Raffle for American Civil War Theme Fine Art Prints

The canvas giclee prints are both by artist Keith Rocco is a 20” x 24” signed and numbered editions of 200, each a $300 retail value. Chances are only $3.00 each – enter as many times as you like! Drawing will for 2 tickets/names drawn (1 print each) on Sunday at 11 AM at HISTORICON™ 2011; you do not have to be present to win.

The following gives the historical background of the two prints being raffled.

Devil’s Den
The first of two Fine Art Prints by artist Keith Rocco, being raffled at HISTORICON™ 2011

The fierce fighting at Gettysburg, on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, was nowhere fiercer than in the jagged, boulder ridden part of the field appropriately known as the Devil's Den. Here, among the ancient rock formations, the spearhead of the Confederate assault smashed into the exposed Federal left flank.

Like an overwhelming tide, General John B. Hood's Texas and Arkansas boys charged headlong into the rocks, savagely overrunning the position occupied by Captain James Smith's New York Battery, which was supported by Brigadier General J.H, Hobart Ward's brigade of New Yorkers. Attacked from three directions at once, the Federal soldiers did all that men could do before yielding to the inevitable. Smith lost his guns, despite every effort to drag them to safety.

Fierce counterattacks by the Federals were to no avail. The Confederate tide swirled among and over the rocks and spilled out into the valley between the Devil's Den and Little Round Top, forever christening the bloody fields with names like the Slaughter Pen, and the Valley of Death.

The victors held this hard won position, taking sharpshooting posts between the boulders, and sniping away at the forces gathering on the round tops, which would soon become the focus of the renewed attack.

140th New York on Little Round Top
The second of two Fine Art Prints by artist Keith Rocco, being raffled at HISTORICON™ 2011

It was not until afternoon of July 2nd that the vulnerability of the Federal left flank was realized by the Union high command. Little Round Top, a craggy tree covered knoll, anchored the left flank, but was held by just a few signalmen. General G. K. Warren, alerted to the emergency diverted the first troops he encountered to hold this all important position, then sought more.

Answering the call was Col. Patrick O'Rorke, temporarily in command of General Stephen Weed's Brigade. O'Rorke hastened a regiment up the slopes of the hill just in time to help fend off a determined attack by the Confederate forces. Colonel Strong Vincent, already trying to fend off the ferocious Confederate attack, directed O'Rorke's 140th New York into the maelstrom of battle to support his own beleaguered brigade.

O'Rorke's winded New Yorker's charged down the slope into the surging Confederates, the 4th and 5th Texas, and the 48th Alabama infantry regiments. The 140th New York arrived just in time to blunt the Southerners' attack, and hold Vincent's crumbling right flank. But success came at a price. O'Rorke fell dead among the rocks. Numbered with the mortally wounded was young Lieutenant Charles Kline (depicted wielding a pistol in the painting), who died in a field hospital several days later. Success here was local. The fighting continued to rage around the slopes of Little Round Top.