photo #6187343

The Great General Daniel Sickles Witness TreeThis is perhaps the most spectacular and important witness tree then-and-now of all. The large swamp white oak across from the Trostle Barn on United States Avenue has always been believed to be a witness tree, but this photograph confirms it like no other evidence.Less than three decades after the battle, before the Trostle Farm Lane had been turned into a tourists' boulevard, a photographer captured the barn, with its shell hole below the diamond-shaped air vents, and the farmhouse; but it is the already enormous Sickles Witness Tree that draws our attention!The tree is 62 inches in diameter today, but it appears that the tree has barely doubled in diameter in size since the 19th century. The tree was likely already over 2 feet in diameter at the time of the battle, and it has taken about 5 years on average to grow each inch of diameter since then.Things to notice:(1) the heavy branch marked with a small white "a" can be matched up in the pictures, as can branching further up the tree;(2) the tree is leaning somewhat more than it was in 1890. It won't last forever!Read more about this survivor here:https://www.gettysburgwitnesstrees.com/main-map/sickles-witness-tree/