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Along the whole line . . . the battle raged with a desperation and to an extent unknown in the previous history of the war. . . . Whole brigades charged repeatedly our batteries, only to be mown down, captured, or driven back in confusion . . . until 4 p. m., when the enemy withdrew and retired, weaker by 25,000 to 30,000 than when the battle began. . . .

We have captured about 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners. . . . Large supply and ammunition trains have also been captured, numbering in all several hundreds. Several guns have also fallen into our hands. . . .

This story of a battle fought 77 years ago was published in a Gettysburg, Pa. weekly, the Adams Sentinel, four days after the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863). The press on which this historic story was printed was an old Ramage hand press built before 1800.

Last week, in Philadelphia, Publisher John D. Keith of the Gettysburg Star & Sentinel (successor to the Adams Sentinel) turned the old press over to the Franklin Institute for a permanent exhibit. It was probably the oldest U. S.-made printing press in existence. After gathering dust for some 60 years, it still worked well enough to run off souvenir copies of the Institute's program, for Printer M. J. Smith (see cut), who had operated the same press when he was a boy.

Adam Ramage was a handy Scots wood-joiner who emigrated to the U. S. around 1790 and went into the business of making printers' materials. He built his first presses out of Honduras mahogany, added iron to beds and platens to make them durable, finally abandoned wood for iron throughout. Ramage's presses helped to found many a great U. S. newspaper, stamped many a page of U. S. history on single sheets of dampened paper before Robert Hoe developed the revolving press.

When Robert Harper founded the weekly Adams Centinel (named for Adams County) in 1800, he bought the Ramage press that went to Franklin Institute last week, loaded it on a wagon, carted it up over the Baltimore Pike to Gettysburg. Sixteen years later Robert Harper was dead, his son, Robert Goodloe Harper, had succeeded him, and the Centinel had become the Sentinel. On June 30, 1863, when Confederate cavalry scouts made their first contact with the Union Army west of Gettysburg, the Sentinel suspended an issue for the only time in its life. Next day the Union forces attacked. After trying in vain to take Cemetery Ridge, on July 4, General Lee retired with the defeated remnants of his army.

Editor Harper himself reported the battle, wrote his own war story for the issue of July 7. He printed it as local news on p. 2 (on p. 1 were reprints of stories from other papers), with an apology for having skipped an issue.

Of Lee's men Correspondent Harper wrote: "We have talked with multitudes of the rebel soldiers, and find very many heartily sick of the war. . . . They declare that General Lee deceived them. ..."

Of Gettysburg's casualties: "We can do nothing less than gratefully and reverently acknowledge the Divine favor which has watched over our lives and our homes. . . . But withal, we have been called to part with some. We have learned only of the following: Killed, Miss Virginia Wade, by our own sharpshooters; and Edward M. son of Alexander Woods, shot accidentally by his brother, while playing with a gun picked off the battlefield."

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