Devil's Den
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States
A boulder formation at Gettysburg whose pre-battle folklore named it a den of the devil and which became the battlefields hardest ground on the second day of July 1863.
The spheroidal boulders of Devil's Den, jumbled at the base of Little Round Top, carried devil-lore before the battle ever reached them: local tradition had it the rocks were a den of the devil, or of snakes, or of something that kept farmers' children away. On July 2, 1863 the formation became the anchor of the Confederate left and some of the fiercest fighting of the war, and the dead of the battle layered a second, darker story onto the first.
After the war the Den became the battlefield's most-visited rock landscape and the center of its ghost-lore, a reputation maintained by over a century of visitors, guides, and photographic traditions. The honest structure is geology, then folklore, then war, then memory; all four layers are real and present.
Visiting
Gettysburg National Military Park, accessible from Sickles Ave; open dawn to dusk. See NPS.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Devil's_Den_Gettysburg_1909.jpg), CC BY-SA.
Associated traditions & practices
Traditions from this region
Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
Visitor stories