When I lived just outside of Boston, Mt. Auburn Cemetery was my favorite place to walk and explore. Among the thousands who are buried there are members of Boston’s esteemed Revere family. While Paul Revere is best known for his exploits during the American Revolution, multiple grandsons served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Brothers Edward and Paul J. Revere fought and perished in two of the conflicts’ deadliest battles, Antietam and Gettysburg, before being laid to rest beside each other.
I had already booked a trip to visit these battlefields (amongst others) that year and decided to follow in their footsteps. I started each visit by using the National Park Service driving tour to see most of each battlefield park before narrowing my focus to the area where the Revere brothers would have stood.
ANTIETAM
The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in American history; on September 17, 1862, nearly 23,000 men became casualties (i.e. killed, wounded, missing, or captured) out of over 100,000 combatants. It ended the first major Confederate foray into the North and gave President Lincoln enough support to announce the Emancipation Proclamation five days later.i
The Revere brothers enlisted in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment and were some of its original officers. On September 4th, Paul “accepted the position of inspector-general on Sumner's staff with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, which, as he then supposed, permanently took him far away from the Twentieth,”ii so he was not on the front lines with Edward, the regiment’s assistant surgeon. On the morning of the 17th, the 20th Massachusetts was sent to attack part of the Confederate line in an area now known as the West Woods. The 20th and other nearby regiments were surprised by Confederate reinforcements, whose vicious counterattack drove the Union men back. It was in this area of the battlefield that Edward was killed; according to the inscription on his gravestone, he had been tending to a wounded comrade when he died. Paul eventually rejoined the regiment after his brother’s death and later became its commanding officer.
This map shows the Union advance towards the West Woods and their eventual retreat. The 20th MA is circled in black in the middle of the map. Courtesy of the American Battlefield Trust’s Antietam Battle App™.
I took this photo of the view toward the West Woods at Antietam National Battlefield Park, facing the same direction that the 20th Massachusetts marched.
GETTYSBURG
Gettysburg has been called the “high-water mark” of the Confederate war effort in the Eastern Theater, as the following battles and campaigns gradually moved south throughout Virginia. After the Confederacy headed north again to scavenge supplies and relieve Virginia from the scourge of war, the armies collided once again at the small Pennsylvania farm town. Between July 1st and 3rd, 1863, the armies suffered approximately 51,112 combined casualties.iii
The 20th Massachusetts monument at Gettysburg.
As reinforcements continued to arrive on both sides of the battlefield on July 2nd, the 20th Massachusetts was deployed in the center of the Union line. On July 3rd, the regiment was in the thick of the fighting during the infamous Confederate advance popularly known as Pickett’s Charge. After a two-hour long bombardment, 15,000 Confederate soldiers streamed across an open mile of farmland towards the Union line in a desperate breakthrough attempt. According to the inscription on the regiment’s monument on the Gettysburg battlefield, the 20th Massachusetts “advanced to the front of the copse of trees on its immediate right to assist in repelling the charge of Longstreet’s Corps.”iv
Map of Pickett’s Charge, with the 20th Massachusetts circled in black. Courtesy of the American Battlefield Trust’s Gettysburg Battle App™.
According to The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1861-1865, the regiment lost 44 men in the battle, including Colonel Revere. He was severely wounded on July 2nd after being struck in the chest by an artillery fragment. Despite being moved to a field hospital, the wound was mortal and he lingered until his death on July 4th. Oddly enough, two different sections in the text mention different dates: page 283 says that Colonel Revere “was killed by a shell during the attack of Anderson's division late in the afternoon,”v whereas page 296 tells us on “the bombardment of the third day Colonel Paul J. Revere was wounded by a shell and died two days later,”vi implying July 3rd and 5th. His gravestone indicates the former dates are correct.
The American Battle Trust battle maps, the National Park Service’s driving and guided tours, and wandering the ground on my own made for a unique learning experience and a very memorable road trip. Books and videos about the Civil War had consistently made the point that it is easier to understand a battle while walking the ground, and this trip following the Revere brothers proved it. In general, interacting with history and genealogy allows me to better understand the past and connect stories across generations that still resonate today, whether it be a museum or watching the cannon demonstration at Antietam National Battlefield’s 160th anniversary commemorations. In learning the story of the Revere brothers, I discovered that William Dawes, who spread the word of the British movements towards Lexington and Concord alongside Paul Revere, also had a descendant who served in the Union Army at Antietam and Gettysburg, Colonel Rufus Dawes. It is an interesting coincidence, and one I may further investigate in the same way—exploring the fields where history happened.
Sources
[i] “Antietam Battle Facts and Summary,” American Battlefield Trust, accessed 25 March 2026, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/antietam.
[ii] Bruce, George A. The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1861-1865. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, 1906, 146.
[iii] “Gettysburg Battle Facts and Summary,” American Battlefield Trust, accessed 25 March 2026, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/gettysburg.
[iv] Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unpaginated; https://archive.org/details/20thregimentmass00brucrich/page/n338/mode/1up?q=copse.
[v] Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 283.
[vi] Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 296.