Gettysburg National Military Park, United States

The Gettysburg National Military Park protects and interprets the landscape of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the park is managed by the National Park Service. The GNMP properties include most of the Gettysburg Battlefield, many of the battle’s support areas during the battle (e.g., reserve, supply, & hospital locations), and several other non-battle areas associated with the battle’s “aftermath and commemoration”, including the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Many of the park’s 43,000 American Civil War artifacts are displayed in the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center.

The Gettysburg National Military Park archival and museum collection contains an extensive array of objects and documents on the Battle of Gettysburg, its aftermath, its commemoration, and other parts of the American Civil War. The collection also holds the Gettysburg Cyclorama Painting, the largest and most complete painting of the battle existing. Historic furnishings are housed and exhibited in the David Wills House (where Lincoln completed the Gettysburg Address), the Brian farmhouse, and the Leister farmhouse. The park’s extensive archival collections document the establishment and management of the national military park as a commemorative landscape beginning in 1864.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory that ended General Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Often referred to as the “High Water Mark of the Rebellion”, Gettysburg was the Civil War’s bloodiest battle and was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal “Gettysburg Address”.

History:
Fought over the first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War. The fate of the nation literally hung in the balance that summer of 1863 when General Robert E. Lee, commanding the “Army of Northern Virginia”, led his army north into Maryland and Pennsylvania, bringing the war directly into northern territory. The Union “Army of the Potomac”, commanded by Major General George Gordon Meade, met the Confederate invasion near the Pennsylvania crossroads town of Gettysburg,and what began as a chance encounter quickly turned into a desperate, ferocious battle. Despite initial Confederate successes, the battle turned against Lee on July 3rd, and with few options remaining, he ordered his army to return to Virginia. The Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, resulted not only in Lee’s retreat to Virginia, but an end to the hopes of the Confederate States of America for independence.

The battle brought devastation to the residents of Gettysburg. Every farm field or garden was a graveyard. Churches, public buildings and even private homes were hospitals, filled with wounded soldiers. The Union medical staff that remained were strained to treat so many wounded scattered about the county. To meet the demand, Camp Letterman General Hospital was established east of Gettysburg where all of the wounded were eventually taken to before transport to permanent hospitals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Union surgeons worked with members of the U.S Sanitary Commission and Christian Commission to treat and care for the over 20,000 injured Union and Confederate soldiers that passed through the hospital’s wards, housed under large tents. By January 1864, the last patients were gone as were the surgeons, guards, nurses, tents and cookhouses. Only a temporary cemetery on the hillside remained as a testament to the courageous battle to save lives that took place at Camp Letterman.

Prominent Gettysburg residents became concerned with the poor condition of soldiers’ graves scattered over the battlefield and at hospital sites, and pleaded with Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin for state support to purchase a portion of the battlefield to be set aside as a final resting place for the defenders of the Union cause. Gettysburg lawyer David Wills was appointed the state agent to coordinate the establishment of the new “Soldiers’ National Cemetery”, which was designed by noted landscape architect William Saunders. Removal of the Union dead to the cemetery began in the fall of 1863, but would not be completed until long after the cemetery grounds were dedicated on November 19, 1863. The dedication ceremony featured orator Edward Everett and included solemn prayers, songs, dirges to honor the men who died at Gettysburg. Yet, it was President Abraham Lincoln who provided the most notable words in his two-minute long address, eulogizing the Union soldiers buried at Gettysburg and reminding those in attendance of their sacrifice for the Union cause, that they should renew their devotion “to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion..”

In 1864, a group of concerned citizens established the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association (GBMA) whose purpose was to preserve portions of the battlefield as a memorial to the Union Army that fought here. The GBMA transferred their land holdings to the Federal government in 1895, which designated Gettysburg as a National Military Park. A Federally-appointed commission of Civil War veterans oversaw the park’s development as a memorial to both armies by identifying and marking the lines of battle. Administration of the park was transferred to the Department of the Interior, National Park Service in 1933, which continues in its mission to protect, preserve and interpret the Battle of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg.

Places:
The National Park Service Museum and Visitor Center at 1195 Baltimore Pike (Rt. 97) is the place to begin your visit. The center offers information on park tours and local information, a museum that illustrates the story of the Civil War and the epic Battle of Gettysburg, the film “A New Birth of Freedom” narrated by award winning actor Morgan Freeman, and the Gettysburg Cyclorama, the 1884 depiction of the final fury at Gettysburg, “Pickett’s Charge”. The center also hosts a Resources Room with information on park exhibits and soldier search databases, an expansive bookstore and Refreshment Saloon. Refer to our Fees and Reservations page for the price of entry to the museum exhibits, film and cyclorama program. The Museum and Visitor Center is operated by the Gettysburg Foundation.

The Museum and Visitor Center is open daily from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. from November 1 to March 31, and from 8:00 to 6:00 P.M. from April 1 through October 31. The center is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Check our Operating Hours and Seasons page for further information.

The park is open daily and visitors may drive their vehicles to many of the places known in battlefield lore- Culp’s Hill, McPherson’s Ridge, Cemetery Hill, Spangler’s Spring, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, and the “High Water Mark” to name but a few. The park also has hiking trails, a horse trail, and welcomes on-road bicyclists.

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Within walking distance of the Visitor Center is the Soldiers’ National Cemetery where Union dead from the Battle of Gettysburg were buried and today is the resting place for veterans and their families from all wars. It is also the place where President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. Park visitors usually make the cemetery a must-see stopping point during their visit. The cemetery is open from dawn to sundown, with parking located in Ziegler’s Grove at the intersection of Hancock Avenue and Taneytown Road. The cemetery is closed to vehicular traffic with the exception of mobility impaired visitors who must obtain a permit from the National Park Service at the Museum and Visitor Center before entering the cemetery.

Attorney David Wills’ home in Gettysburg was not just in the center of Gettysburg, it was the center of the immense clean-up process after the Battle of Gettysburg and where President Abraham Lincoln put the finishing touches on his Gettysburg Address. The speech transformed Gettysburg’s community from a place of devastation to the symbol of our nation’s new birth of freedom.

The Wills House museum features six galleries, two of which include rooms that have been restored to their 1863 appearance: Will’s office where he received letters from families looking for loved ones after the battle and undertook plans for a national cemetery and its dedication; and the bedroom where Lincoln stayed the night before he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

The Wills House is operated by the Gettysburg Foundation, the official support organization with Gettysburg National Military Park, and is listed on the Register of National Historic Places.

Collections
Gettysburg National Military Park is the home of the George Rosensteel Collection, one of the largest collections of Civil War relics in the United States. Bequeathed to the National Park Service by the Rosensteel family, the collection is the center piece of the museum in the park Museum and Visitor Center, and features a vast collection of weapons, uniforms, soldier items, and relics of the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of these items are one of a kind and through the cooperation of other agencies, museums, and individuals, additional Civil War relics are on display side by side with items from the Rosensteel collection.

Environment:
Gettysburg National Military Park is the site of the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery and the commemoration of the great battle of Civil War veterans. Significant sites on the battlefield began to be preserved almost immediately after the 1863 battle, and the park came under federal ownership in 1895. Administered by the National Park Service (NPS) since 1933, the park now incorporates a significant portion of land across which the battle, its aftermath and the commemoration occurred. The park attracts 1.8 million visitors each year and is open year-round. It offers visitors hiking trails, scenic car tours on over 40 miles of roads, and beautiful vistas overlooking the battlefield and nearby town. There are also over 1,400 monuments and 400 cannons, which dot the landscape.

The park is situated in the Piedmont Province east of Appalachian Mountains in south central Pennsylvania, encompasses over 5,989 acres of land. The park is fifteen miles east of South Mountain, which rises to 2,000 feet above sea level. Within the park are gently rolling hills and valleys with elevations averaging between 500 to 580 feet above sea level. The landscape is a mosaic of mature and maturing woodlands and woodlots, agricultural fields, pasturelands and intermittent streams which provide habitat for 187 bird, 34 mammal, 17 reptile and 15 amphibian species documented to date. Floral inventories have recorded 553 species of vascular plants, of which 410 are native.

Since 1863, natural succession and human development has changed the natural appearance of the landscape and historic battlefields. While some vegetation features (thickets, woodlots and woodlands) were removed by man over the years, others were overgrown by nature, becoming dense and containing many non-native species. In addition, some historic fields, pastures, and other open areas are covered by non-historic vegetation. In 1999, the Gettysburg National Military Park General Management Plan /Environmental Impact Statement (GMP/EIS) was approved, outlining goals for rehabilitating the1863 cultural and natural features that impacted the battle. The plan includes such projects as the replanting of historic woodlots, orchards, and also the removal of non-historic vegetation. Work is also underway to re-establish original fencelines, lanes and trails, recreate historic view sheds, as well as maintain the integrity of the historic farmsteads. The management plan included an Environmental Impact Statement, which considers courses of action that would have the least amount of impact on species in the park.

The park has more wooded land than in 1863, and the National Park Service has an ongoing program to restore portions of the battlefield to their historical non-wooded conditions, as well as to replant historic orchards and woodlots that are now missing. In addition, the NPS is restoring native plants to meadows and edges of roads, to encourage habitat as well as provide for historic landscape. There are also considerably more roads and facilities for the benefit of tourists visiting the battlefield park.

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