On the afternoon of 2 July 1863, Major General Daniel Sickles gathered his officers under this oak to confer before he moved. He then pushed his corps forward to the Peach Orchard, and the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg took a different shape because of it. He picked the spot for its shade. The swamp white oak at the Trostle Farm was one of the few shaded places on that part of the field, and it is still here, beside United States Avenue at auto tour stop 11. What makes it a witness tree rather than just an old tree near a battlefield is a drawing. The artist Charles Reed sketched the tree as it stood that day. A dated period image is the standard evidence for a Gettysburg witness tree, and this one has it. It is not a giant, and not especially old by this map's standards. A tree-marker source puts it at roughly 175 to 220 years, which fits a tree already big enough to shelter a general's conference in 1863. A 2025 survey of the battlefield's witness trees, several of which are now dead or removed, lists this one as alive with no damage noted. The ground is open, free and a few steps from the road. Nobody has published a girth for it yet; if you have a tape measure and a spare minute, tell us.
United States Avenue near the Trostle Farm, Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania You can recognise it as the swamp white oak that Charles Reed sketched on 2 July 1863, the shade tree beside the road. It stands at the Trostle Farm, on the north side of United States Avenue at auto tour stop 11.
Free, within Gettysburg National Military Park; on public land directly beside United States Avenue at auto tour stop 11, reachable on foot or by pulling off the road.
No public transit; the park is a short drive from downtown Gettysburg, PA. Roadside parking near the Trostle Farm.