Sitting about 1.3 miles from the Visitors?Center, Little Round Top is the smaller of two hills at the southern end of the Gettysburg battlefield. On the second day of the battle, Little Round Top was the site of significant fighting at the Union army’s left flank. Brigadier General Gouveneur K. Warren, General Meade’s chief engineer, was sent to survey the area. Warren, whose statue sits atop Little Round Top today, was aghast to find the hill, with a strategic overview of the fighting to the north (along Cemetery Ridge) and the west (toward Devil’s Den and the Wheatfield) was occupied only by a small group from the Union Signal Corps.

Recognizing that a few guys with flags would be little match for the hordes of angry Confederates about to storm the hill, Warren sent an aide to find any troops available to join the defense. Colonel Strong Vincent realized that his orders to march his Fifth Corp to the Peach Orchard no longer represented the most urgent course of action, and shifted his troops to Little Round Top just before two Alabama regiments came rushing down from the wooded crest of Big Round Top.

During fierce fighting that eventually broke down to bayonets, sticks, stones and nasty names, troops from the 20 Maine (commanded by college professor Joshua Chamberlain) and New York 44 and 140 eventually held the hill and the army’s left flank.