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The 123rd New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment from Washington County,NY, answered President Lincoln's call to defend the Union. The 123rd NYSV Regiment is memorialized by the above monument on Culp's Hill at the Gettysburg battlefield, the "high water mark" of the Confederacy. The memorial is located at the site of the breastworks constructed by the regiment on July 1, 1863, at that time part of Slocum's 12th Corps, while defending the northern flank of the Union army at the "point" of the famous "fish hook" defensive line. On July 2nd, the regiment was called to leave their breastworks to support the center of the line, returning to Culp's Hill that evening to find their breastworks occupied by Confederate skirmishers. The morning of the July 3rd, the regiment drove the Confederates from their works with "great slaughter" and closed the gap to Spangler's Spring. On the afternoon of 3 July, the famous Pickett's charge at the center of the line, resulted in the decimation and withdrawal of the Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee.
A plaque on the 123rd memorial reads as follows: HISTORIC - THE 123RD. N. Y. WAS ENLISTED IN WASHINGTON CO. IN AUGUST 1862; MUSTERED INTO THE U.S. SERVICE SEPT. 4; JOINED THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AND WAS ENGAGED IN THE BATTLES OF CHANCELLORSVILLE AND GETTYSBURG IN SEPT. 1863; TRANSFERRED TO THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND; AND WAS ENGAGED IN THE CAMPAIGN OF ATLANTA; THE MARCH TO THE SEA AND THE CAMPAIGN OF THE CAROLINAS; MUSTERED OUT AT WASHINGTON AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR, JUNE 8, 1865.
Sergeant Henry C. Morhous recounted the actions of the regiment in his "Reminiscences of the 123d N.Y.S.V. - Giving a Complete History of it's Three Years Service in the War," published by the People's Journal Book and Job Office, 1879. Morhous represented the Regiment at the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial on Sept 4, 1888. Morhous credits Captain George Robinson, among others, in the Appendix, fo
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