Gettysburg's 'First Shot House': Building undergoes major restoration, has its red finish back and offers a new parking lot

All better now: A new parking area at the Wisler House outside Gettysburg (NPS)

We’ve all been there. You come across an historic site or marker and there’s no place to park or pull over. Things can get real dicey if you try to get there.

Fortunately, improvements are sometimes made. Gettysburg National Military Park this week announced it has made visiting “The First Shot House” a whole lot safer with the recent addition of a gravel driveway and five parking spots.

The addition is part of the extensive rehabilitation of the Ephraim Wisler house at 1495 Chambersburg Road (U.S. 30) three miles west of town. A monument outside the two-story 1857 residence marks what’s believed to be the location where a Union soldier first fired upon advancing Confederate troops on July 1, 1863.

The home before additions in the back were removed, as the front looks now (NPS)

Before the upgrade, the curious had to race across the busy pike after parking on Knoxlyn Road. A 2020 Emerging Civil War article provided directions, ending with the line: “Please use EXTREME caution when crossing the Chambersburg Pike!”

Park spokesman Jason Martz told the Picket in an email that the new parking lot provides a safer and more convenient environment for visitors to the 4-acre site, which is northwest of the sprawling park.

The National Park Service has spent a few years doing a major overhaul of the Wisler (pronounced Whistler) House. Crews removed modern additions and features and strengthened the embankment in front of the brick house. A porch was built in the front and the roof received new cedar shingles and two chimneys jut out.

A modern addition is removed from the back of the Wisler home (NPS)

“A new interpretive sign is expected to be installed in the coming months and the house will receive a painting treatment called penciling later in the year,” the park said in a press release. “Per historic specifications, the brick Wisler House has already been painted red and the penciling will add a thin line of white paint to accentuate the areas where mortar would be visible.”

Work is nearing the final stages. There are historic features inside the house, largely architectural, but there are no plans to furnish it. There are no current plans to open the house to the public.

When asked why, Martz cited no available staff to run the site and that even with five parking spaces, “there still aren't enough to accommodate an open house type of event. Similar events of the past have attracted dozens of visitors and their vehicles all at once.”

Licensed Battlefield Guides (LBGs) have used the site to discuss the opening shots of the battle and park staff has conducted virtual tours. (Click NPS map at left to enlarge; the Wisler property is on the extreme top left)

On July 1, 1863, war came to the doorstep of blacksmith Ephraim Wisler and his family. Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Heth’s division was advancing on Gettysburg, and Federal Maj. Gen. John Buford deployed cavalry troopers to buy time before a larger Army infantry corps could go into action.

Among the Union regiments posted west of Gettysburg was the 8^th Illinois Cavalry. The Wisler House, perched on a ridge, made an excellent observation point for pickets.

“At 7:30 am, Union cavalrymen detected the advance of Henry Heth's Confederate division, which had departed their Cashtown bivouac to conduct a reconnaissance in force toward Gettysburg,” the NPS says.

“Lt. Marcellus E. Jones, who commanded the picket line of the 8th Illinois, borrowed the carbine of Sgt. Levi Shafer, rested the weapon on one of Wisler's fence posts, and from the western yard of the home fired the first shot of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Ephraim Wisler home would become enshrined in Gettysburg lore as ‘The First Shot House’... the location from which the great Battle of Gettysburg was inaugurated.”

Rear of the residence after removal of additions, rehabilitation (NPS)

Wisler, 31, reportedly stepped outside the house during the Confederate house and dodged an artillery shell that landed nearby. He died only a month after the battle, leaving a widow and two children. Some sources say Wisler died as a result from the trauma of the day. Others speculate he may have died of disease.

The park has no recorded information about damage to the house itself.

Jones (right) and comrades returned to Gettysburg in 1886 to erect “The First Shot” monument. But controversy came with incident. Others claimed to have unleashed the first shot in the momentous three-day battle that ended with a Union victory.

J. David Petruzzi, in a 2006 article in America’s Civil War magazine, wrote:

“Regardless of which regiment could claim that first shot, whether it was fired at a Confederate line of battle, detached Southern cavalrymen or a noise in the dark by a jittery young trooper, the shot carried no tactical significance whatsoever. But such a claim was evidently important to a small group of rapidly aging and often stubborn old cavalrymen who could argue over the most minute details as if the fate of the world depended on it. We can surely understand if, to them, it indeed did.”

First shot monument right next to the residence (NPS)