The Emanuel Harman Farm: Gettysburg’s Unknown Battlefield

Abstract

Gettysburg’s Unknown Battlefi eld far eastern end is Willoughby Run. From the base of the Springs Hotel Woods, looking east toward Willoughby Run, it is a far cry from what it was like in 1863. Today, one sees a huge, overgrown fi eld interspersed with clumps of trees. Roughly a quarter mile to your front is a slight rise in the land that then falls away into Willoughby Run. Lines of vision are interrupted by the trees and tall grass; but in 1863, when the Confederates launched attacks across this ground and into the high ground of McPherson’s Ridge on the opposite bank, it was a diff erent story. Th e famed Herbst Woods lie to the northeast opposite Willoughby Run from the Harman farm, while the Herbst farm lies to the southeast opposite the run from the Harman farm. Th e property where the Harman farm once stood went through several phases of ownership. In 1817 Rev. Charles G. McLean, a pastor who was called to serve at the United Presbyterian Church in Freedom Township, purchased the property for an unheardof amount of money at the time, $10,000.1 Over the next several decades, many improvements were made to the property, and it was eventually sold to Emanuel Harman in 1857.2 Harman’s daughter Amelia, a seventeenyearold, attended school while she lived at the house, though Harman himself did not live at the farm during the time of the battle. Amelia lived at the house with her Aunt Rachel (Finnefrock) and a tenant farmer by the name of William Comfort. By 1863 the Harman farm was fully functioning, described as being