• Codori became a successful butcher and was later described as “the leading and best-known butcher in this section of the country.” He was also considered a “prudent” investor who placed his “surplus means” into real estate investments such as this one. Unfortunately, Codori met a gruesome demise in July 1878 at the age of 70 while working fields near the Bliss farm. He was accidentally thrown by his horse team in front of a mower and suffered a severed foot and groin injury. He died several days later as a result.
• The house was present at the time of the battle, although the two-story brick addition was added to the rear in the 1870s. The current barn is a replacement. Evidence indicates that the barn that stood during the battle was smaller and white.10

STOP 5b Daniel Klingle Farm

GPS: 39°48’22.31”N, 77°14’46.42”W; Elev. 584 ft.

• Farther south down the road, you will see the restored Daniel Klingle house. Klingle’s home was a wartime structure and has recently been returned to its original log exterior by the National Park Service. 11 The existing barn is a post-battle building.
• General Kemper’s Brigade had to execute a series of moves by their front and left flank to reach their objective on Cemetery Ridge. Kemper’s right probably crossed the road in the vicinity of the Klingle farm. Portions of Wilcox and Lang’s brigades also passed through here approximately 20 minutes later in their ill-conceived attempt to protect Kemper’s right flank.
• Across the road and just north of the Klingle farm once stood the home of Peter and Susan Rogers. The now-forgotten one-story log home was riddled with shot and shell, and the property was covered with dead bodies. 12

The presence and impact of the post and rail fences along the Emmitsburg Road are just one of the many battle details that can create endless debates amongst Gettysburg students. Many battlefield visitors have tried to visualize Pickett and Pettigrew’s men scrambling over these sturdy fences under a withering enemy fire. There is even a popular notion, perpetuated several years ago by a television documentary, that these fences were such an obstacle that they actually played a decisive part in the charge’s outcome.

There is no doubt that fences existed in July 1863. Nor should there be any doubt that they were subjected to a heavy fire of bullets and artillery projectiles on both July 2 and July 3. Confederate William Swallow wrote, “some slabs were so completely perforated with bullet holes that you could scarcely place a half inch between them.” One 16- foot piece of fence rail was found to contain 836 bullet or shrapnel holes. Swallow believed that this particular rail was located where Lowrance’s Brigade had reached the road. 1

Numerous eyewitness accounts attest to the suspense and the length of time required to climb the fences. Not only would attack formations have nearly collapsed, but the soldiers would have also provided increasing target density as they slowed and bunched near these obstacles. William Swallow wrote:

Scores of the survivors often related their anxious suspense and the length of time it seemed to climb up to the top of the fence. As soon as the top of the fence was lined with troops the whole line tumbled over, falling flat into the bed of the road, while the enemy’s bullets buried themselves into the bodies of the falling victims. 2

“At the Emmitsburg Road, where the parallel fences impeded the onward march,” Rawley Martin observed, “large numbers were shot down on account of the crowding at the openings where the fences had been thrown down, and on account of the halt in order to climb the fences. After passing these obstacles, the advancing column deliberately rearranged its lines and moved forward.” 3 Lieutenant V. A. Tapscott of the 56th Virginia wrote, “the crossing of the second road [sic] broke up the line, and it was not compact after that, yet we went forward all the same to the rock fence, and I was surprised to find but few friends in sight in getting there.” 4

James Francis Crocker remembered going “over the double fences.” 5 Lieutenant J. Irving Sale of the 53rd Virginia described trying to crawl between two fence rails while the sounds of “ping-ping” struck the wood. His head got stuck between two rails and he was horrified by the thought “that I might be killed and left hanging there dead.” 6

Several accounts suggest that Union skirmishers used the road and fences as fortifications against attack. Joseph Mayo in Kemper’s Brigade described “the Emmitsburg Road, along which, behind piles of rails, the enemy’s strong line of skirmishers was posted.” 7 Major Charles Peyton, in Garnett’s Brigade: “The brigade moved in good order, keeping up its line almost perfectly, notwithstanding it had to climb three high post and rail fences, behind the last of which the enemy’s skirmishers were first met and immediately driven in.” 8 In Union Brig. General Alexander Webb’s brigade, several soldiers who were on the skirmish line confirmed that they had built a temporary breastwork of rails and “the fence on the Emmitsburg Road to our left was mostly destroyed, but on our immediate front almost intact.” 9

General Webb stated in a postwar interview that when the Confederates “reached the Emmitsburg Road, it was noticed that the fences on both sides were great obstacles to them, and being oblique to the lines the men, after facing them, took directions normal to the fence at times which caused a confusion which was not easily repaired by the officers in command.” 10