For three hot days in early July, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought on the farm fields, in the woods, in the hills and within the town of Gettysburg itself in 1863. The martial contest pitted the Union Army of the Potomac, 90,000 strong, under the command of Gen. George Meade, against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, 75,000 strong, under the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who invaded Pennsylvania with the hope that a Southern victory on Yankee soil would convince the federal government under President Abraham Lincoln to sue for peace.
By the end of the battle, 27,224 were wounded and 7,863 were killed.
Lee, so assured of victory at the start, withdrew the battered remainder of his gray legions south across the Mason-Dixon line. Despite its defeat at Gettysburg, the Confederacy continued on for another 21 months, but would never again mount a major campaign in the North.
In that great battle were soldiers of the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company K, from Northumberland County, many from Shamokin. Company K was organized Sept. 1, 1861, with 109 men from Shamokin in the unit. By the Battle of Gettysburg, only 39 of those who originally enlisted were present. The rest having left the ranks due to death, wounds or desertion, were taken prisoner or were sent home because their enlistments had expired.
One of the 39 men who was present at Gettysburg was a 21-year-old carpenter, Darius S. Gilger.
Gilger, of Shamokin, enlisted in the Union Army April 22, 1861, shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. By October of that same year, he was promoted to first sergeant. He was promoted to second lieutenant in August 1862 - right after the battle of Cedar Mountain, where Company K took a beating - and to first lieutenant in November.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Company K was posted at the end of the extreme right of the line holding Culp's Hill, about 150 yards north of Spangler's Spring, and because of their sheltered position in the woods fringing Rock Creek, they experienced almost no casualties - almost. Friendly fire dogged Culp's Hill more than any other place during the battle and may have been the reason Gilger was wounded July 3 - a gunshot through his left elbow. He was the only officer wounded in the entire regiment.
After the battle, he remained behind in a military hospital in the east to recuperate while his regiment and company were sent to Tennessee and the Western theater of the war, eventually joining Gen. Sherman's March to the Sea.
Gilger was discharged on a surgeon's certificate Dec. 18, 1863. For him, the war was over and he returned to Shamokin.
He became the borough's postmaster in the 1880s and died of uremia at age 53 on July 25, 1894. Gilger, like many other veterans from Company K, is buried in the Shamokin Cemetery near the Soldier's Circle.