The Cherry Orchard Cherry Orchard" was Chekhov's tribute to himself. Many of the characters in the play hearken back to his earlier works and are based on people he knew in his own life. It should also be noted that his boyhood house was bought and torn down by a wealthy man that his mother had considered a friend. The breaking guitar string in acts 2 and 4 hark back to his earliest works. Finally the classic "loaded gun" that appears in many of Chekhov's plays appears here, but this is his only play in which a gun is shown but not fired.
The Peach Orchard also outflanking the 2nd New Hampshire, threatening it to be cut off from the rest of the Union, forcing them to retreat. The 2nd NH entered the Battle of Gettysburg with 353 soldiers. In under three hours, 47 were killed, 136 wounded and 36 men went missing; of the 24 officers, only three were not killed or wounded. Franklin Dullin Briscoe's artwork, ""Peach Orchard – Gettysburg"", is now in the National Archives; and the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association board approved purchase of the orchard in 1890 (several Peach Orchard memorials were erected during the memorial association era--e.g., 68th Pennsylvania Infantry