Sculpted by Gary Casteel
 
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
 
As Colonel Daniel G. Bingham of the 64th New York Volunteers described Captain Henry V. Fuller in his letter to New York newspapers on July 19, 1863:
 
“No more gallant soul winged its flight from the battlefield than that of Captain Fuller.  A more gallant spirit never went into battle. To see him in the heat and excitement of a charge, handsome as an Apollo, cheering on his men, throwing the whole of his ardent soul into every gesture, one was convinced, that to him the smoke and dust of battle were as the breath of life. Young, ardent, impetuous and impulsive, generous and open hearted to a fault, possessed of all those unselfish and magnanimous qualities which make up the character of a true soldier, he was the idol of his company and beloved by his Regiment.”
 
Henry Fuller was born in Little Valley, Cattaraugus County, New York, on February 16, 1841, and joined Company F, 64th Regiment, New York Volunteers as a private in 1861.   At Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, Captain Fuller advanced with Brooke’s Brigade against Anderson’s Division across the Wheatfield, into Rose’s Woods, and up the slope to the present Brooke Avenue.  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.
 
As the regiment was withdrawing, Captain Fuller was wounded in the leg.  Several soldiers, including Private George Whipple, came to his aid to try to help him to the rear, but Fuller was hit again in his back, which proved mortal.  The other soldiers left Fuller and continued to retreat to avoid capture, Private Whipple could not leave his Captain.  
 
Whipple later described the events in a letter to the Cattaraughus Freeman Newspaper (January 9, 1864), as follows: “As I took him in my arms,” George remembered, “he looked up and said, ‘George, keep up good courage.’”  Whipple continued to aid his dying leader, dragging him behind some rocks for shelter, when three Confederate soldiers emerged and “demanded my surrender with awful threats.”  Although he wanted to stay with Captain Fuller until he breathed his last, the Confederates would not permit it.  With a bayonet to his back and “with threats to run me through,” Whipple reluctantly left his Captain.  Whipple never regretted staying with Captain Fuller, though he was captured and suffered greatly in Belle Isle prison camp, near Richmond. “He was the best leader and best friend I ever had,” he wrote of Fuller.
 
On July 4th, Captain Fuller’s body was recovered.  He was buried two weeks later in Little Valley Cemetery in New York, leaving behind his wife, Adelaide, and their one-year-old son, Henry.
 
The monument to Captain Fuller is one of the harder to find monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield, standing in low and wet ground some distance from the nearest path, surrounded on three sides by a loop of Rose Run, and often obscured by brush.
 
This monument was dedicated in July, 1894 and is located south of Gettysburg in the Rose Woods south of the Wheatfield.