Ahead of you stands the High Water Mark of the Rebellion Monument. This Gettysburg Battlefield memorial names the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia units that made the infantry attack on the Battle of Gettysburg’s third day on a large bronze tablet, and it also lists the Union Army of the Potomac’s “respective troops who met or assisted to repulse Longstreet’s Assault. The monument is named for the line of dead and wounded of Pickett’s Charge—the deepest penetration into the Union line at The Angle—when, the tablet records, “4,500 men threw down their arms and came in as prisoners.
Today that line is generally marked by unit monuments, each a contributing structure in the historic district. You can reach this memorial from Hancock Avenue, which has parking spaces alongside, or follow the path from the parking lot at the former Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg, a National Park Service visitor center for fifty years until it was demolished in 2013. The designer called this ground the high-water mark of the battle and of the war, and the row of unit markers still points you toward the old Cyclorama site.