Wesley Culp

Wesley Culp had grown up in Gettysburg and spent much of his youth exploring his uncle's hill.  As a young man he had learned the trade of harness making and when his employer re-located to Shepherdstown, Virginia, he moved to the small town across the Potomac River.  Having adopted the south as his home, Culp enlisted in the Confederate army at the outbreak of the Civil War.  He served in the in the famous "Stonewall Brigade," 2nd Virginia Infantry.

Little could Wesley Culp the young boy have imagined that one day he would be fighting - and dying - on his uncle's farm.  Such were the ironic tragedies of a civil war, played out too many times across the landscape of a divided Nation.  Sometime during the fierce fight for Culp’s Hill on 3 July 1863, Private Wesley Culp was killed.  His comrades buried him near the hill and marked his grave; but after the battle only a shattered remnant of his rifle was found, a portion of the wooden rifle stock with his name carved in it.  What happened to Wesley Culp's body is a mystery; but some believe his family members located the battlefield grave during the night and moved his body to the family plot in nearby Evergreen Cemetery.  As in all wars, families come forth in a moment of light to bury and honor their dead, then redraw in private darkness to struggle with the weight of grief forever.