Francis C. Ogden

Nancy Ogden Westerdahl’s Great Great Great Uncle

Most members of the Ogden family are very familiar with Gettysburg. They have toured the battlefield and visited Evergreen Cemetery where many Ogden ancestors are buried.

One of the most famous landmarks on the battlefield is the Rose Farm, situated about three miles south of Gettysburg and located between the Emmitsburg Road and Little Round Top where fierce fighting occured on July 2, 1863.

In 1863, Francis C. Ogden was a professional tenant farmer on the Rose Farm where he lived with his wife and six children. The farm included a twenty acre field where over 20,000 men were engaged in brutal and often hand-to-hand combat leaving over 6,000 killed or wounded. Ever since it has been known simply as the Wheatfield.

Though reports vary, the likely number of Confederate dead found in shallow graves on the Rose Farm property when the armies left on July 4, is approximately 550. It was a gruesome spectacle for Francis Ogden and his family who, according to one source, hid in the cellar of the Rose farmhouse during the battle.

Charles F. Ogden, whose initials are scratched in a foundation stone of the farmhouse, was the oldest son of Francis. Early in the war, he enlisted in Company B, 138th Pennsylvania Infantry, and was killed during the battle of Mine Run, Virginia on November 27, 1863.  

NOTE:  I am currently reading, The Wheatfield, a novel by David M. Rieker, CLass of ’63 at Franklin and Marshall. I admitted him to the College in 1959.

Bruce