Rhonda and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary this week. One of the constants over those three blissful decades has been our shared love of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was one of the first places we visited as a married couple and has remained a favorite “haunt” of ours ever since. We visit the famous battlefield site three to four times per year, which may sound excessive to some, but it’s really not that unusual for fans of the area. The great thing about Gettysburg is that no matter how many times you visit, you can always find things you’ve never seen before.
That edict held true this past June when we visited an area of the Gettysburg National Military Park known as “Lost Avenue.” The National Park Service maintains this 6,000 acre battlefield and has continued to update the park in many ways since the federal government first began acquiring land back in June 1893. Over those years, roads have been updated, changed and rerouted using various configurations designed for maximum ease of access by visitors. However, there is one area in the park that has remained unchanged for well over a century. Officially, it is known as “Neill Avenue”; colloquially it is called “Lost Avenue.” It was named to honor General Thomas Neill and his Sixth Corps brigade.
For the soldiers positioned here, on the Confederate left flank and the Union right flank, July 3rd was not about the famous Pickett’s Charge. This was the end of the line. Lost Avenue was about skirmishing in the woods, snipers in the shadows, and withering gunfire from the fields, trees and stone walls on Wolf Hill that killed or wounded more than twenty of their Union comrades. No one knows how many Rebels died here. For these soldiers, both blue and gray, this was their Battle of Gettysburg. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb alike on Wolf Hill could hear (and likely feel) the immense bombardment that preceded Pickett’s Charge from roughly 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. For these soldiers, Gettysburg was about survival, pure and simple.
Although located on National Park Service land, due to its remote location and rough terrain, Lost Avenue is one of the most difficult spots to find on the entire battlefield. Luckily, my Gettysburg battlefield buddy Barb Adams put me in touch with a man who knows Lost Avenue like the back of his hand. Readers will remember Barb from past columns. Barb is the busiest, most dedicated person on the field in my opinion. As an unpaid volunteer, she paints, repairs and cares after every cannon on the Gettysburg battlefield. As if that weren’t enough, she also cleans and repaints all of the markers on the field. And those are legion. Barb introduced me to Dean Shultz, Gettysburg engineer and battlefield legend.
Mr. Shultz has spent the last eight decades roaming the property surrounding Lost Avenue. He fairly grew up on this land and in its houses listening to stories relayed to him by members of the Baker family as told to them by veterans of the battle and survivors of the aftermath. Our little group included my wife Rhonda, Kris and Roger Branch and Jim and Linda Floyd when we visited on Friday June 28th. Mr. Shultz met us in the driveway and immediately began detailing the history of the buildings standing around us.
Dean pointed out each building, detailing their significance, “That red barn is part of the Musser farm,” he explained. Musser farm was where Evergreen cemetery hero Elizabeth Thorn visited during the battle and witnessed dead soldiers “stacked like cord-wood and the front porch full of amputated arms and legs.” He pointed out the Hoke toll house “built around 1814 where General Zook (wounded at the wheatfield) was taken,” according to Dean, “his wounds were such that you could look into his chest and see his organs. The night of July 2nd, 20 soldiers were buried in the field there.” Yes, it was immediately apparent that Mr. Shultz is an expert storyteller.
Dean pointed to the house used as a hospital, then pivoted and aimed towards the remnants of a dried up well used by the soldiers during the battle. The house was a log cabin, built about 1760, owned by Peter Baker at the time of the battle. Dean related that the “farmhouse was built in 3 stages over 3 different time periods, the first section started out as a one room log cabin with a loft that is still inside. In 1820 another room was added on. After the battle, it was raised to 2 stories and the balcony was added.” The house still has blood stains on the floors and Dean pointed to a bench on the porch where many soldiers rested back in 1863. Dean pointed to the barn and explained that it’s siding is more contemporary because the original boards were removed and used to make coffins and grave markers.
Our tour guide explained, “the house had been in the Peter Baker family since 1847.” As a youngster, Dean listened to stories under the old tree that is still there near the house. He continued, “this is where the original guides used to gather under the tree and smoke cigars and drink a little whiskey. The Baker boys were bachelors and always had time to tell stories.” Dean has an encyclopedic knowledge of the battle, but also has personal stories told to him by the legendary figures of this battlefield town. As a youngster, Dean recalled visits by “Pappy Rosensteel who had a huge collection of battlefield relics that he took me to on many occasions.” George D. Rosensteel (1884-1971) had a fantastic lifetime collection of battle relics and displays, including the interpretive Battle of Gettysburg map, acquired by the National Park Service for use in the Gettysburg National Military Park museum and visitor center from 1974-2008. “But they didn’t get it all,” Dean said. “They didn’t get it all.”
Dean wears a safari hat, khaki vest and smokes a pipe, which simply lends to the historical provenance of the moment. Mr. Shultz is pure Pennsylvania. He spoke with an intriguing accent unfamiliar to our group of Midwestern ears, pronouncing regiments as “regga-mints” and Gettysburg as “Get-ahs-burg”, Baltimore as “Ball-er-mer.” In short, he could read the phone book and draw a crowd. No doubt about it, Dean Shultz is an unsung treasure of Gettysburg. His modesty is amazing. He seeks no personal publicity, really doesn’t care to have his picture taken and treats every visitor he encounters with respect and kindness.
We were standing at the base of Wolf Hill near Rock Creek on the far right of the Union Army infantry line; the sounds of traffic whizzing by us on the Baltimore Pike, but it felt like we traveled back in time. Dean lead us up the slope, and we walked about a football field’s length away as he stopped in some shady spot, relit his pipe, and explained about cattle grazing in the woods or points out where soldiers were once temporarily buried. This amazing octogenarian halted often, not for his sake but for ours. He climbs these slopes with the agility of a man half his age. He is not winded, but we were.
Dean explained that the soldiers considered Powers Hill, just a short distance away, as the true end of the Union Line. “They called it a muleshoe.” He stressed the importance of the Baltimore Pike both during and after the battle. “Thousands of Rebel prisoners were marched right past this spot to the railroad to be shipped off to POW camps.” Then he joked that the debarkation point is now “the spot where the outlet mall now stands.” He smiled with a wink towards Rhonda and says, “You look like you know where the outlet mall is, right?” With a giggle she replied in the affirmative and admitted that she was just there last night. Now how did he know that? Dean Shultz knows everything. His cultural knowledge is not only limited to the battle. “There were 183 African Americans in Gettysburg at time of the battle. Only 60 some of them returned, probably property owners,” Dean said.
As we reach the entrance to Lost Avenue, Dean explained with a sweep of his hand, “This was an orchard at the time of the battle, the bodies of many soldiers were buried in rows right over there.” Former resident Cora Baker’s (1890-1977) grandmother told how, after the battle as the bodies were picked up for reburial, “the grass just quivered with lice and bugs where they laid and when the soldiers would roll up their bedrolls in the morning, the grass was alive with lice and bugs from the bodies of the living soldiers as well.”
Until recently, Dean had a dozen cows but he’s now down to just one. His cattle dutifully kept the grass down and ate the lowest leaves off the trees “as high as they could reach,” which made it easy to see through. That is important historically because it helped maintain the look of the woods as the soldiers would have known it. “They could easily fight in here and could shoot 100 yards through those trees,” he says. Dean jokingly recalled that the only problem was that his cows left many “Confederate Land Mines” behind (what we Hoosiers commonly call cow-pies).
Upon entering Lost Avenue, Dean explained that General Neill was sent here to guard the rear flank of the Union Army and, most importantly, to protect the Baltimore Pike. Dean stated, “When I was a boy I used to visit Lost Avenue with Arthur Baker (1893-1970), who as a lad had walked the fields with the old soldiers that visited the property and actually fought over this ground. Arthur would go and grab a bayonet, left here after the battle, from one of the farm buildings. He’d attach it to his walking stick, hide behind the stone wall and charge out screaming the Rebel Yell.”
Dean maintains the avenue. “The park service never comes out here. Most of the guides have never been out here. The only one I’ve ever seen up here was Barb Adams.” Lost Avenue is the last section of the battlefield that looks exactly as it did when the soldiers fought, and died, here. Dean further explained, “Monuments were set on grass-lined strips with no thought of ever paving them. The roads you know now were paved much later. Lost Avenue is the last ‘pristine section’ of unpaved roadway. The 40 foot wide strip is lined by the original stone fence that the 2nd Virginians & 1st North Carolinians fought behind. It was made of field stones picked up by farmers over the years and predates the battle. The second stone wall, the 1895 section, was built later after Sickles took over.”
Dean knows every inch of Lost Avenue and rattles off stats and battle information the way others might recite the names of relatives: 43rd New York, 49th New York, 61st Pennsylvania & 7th Maine, they were all here. “Neill’s brigade stayed on the spot until the night of July 5th.” Dean said, while noting that “the reason the markers in Lost Avenue are slanted is because they were designed to be read from horseback,” which was the preferred method of touring the battlefield when they were first erected. Dean also pointed out that the monuments here are pristine and shiny because there is no car exhaust or pollution to dull or damage them. The pinnacle of any visit to Lost Avenue is finding the marker at the end of the Union line. It reads “Right of the infantry of the Army of the Potomac” Dean Shultz stated, “There are a lot of historians who would like to see that marker but have no idea where it is. There is no “Left of the infantry” marker that I know of.”
Mr. Shultz is a co-founder of the Adams County Land Conservancy, which, with other organizations, has preserved more than 500 acres in and around the battlefield. Originally, Dean inherited 30 acres and now he and his wife Judy own over a hundred acres of battlefield ground. The couple are serious about battlefield preservation. They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Dean’s engineering company office is located across the Baltimore Pike on battlefield ground, and it’s portable. As Dean stated, the mobile home office is temporary, “and when I don’t need it anymore, it will be hauled away and the ground returned to the deer.”
My favorite anecdotes shared that day revolved around stories of Dean’s friendship with the legendary Jacob Sheads. Colonel Jake Sheads is perhaps best remembered as the park ranger who escorted John F. Kennedy and wife Jacqueline on their tour of the battlefield shortly before JFK’s tragic assassination in Dallas. Legend claims that it was on this field, while viewing the Eternal Peace Light Memorial with Col. Sheads that the idea for JFK’s eternal flame grave marker found root. Dean once asked Col. Sheads how Neill Avenue got the name “Lost Avenue.”
Sheads, who was also a Gettysburg High School history teacher, responded, “Well, Dean, it was me, I named it.” Sheads explained that he needed a way to get lovestruck students interested in history. The teacher told his students that they needed to get out and live, touch and feel history to understand it, particularly those living on the most famous battlefield in the country. Col. Sheads developed Neill Ave. as a lonely, secluded “lover’s lane” destination to entice these young students to visit there. Sheads told Dean, “I don’t think it worked though because, after all these years, there were probably more people conceived than killed there.”
“Col. Sheads was the Borough’s biggest Democrat”, said Dean. “I recently visited Col. Sheads’ tombstone and you know what it reads? ‘Husband. Historian. Democrat.’ Showing the Kennedy’s around the battlefield was the highlight of his life.” Well, Mr. Shultz, I think I can safely speak for our group and say that your tour was certainly one of the highlights of our lives as well.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
