Gen. George Sykes’ 5th Corps Headquarters Marker

Description

Sculpted by Gary Casteel
Size:  5” x 5” x 11”
Weight:  1.95lbs
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
The Confederate victory at Chancellorsville prompted General Robert E. Lee to launch a second invasion of the North in June 1863.  As Lee moved north, President Abraham Lincoln and General Joseph Hooker clashed over the deployment of federal troops.  When Hooker rashly offered to resign his command, Lincoln quickly accepted and placed Major General George G. Meade in command of the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863.  On the same day, just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, General George Sykes replaced Meade as commander of the 5th Corps.
Sykes’s Corps arrived at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the second day of the battle.  Meade ordered Sykes’s command toward the left of the army to support the 3
rd
Corps who were under assault by 14,000 Rebels commanded by Lieutenant General James Longstreet.  When Meade discovered that a small knob known as Little Round Top was undefended, he ordered Sykes to occupy the hill and to “hold at all hazards.”  While a brigade of Sykes’s command led by Colonel Strong Vincent did so, Sykes sent reinforcements to fill holes in the 3
rd
Corps’ lines in the adjacent Wheatfield.  When the fighting subsided at the end of the day, the Federals had absorbed the Rebels’ best shot and prevented Longstreet from flanking the Union army.  Holding off the enemy, he was reinforced by Major General John Sedgwick's 6th Corps but saw little fighting on July 3.
Sykes’s performance at Gettysburg marked the zenith of his career as a combat leader.  At Gettysburg, Sykes and his men turned in a stellar performance in the savage fighting in the Wheatfield, Plum Run, and on Little Round Top, and on March 13, 1865, Sykes was brevetted to Brigadier General for gallant and meritorious service at the Battle of Gettysburg.
This monument was dedicated in 1913 and is located on Sedgwick Avenue.
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