Brian is the now popular name of Abraham Brian, or Bryant, or Brien. He was a free black man, twice a widower living outside of Gettysburg along the Emmitsburg Road near Ziegler's Grove on a twelve acre farm he owned. Just ten miles south in Emmitsburg, Maryland blacks were kept as slaves, here in Pennsylvania there was no slavery and blacks could own land and make their own way. Mr. Brian grew corn, wheat, and oats on his tiny farm, and tended a small orchard with his two teenage sons. He couldn't read or write, hence little is known of him and he would have fallen through the cracks of time had his farm not been in the way of the war. It's known he and most of Gettysburg's black population fled north to avoid capture and enslavement by Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. What he came back to was his tiny farm bullet riddled, his animals gone, and his crops destroyed. No less than 60 shallow graves dotted his property.
Brian's Farm had the luck of being on the north flank of the Confederate assault of July 3, ''Pickett's Charge''. The Union line was ten yards from his front door. He filed a claim with the government for $1,028.00 in damages after the war, he received $15.00 for hay the army took for horses. The damage they claimed was done by the Confederate Army, which by then no longer existed.
Brian's Farm the Union line marked by monuments.
Brian's farm just after the battle.
An artist's creation of the fighting at Brian's Farm.