Here at the Angle, sometimes called the Bloody Angle, you face the Copse of Trees—the 1863 landmark used as the target for Pickett's Charge—the 1892 monument marking the high-water mark of the Confederacy, a rock wall, and several other Battle of Gettysburg monuments. On July 3, 1863, roughly 1,500 Confederate Virginians broke through the Union line on Cemetery Ridge here, an intense moment that left this small place so central to memory. In the years after the battle veterans met and shook hands over the rock wall during reunions in 1887, in 1913 at the 50th anniversary, and in 1938 at the 75th.
A copy of the Gettysburg Cyclorama was displayed in an 1894 tent at the Angle, and the colloquial name Bloody Angle became common after being used as early as 1893. The site even hosted reenactment: the Marine Expeditionary Force of Camp Harding used the Angle in 1922. The nearby field along Emmitsburg Road later became camp space after the war—Eisenhower's 1918 Camp Colt, the 1938 Army Camp with the Secretary of War's quarters, and a World War II POW stockade.
Veterans shook hands over this rock wall in 1887, 1913 and 1938, and the 1892 monument still marks where the line broke.