The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Two

The second of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment.

The bugle sounded reveille before daylight and the men of the Twentieth Maine heeded the command to fall in. The heat diminished but the rain made the marching all the more miserable, as worn-out and ragged, they walked foot-sore for another twenty-five miles before making camp. That day, June 30, in lightest possible marching order, they passed through Unionville, Union Bridge, Uniontown, and bivouacked for the night at Union Mills. They were names all reminiscent of friendlier territory*. Now only five miles from the Pennsylvania border, they heard cannonading off to the northeast, toward Hanover. Two days before, on the Sabbath, after a sixteen day hiatus when the regiment received no mail, Frank and Lew sat down with letters from home. Now, on this night, Sumner Hill had never seemed farther away, nor more missed. *Thomas A. Desjardin, “Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine” pg. 25