Sculpted by Gary Casteel
 
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
 
The 64th New York Infantry was also known as the First Cattaraugus Regiment.  During the battle of Gettysburg, it served as a member of Col. John Brooke’s Brigade in Brig. Gen. John C. Caldwell’s Division of the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, a Fighting 300 Regiment.  The unit mustered in in December of 1861 and completed their term on July 14, 1865.  
 
In June of 1863, the regiment moved to Gettysburg, where it served with Col. John Brooke’s 2nd Corps brigade in support of the 3rd Corps on July 2.  The fresh troops of the 2nd Corps pushed the enemy (Anderson’s Division) across the Wheatfield, into Rose’s Woods, and up the slope to the present Brooke Avenue.  In the Wheatfield, “The men were firing as fast as they could load,” recalled Col. Daniel G. Bingham, the regiment’s commander. “The din was almost deafening.”  
 
As noted by D. Scott Hartwig, “In this particular situation, the two color bearers of the 64th ran several yards in front of the regimental line ‘so that they were dimly perceivable through the clouds of smoke.’ Because of their size regimental colors were the most efficient means of communication in the confusion of combat, for the men were trained that where their colors went they should follow. This brave act by the 64th’s color bearers caused the body of their regiment to start to advance, which in turn began a general advance of Brooke’s entire brigade.” (Unwilling Witness to the Rage of Gettysburg, The Experience of Battle, July 2; Gettysburg Seminars; npshistory.com)
 
However, the brigade was then attacked from the front and flank and had to withdraw back across the low-lying area along Rose’s Run.
 
At Gettysburg, the 64th New York lost 98 killed, wounded or missing out of 205 engaged.  Col. Bingham was among the wounded, and after his wounding, Maj. L. W. Bradley was in command.  The monument to the 64th New York Infantry marks the furthest advance of the regiment in their charge across the Wheatfield and through Rose Woods on July 2, 1863.
 
The monument was dedicated on July 2, 1890 and is located south of Gettysburg on the east side of Brooke Avenue in the Rose Woods.