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Many soldiers gave their lives in the Battle of Gettysburg.
The battlefield’s landscape is dotted with numerous monuments which commemorate the Union and Confederate troops that fought there. More monuments can be found at the National Cemetery, which together with the battlefield form the Gettysburg National Military Park. Though many of dead soldiers’ souls may still roam the battlefield, it is there, in the cemetery, that you are reminded of who they were from their headstones.
After the Battle of Gettysburg, the toll on both sides consisted of the loss or mortal wounding of 10,000 lives, 30,000 injuries and 10,000 soldiers captured or missing. Because of the mass casualties, most of the deceased soldiers were hastily buried in shallow graves, marked by their names scrawled on wooden crosses. Exposure to the elements began to cause the erosion of the impromptu graves and it was determined that there was an immediate need for proper burials.
The decision was made to build a cemetery, using the site from which the Union center repulsed Pickett’s Charge, and ground was broken four months after the battle on October 27, 1863. Union soldiers were relocated to the cemetery and efforts were eventually made to move the Confederate soldiers’ remains to Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas, although there are a few that remain in Gettysburg National Cemetery.
Having been to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, I have seen the graves of these Confederate soldiers. I was anxious to walk around the historic cemetery in Gettysburg to observe any similarities, but I also knew that the Gettysburg National Cemetery was famous for more than gravesites, markers and monuments. There is something that makes this cemetery stand apart from landmarks in the city and other Civil War cemeteries.
On November 19, 1863, at the cemetery’s dedication, President Abraham Lincoln stood among these departed souls and delivered a two-minute address about the sacrifices of war and the necessity of holding the Union together.
The Gettysburg Address.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. —Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863
As I entered the gates on Taneytown Road, I immediately came upon the podium which was erected for visiting presidents who attend memorial ceremonies. To the right, is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Memorial.
The memorial is a semicircular stone monument which includes a bronze bust of the president, sculpted by Henry K. Bush-Brown, and two tablets on either side, one of which highlights the short speech. Though many think that such a profound address would have been inked on many pages, one of the greatest highlights of American history was only ten sentences long.
Though the memorial commemorates the Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, the location of the great oration actually took place about three hundred yards from this spot, so I headed in that direction determined to find where it took place.
The cemetery is designed as a wide semi-circle with the Soldier’s National Monument at its center. Radiating from the monument are sections divided by state; smaller states closest to the monument and larger states along the outside. The Soldier’s National Monument, designed by the Batterson-Canfield Company is a mighty granite shaft rising from a four cornered pedestal and bearing sculptures crafted by Randolph Rogers representing war, history, plenty and peace. Glancing to the top of the shaft is the statue, “Genius of Liberty”, crowning its peak. The monument is notable as being near the location of the dais of the dedication ceremony where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Numerous smaller monuments also dot the cemetery’s landscape, including a memorial to the Union soldiers of New York and a monument to Major General John F. Reynolds.
As I made my way around the grand monument and then the remainder of the cemetery, I encountered impeccable funerary grounds, maintained by the National Park Service, with a landscape dotted with cannons, concrete pathways and marble headstones.
As I reverently made my way through the premises, I discovered that although the majority of the graves accommodate the remains of Union Soldiers, the government later added sections for veterans from the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, bringing the total of veterans that are laid to rest here to more than 6,000.
When I first entered the grounds, the rain which had started during my tour of the battlefield had slowed to a hazy mist. The gloaming of the late afternoon, in addition, added to the sobering realization of just what I was surrounded by.
Not only is it a place where a speech of great magnitude was articulated by one of the greatest men in our country’s history, but it is a place where immeasurable bravery and patriotism was laid to rest. It is a place where we were reminded by President Lincoln why our great country was worth fighting for. A hallowed ground…not only for the lives lost, but the lives that continued and still continue on.
In this election year, it is important to remember the vision of our founding fathers, the lives that were given to bring our country to where it is today and to enjoy the freedoms that we have been given.
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Gettysburg National Cemetery
- https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/pennsylvania/gettysburg_national_cemetery.html
- Address: 1195 Baltimore Pike in Gettysburg, PA
- Hours: 0600-2200, April 1 through October 31. 0600-1900, November 1 through March 31. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
- Admission: free
Entering through the main Famedio, a Neo Medieval style memorial chapel made of marble and stone, I first stopped to gaze upon the beautiful blue ceiling and the tomb of novelist, Alessandro Manzoni before making my way through each of the hallways. I particularly loved walking along the outer edges of the open-aired corridors so that I could admire the building’s architecture, the courtyard and the ornate tombs that line the area.
Before making my way into the cemetery’s immaculately groomed grounds, I then walked the full length of the building’s lower level, exiting at the center, where I could examine the map and the locations of the cemetery’s famous occupants. In this area is also a structure comprised of metal tubes and black and white stones centered with a small clay bowl placed inside the main formation. Surrounded by memorial plaques, I was informed by a fellow bystander that it is a monument to the 800 Italians who perished in Nazi concentration camps and the bowl was filled with soil from the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Wandering the grounds, through the avenues of trees, should be reserved for an unhurried pace as to absorb entire beauty of the surroundings and that’s just what I did. It was impossible not to want to stop and inspect each monument, so detailed and individualized were they. Many of the tombs and funerary monuments are of such an extravagant size, it is almost as through you are walking through a neighborhood of homes.
