The Fifty-Fourth New York at Gettysburg

This spot marks where the Fifty-Fourth New York Infantry, known as the Hiram Barney Rifles, fought on July first, eighteen sixty-three. The regiment arrived with two hundred sixteen men. When their commander, Major Stephen Kovacs, was captured early in the fighting on Oak Ridge, Lieutenant Ernst Both took command on the spot and held the line.

By the end of the day the regiment had lost seven killed, forty-seven wounded, and forty-eight men missing. The Fifty-Fourth was part of the First Corps, one of the units that bore the brunt of the Confederate assault from the north and west before the Union army was pushed back through town to Cemetery Hill. The regiment's stand here bought precious time for the rest of the army to consolidate what would become one of history's most decisive defensive victories.