Was Gettysburg a little town

Answer 1

Whether Gettysburg was little would depend on your definition of the word. It was not tiny, neither was it even a small city. It was, and is, the county seat of Adams County, Pennsylvania, so the County Courthouse is there. There is a Lutheran Theological Seminary and also Gettysburg College, both of which were there during the battle. Even today though Gettysburg has only about 7500 citizens. There was a railroad finished just before the war linking Gettysburg and Hanover. Gettysburg's main importance at the time of the battle though was as a road hub - there were nine good roads radiating from Gettysburg like spokes on a wheel. There was a shoe factory in Gettysburg and the battle began when some Confederates went there to seize the shoes, not knowing they had already been taken a week before by a different party of the numerous throngs of soldiers beginning to crowd into the area. Gettysburg was big enough to have a grid of streets and had somewhere above two thousand residents when the battle erupted in their town.