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[588] Emmettsburg, after passing below Ziegler's Grove as far as the Want house, with the exception of a strip of land about nine hundred yards in length between the houses of Codori and Smith, inclines to the westward and intersects directly the head of the little valley where it has its source. The hillock, as its English name of ‘Peach Orchard’ implies, is thickly covered with peach trees, which are largely cultivated in that country, where the fruit is distilled. It is a commanding position, possessing extensive views, but was covered by the position of Seminary Hill; consequently, strong at the east, weak at the west, and commanded for a distance of over five hundred yards by the Warfield ridge, behind which the enemy could make preparations for his attacks with impunity. A road, called the Millerstown road, branching off from the Hagerstown road near Marsh Run, at the Black Horse Tavern, crosses Willoughby Run, ascends the left bank until it strikes an isolated schoolhouse, when, winding up to the Warfield farm, it intersects the Emmettsburg road at the Peach Orchard, and subsequently pursues a south-easterly course to cross Plum Run, and finally to connect with the Taneytown road north of the Little Round Top; the road skirts the Peach Orchard hillock by following the base as far as Plum Run. This stream, after taking its source near the Trostle brick house, runs from north to south through a valley interspersed with isolated trees and bushes: before striking the road it passes between two woods, one of which, at the east, rests upon the Weikert house, while the other, at the west, triangularly shaped, skirting the north side of the road, runs as far as the Trostle house. Below the crossing the stream, being marshy, rushes into the wild gorge comprised between the Round Tops and the rocky hill of the Devil's Den. This hill forms the continuation, at the south, of the rocky line which the road follows after leaving Peach Orchard, and which it abandons to cross Plum Run. The woods by which it is covered are separated from this road by a large field of wheat, adjoining on one side the wood of the Trostle house, which stretches down as far as a little valley where an insignificant tributary of Plum Run flows from north-west to south-east. That portion of the Devil's Den facing this valley is more woody and less rocky than that fronting Round Tops. At the extreme end of the wheat-field two

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Andrew J. Smith (1)
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