of supply and demand, money would quickly become a factor in which visitors received the most reliable and knowledgeable source of information.
The dedication of the National Cemetery on November 19, 1863, can legitimately mark the beginning of guiding on the Gettysburg battlefield yet the next seven years could be described in no other way but lean. The continuance of the war and its destructiveness would certainly have preoccupied Americans everywhere. Occasional visitors may have come to Gettysburg but, with the exception of the laying of the cornerstone of the Soldiers' National Monument, July 4, 1865, and the dedication of that monument in July of 1869, no suitable occasion for the influx of large numbers of visitors to the field existed. The mood of the entire country in the immediate post-war period was one which attempted to put the war behind it and get on with life. Visiting battlefields of the war was not a high priority.
By the early 1870's , the situation had begun to change. Visitors, predominantly former Union soldiers, began to return to the site of what had turned out to be their greatest military triumph. Interest in Gettysburg had grown to the point that Colonel John B. Bachelder, an early historian of the battle, published one of the first guidebooks to the area in 1873, Gettysburg: What to See and How to See It. A small number of Gettysburg residents, some of whom were themselves Union veterans, began to specialize in taking these new visitors over the field. In doing so they began to supplement their own first-hand knowledge of the battle with the stories of the actual participants, usually related on the spot the incidents took place. Gradually these guides became the most knowledgeable people on the battle. Few participants ever knew much more about those three days than their own individual unit's experience. Few had the opportunity to acquire a broader knowledge. These Gettysburgians, by accompanying a variety of men and their families around the field, were amassing a body of what we today would call "Oral History," unmatched and unattainable through normal means. As the decade of die 1870's progressed, a few of these early guides, such as William D. Holtzworth, became recognized experts of the battle.
The real explosion of guiding came with two events in the late 1870's and early 1880's. In 1878 the Union veteran's organization, the Grand Arm of the Republic's Pennsylvania Division, chose to hold their annul summer encampment at Gettysburg. For a week, the veterans encamped on East Cemetery Hill and for many, this was their first return to Gettysburg since the battle. Two member GAR Posts, General Strong Vincent Post No. 67 of Erie and Colonel Fred Taylor Post No. 19 of Philadelphia, used the occasion to place memorial stones at the locations their namesakes were killed or mortally wounded during the battle. At this time certain GAR officials became interested in obtaining veteran control over the near-dormant Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association. Within two years, this would be accomplished and veteran groups from throughout the north became interested in Gettysburg as a permanent memorial. Throughout the decade of the 1880's regimental associations in increasing numbers descended upon Gettysburg to mark the field with a variety of monuments. With each new arrival, the local individuals who performed guide services had an opportunity to acquire new knowledge and new stories from an even wider variety of sources.
The second key event to bring about an explosion of guiding was the completion of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad in 1884. With the opening of this new artery and the construction of a depot at Washington and Railroad Street, accessibility to the town and its historic battlefield became much easier. Veterans groups and interested citizens could make the journey to the field much easier and faster than in the past. The G&H R.R. published a tour book of the field the following year which listed William D. Holtzworth as "...the best-posted man to be found (to guide) and a thoroughly affable person." By this point in time many of the early guides had become associated with the various hotels that had emerged in town. Holtzworth, for example, was then operating out of the Eagle Hotel.
The railroad also contributed to the growth of guiding through the sponsoring of excursions to the battlefield. Race Horse Alley, just a half-block from the railroad tracks, was the site of several large livery stables, each of which specialized in taking visitors over the field. W. D. Holtzworth and W. T. Ziegler had a thriving livery business and Holtzworth's son, J. A. (Allie) Holtzworth later joined with Captain J. T. Long to establish a similar operation on the site of the present Hotel Gettysburg Annex. These livery stables, along with others located throughout the town, had carriages of all sizes ranging from small surreys to large wagons capable of holding up to twenty-one passengers. Holtzworth and Long livery had three of these larger vehicles and were noted for having once taken more than four hundred members of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry over the field during their reunion at Gettysburg. Indeed, when an excursion train arrived, visitors numbering from several hundred to several thousand could be expected in town for the day. Each of the stables generally placed every wagon at their disposal out on the field with drivers "lecturing" to their guests at various points as they drove around the field. The tour at that time was an all-day event. Generally the party would visit the first day's battle sites in the morning, returning to the town for lunch. The afternoon would be devoted to touring the sites of the second and third day's battles. Throughout the 1880's, the GAR-dominated Battlefield Memorial Association, under the guidance of John Vanderslice and John Bachelder proceeded to open new avenues, purchase more land, approve and aid in the erection of more regimental monuments. All of these provided for a greater growth in the business of guiding.
Several men who became prominent in the guiding profession, began their careers during this period of railroad excursion, veterans reunions, monument dedications, and the development of the battlefield park. J. Warren Gilbert began driving hacks for a livery stable in 1886 and would continue guiding off and on, until the early 1950's. John Hoffman had grown up during that post-war period when first-hand knowledge was readily available from participants in the battle. He became a guide while working for the Ziegler and Holtzworth livery and still later became a partner in Alice Holtzworth's livery business. Charles W. Culp, Sr. had helped erect the first monument on the battlefield in 1879. Four years later he began to work as a hack driver for a stable. William M. Shealer was another who began his career 'guiding behind the horse.' Its first trip came at age sixteen when a veteran approached him offering a dollar a stop for the young man's services as a guide to the battlefield.
Many other men entered the guiding business after having worked with the laying out of the battlefield avenues. Most of these, too young to have first-hand knowledge of the events of 1863, picked up what they knew from attendance at the numerous monument dedications of the period and talking to the many veterans that were by now an everyday presence in the town. By the late 1800's, perhaps as many as fifty individuals were engaged in the more- or-less permanent occupation of 'Battlefield Guide.'
The type of tour a visitor of this period would receive would be very different from that encountered today. By and large the vast majority of tourists were former soldiers visiting the field for which they had a strong emotional feeling. In many cases they were bringing family members back to show them where they had fought. Even if the veteran had not been personally present at Gettysburg, the names and the units involved were familiar to them - comrades in a noble struggle. The early guide, therefore, had to be knowledgeable about a lot of the minute facts of the battle. These veterans wanted to know about specific officers and men. It was the human interest side of the battle as opposed to grand strategy and tactics, that were of particular importance to them. As the monuments were erected throughout the decade of the 1889s, an increasing desire to see a particular regimental monument or individual marker made the successful guide one who could provide this detailed information. In many cases what the veteran-tourist desired was not so much an expert, as an available resource, useful for filling in the gaps in his own personal knowledge of the battle.
With the advent of the 1890's, guiding as a business was well established. The livery-guide business was still quite prominent but the influx of tourists was growing to such an extent that improved means of transportation over the field were required. The railroad developed what was called the "Round Top Extension" in the late 1880's. Sunday excursion trains would travel through the town and south across the battlefield to a station on Little Round Top. There the visitor would be let off. Picnicking and other recreational facilities were available. They could visit the Round Tops and Devil's Den and were encouraged to walk north towards the High Water Mark. Another train would transport interested parties to Oak Ridge where excursionists were permitted to walk to various sites associated with the first day's fight. In many cases these visitors were left to their own resources at each stop. Although little evidence exists to point to this, it seems logical to believe that at least a few enterprising individuals would appear at these drop-off points to offer their services for a more in-depth look at that phase of the battle.
The Southern Excursion route was supplemented in 1894 by a trolley line which ran from Gettysburg, through the Peach Orchard to Devil's Den. It then looped back through the Valley of Death to intersect with the railway line returning back past the High Water Mark. Allie Holtzworth served as a motorman on this line for a time. He and his fellow motormen would probably have also provided commentary at points along the route.
Gettysburg, by the early 1890's, was fast becoming a recognized national shrine. It was estimated that perhaps 150,000 visitors a year were now coming to the field. Many were people who had no fist-hand knowledge of the events of the battle but wished to see for themselves the field they has heard so much about. They now had available to them a variety of means of seeing the field, the most informative being to hire a knowledgeable local guide. The numbers of potential customers now exceeded the availability of informed guides, the situation was ripe for abuse. Guiding was becoming an attractive and potentially lucrative business.
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